There’s something special about a nursery morning in spring. Recently, volunteers of all ages gathered at the Bowning Bookham Landcare nursery to get their hands in the soil and kick off the next chapter of local revegetation. The day was all about sowing the seeds that will grow into thousands of young plants destined for our landscape next year.
This session followed on from our earlier gumboot morning tea, where pots and frames were cleaned and filled ready for action. With everything prepared, volunteers set to work filling trays with soil and sowing seed after seed. More than 40 species went in, ranging from tall eucalypts to tiny ground-covering favourites like Hardenbergia. The majority of these species were Climate Ready sown with seed from a mix of provenances designed to increase the genetic diversity in the plants we are growing for the district.
Seed pretreatments were already taken care of, including pre-soaking the Acacias to give them the best chance of germinating well.
As always, the work was paired with good conversation and even better food. Volunteers shared cake and a cuppa, with clear favourites emerging in the form of the chocolate and the banana & wattle seed cakes.
By the end of the day, an impressive 4,300 tubes had been sown. Over the coming weeks these seeds will begin to sprout, and later in summer volunteers will return for a full day of thinning and transplanting that will transform these trays into many thousands of healthy young plants.
A large number of the seedlings grown this season will support our Habitat Hops project, which is working to create vegetation links between Burrinjuck and Bango reserves. If you’d like to learn more about Habitat Hops or are looking for plant supply for your own projects this coming autumn, we’d love to hear from you.
Written by Sarah McGrath, Local Coordinator YAN
