The Community Environment Program grant funded the acquisition of a hot house at the Bango Bowning-Bookham site, and it has proved to be an important resource to enable the Bango nursery team to sow and grow plants over the 2020 Autumn-Winter period.
From April to November 2020 the Bango team have sown 4,320 tubes of native plants in the hothouse. To date 100 plants have been delivered to the BushFire recovery project near Bemboka which is funded by a Michael King grant from Landcare Australia. A large number of the sowings in the Bango hot house have included Koala preferred Eucalyptus which will be sold to persons who either have an interest in providing habitat for Koalas and-or live near the Mundoonen Range where Koala sighting/sound detection is being progressed through Gunning District Landcare's Mates of Mundoonen project.
A sample of the Eucalyptus sown in the Bango hot house over Autumn-Winter 2020 includes:
- Camaldulensis - river red gum
- Viminalis - ribbon gum
- Albens - white box
- Eurabbie
- Mellidora - yellow box
- Microcarpa - grey box
- Cinerea - argyle apple
- Polyanthemos - red box
- Maidenii - maiden's gum
- Nortonii - large flowered bundy
- Ovata - swamp gum
- Pauciflora - snow gum
- Goniocalyx - bundy gum
- Dealbata - tumbledown gum
- Blakelyi - blakely's red gum
- Mannifera - brittle gum
During that same time the Yass Landcare nursery experienced either poor germination and growth or very slow growth over that period - thus a hot house is now high on the agenda for Yass Landcare Community Nursery to enable all year round sowing and growing of either local or project specific plants.
