On 1 November nursery volunteers from Bowning-Bookham Landcare sowed some Billy Button seed (Craspedia sp.) collected from the Yass Valley region. Thirteen days on they are germinating under the guidance of the Bango nursery team. We look forward to planting these wildflowers out in our members paddocks where they will be food for local pollinators.  

At the regular last-Tuesday-of-the-month Yass Landcare Community nursery open morning, volunteers sowed over 50 trays of natives which included Yellow Box and Bulbine lily.  In October over 1500 pots of natives were sown and all trays are now adopting a new labeling system which will enable the nursery team to evaluate the effectiveness of sowing events.

Yass is one of four YAN nurseries who will be participating in the YAN Climate Ready project in the coming months and all nurseries are working together to strengthen procedures associated with sowing and growing native plants across our region.

The next sowing event at the Yass Landcare Community nursery will be on 16 November as part of the YAN Sowing for Sutton Reserve and AGM.  If you would like to assist Yass and fellow Landcare members sow native seed for the Sutton Reserve project we hope to see you there.

On Saturday 12th October, YAN Coordinator Sonya Duus helped out in the Saving Our Species tent at the Harden Kite Festival. It was a great day, and there was plenty of wind for flying kites. Children were invited to colour in their chosen threatened species - which included the Superb Parrot, Glossy Black Cockatoo, Southern Pygmy Perch, a glider, and Powerful Owl. The beautiful coloured-in pictures were then turned into kites using simple biodegradable materials. All the while, kids and parents got to learn more about these species at risk in NSW. 

Sonya joined with other Landcare representatives from Boorowa and Mid Lachlan Landcare Groups, as well as Damon from DPIE, Giselle from Southern Tablelands Arts in the kite tent. 

Photo courtesy of Saving Our Superb Parrot Facebook Page

Members of the YAN and Goulburn-FROGS nursery managers group were provided with an overview of the YAN Climate Ready project at the Yass Landcare Community nursery on 24 September.  This project is close to providing each of the four YAN nursery managers with seed for either a Eucalyptus, Acacia, understory shrub or perennial herb from the local region plus additional "admixture" seed which has been sourced from Greening Australia from hotter drier bio-regions which we expect our region to reflect in 2030 to 2070, due to a changing climate.

After some discussion each YAN nursery manager agreed to sow and manage 600 pots of local and 600 pots of 'admixture' for the same plant.  This equates to two tables in each of the YAN Landcare nurseries. Each nursery will manage the seedlings until they are ready to be distributed to regional Landcare members to plant at pre-agreed trial sites, after good rains in Autumn-Winter 2020. 

On behalf of the YAN Climate Ready team which includes Gill Hall and Sue McIntyre from Murrumbateman Landcare, Elizabeth Goodfellow from Bowning-Bookham Landcare and Kath McGuirk who is representing Yass Landcare Nursery and YAN - each nursery in the Yass Area Network is progressing the sowing and management of a specific plant which is detailed below:

The Yass Landcare Community nursery will be sowing Eucalyptus melliodora - Yellow Box;

The Bango Bowing-Bookham Landcare nursery will be sowing Aacia deanei subspecies paucijuga - Green Wattle;

The Wattle Valley Bowning-Bookham Landcare nursery will be sowing Dodonaea viscoa augustissima - Slender Hop Bush;

and the Murrumbateman Landcare nursery will be sowing and managing Chrysocephalum semi-papposum - Clustered Everlasting Daisy.

Each of the YAN Landcare nurseries will need more volunteers to assist them sow and grow these plants on behalf of the YAN Climate Ready project so I hope that when future sowing dates are advertised for any of the four YAN Landcare nurseries that you consider assisting - especially with the sometimes labour intensive task of filling trays of clean pots with native potting mix and accurately labeling each tray. Refer to Eventbrite events within the YAN newsletter for date and location details. 

The YAN Climate Ready team will be providing more background on this project at the 2019 YAN AGM which is scheduled for Saturday 16 November.

This small group of YAN - Goulburn FROGS nursery managers also visited the Yarralumla Nursery on 1 October to confirm how the professionals store and label their native seed supplies. This group also plan to have a native seed collecting day at the Goulburn FROGS site sometime in December which will be advertised in the YAN newsletter.

Clustered Everlasting Daisies (Chrysocephalum semi-papposum)