CROSS-BORDER COMMUNITY NURSERY PROJECT

Growing our Future: The Cross-border Community Nursery & Seed Collections Project

is all about working with and supporting our local native plant growers, direct seeding contractors, seed collectors and anyone else with an interest in revegetation across South East South Australia and Victoria’s South West, to improve the diversity of plants available to local revegetation projects. It will do this by filling knowledge gaps, sharing information, being practical, not reinventing the wheel and, most importantly, working together.

This project is funded by the Australian Government.

Project Objective: Develop a reliable source of native seed and seedlings (otherwise not available) for large scale biodiverse plantings and create a community hub for developing revegetation skills and techniques.

Project aims and outcomes:

1)   Regional “Community Seed Bank”: Collect seed focussing on hard to collect (otherwise uneconomical) species from across the cross-border region.

2)   Regional “Community Nursery”: Work with hard-to-propagate or uneconomical species required for regional revegetation projects, gather knowledge and trial techniques to share with growers.

The nursery will specialise in growing species that are currently unavailable or not viable for commercial growers, or are required for specialised projects, such as rare or threatened species and wetland plants.

The City of Mount Gambier has generously made a location at Vansittart Park available for establishing our main nursery site.

3)   Regional “Community Education”: The key to the project’s success is partnerships and high levels of community and industry involvement, and engaging and supporting people with an interest in revegetation across the cross-border region. This includes:

Developing a growers network, and providing learning opportunities for current and potential growers;

Establishing a “Friends of the Community Nursery” volunteer group and offer meaningful volunteering opportunities for regional residents;

Running hands-on workshops, including seed collection, propagation techniques and revegetation; and;

Working with local schools and councils in partnering Local Government area to establish local species “display gardens”, and include information of how and where the wider community can source plants.

Please refer to the information sheet for further information and how you can get involved and help shape the project, or contact the Community Nursery Project in Mount Gambier on 08 8797 8596.

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