Over the last four years Yass Landcare and more recently Gunning Landcare had been rolling out mesh tree guards to protect the planting of paddock trees from livestock.  The Yass Paddock tree project has seen 1600 Paddock tree packages delivered and installed by participating landholders.  The Trees – Eucalyptus were all locally grown in a regional Landcare nursery and are on our list of plants which we expect to thrive in a changing climate.  

Landholders participating in this project have increased the number of Paddock tree packages which could be delivered through Landholder contributions.  Below are some photos of protected paddock trees, several years after planting.  Some of the photos demonstrate the importance of adding new trees- Eucalyptus into the landscape as the photos show large distances between existing paddock trees.   

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Proposed addition to the Paddock Tree model

In the past Yass Area Network was part of a larger revegetation project lead by Damon Oliver, NSW Department of Planning and Environment, to provide new habitat and food sources for Superb Parrots which migrate through this region.  In that project the concept of fencing off mature paddock trees in a circle several metres from the tree was introduced.  This approach enabled the planting of a range of understory plants around the mature paddock tree.  This enabled several beneficial things:

-       such as bringing in the insect eating birds which are often the ones that help decrease amounts of dieback by small birds leaf gleaning pests like lerps etc;

-       the introduction of new shrubs also provides extra habitat and food resources for our wildlife.  The absence of shrubs in our landscapes is now less than 5-10% of our Box Gum Grassy Woodlands thus setting up new shrub islands is critical. 

-       as well as being a wildlife habitat and food source, this type of tree protection and planting reduces soil compaction from stock, increase soil biota, improve symbiotic interactions between roots etc, and overall boost the trees' health significantly. 

Building a tree circle is easy and the 4 images in sequence show you how simple the process is – by using “maxloc” or "stiff stay” netting fencing which doesn’t concertina and with a heavier gauge wire top and bottom there is no need for single wires. The netting can simply be attached top, middle and low down onto each iron post with tie wire. Note the iron posts leaning out a little and the netting is loosely strained with strainers.

Thus ideas from one region can be readily adopted and made to work in other regions – you just need to be open to new ideas and use local regional plants. So in the future our regional Landcare groups will add this mode of planting to our revegetation tool case to create new biodiverse hot spots to assist wildlife migration through the landscape – are you open to that idea?

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We would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who joined us for our Landcare community planting day! Together, we planted hundreds of native plants and trees, helping to revegetate local grazing country and create future habitat linkages. 

We were blown away by the incredible enthusiasm from our community members, who turned out on a sunny winters day. It was heartwarming to see families, friends, and individuals of all ages working together towards a common goal.

We would also like to express our gratitude to our dedicated nursery volunteers who grew these plants. Hopefully there is satisfaction in seeing them in the ground. 

Thank you again to everyone who participated in this wonderful event!

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This Community Planting Day is a part of the Bowning Bookham Landcare Groups  Habitat Hops: From Burrinjuck to Bango Project. For more information or to get involved please click here.

A wonderful diverse group of members and friends came together at the Bowning hall to celebrate what the Bowning Bookham Landcare group had achieved this year at our annual winters dinner. 

After a warming winters meal from the Bookham Berriemangra Red Cross the group settled in to listen to the inspirational story of John Ives, Ultrafine merino breeder. John talked the group through how he and his wife Robyn took on a heavily saline affected property, “Talaheni”, and how they reduced the impact of the salinity, lowered the water table and turned it into a productive farming property over the last few decades. John’s dedication to monitoring the progress of the changes they’d implemented and his willingness to observe, adapt and change his thinking over time was motivating to many in the group. 

Everyone had a great evening meeting new people and enjoying a meal together. 

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This event was supported by south East Local Land Service though funding from the Australian Governments National Landcare Program.

YAN and Murrumbateman Landcare has been very lucky over the last few years to have won grants from the Landcare Australia Michael King grant to fund nursery activities.  

The 2022-23 grant is funding our acquisition of native seed for 40 plants on our Climate Ready nursery list.   For each of the 40 plants that we grow - we attempt to source seed from 3 to 6 different bio-regions across the eastern states, this requires a lot of negotiation with seed suppliers.  We also test each batch of purchased seed to ensure its viability before distributing to our nursery team for Spring-Summer sowing.

In our Landcare nurseries each Spring-Summer we sow seed - we then weed, thin and oversee the growth of paddock plants which are usually ready for planting the next Autumn. 

Thank you Michael King for your ongoing support of our Landcare nurseries.

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