Community nursery propagates 500 seedlings through The Seedling Bank
By Sarah Chaplin 15 October 2021
The Seedling Bank helped safeguard the supply of native seedlings for Weddin Community Native Nursery to propagate for use by the local community.
The Seedling Bank was established in 2019 by Planet Ark’s National Tree Day team with the goal of supplying native seedlings to schools and community groups around the country. With over 26 million seedlings planted since 1996, The Seedling Bank's aim is to provide financial support to communities to access seedlings.
In Grenfell, about 370 Kilometers west of Sydney, Weddin Community Nursery is the first nursery to receive funding from The Seedling Bank. The team have been busy propagating native seedlings for use by the local communnity. To date, seedlings have primarily been used for three projects – drought recovery in and around the Grenfell community, Caragabal War Memorial planting and National Tree Day at St Joseph’s School.
Staff and volunteers at the Weddin Community Native Nursery collected seeds and used these to propagate several native species for planting in the region. These species included:
Eucalyptus – albens; blakeyli; bridgesiana; melliodora; microcarpa; polyanthemos and populnea.
Acacia- cardiophylla; deanei; decora; doratoxylon; hakeoides; implexa; lineata; oswaldi and verniciflua
Rosewood – Alecton oleifolius
Kurrajong – Brachychiton populnea
Bulloak – Allocasuarina luehmannii
Sticky Hopbush – Dodonaea viscosa
The drought recovery projects in the local community were undertaken by Weddin Landcare after the community suffered significant tree losses in 2017-2020. Up to 800 trees were lost across seven sites and funding from the Landcare NSW Natural Disaster Seed Funding and The Seedling Bank assisted in the recovery process for these projects. The participating landholders have now planted out their trees and understorey shrubs, which will help to re-establish and replant Landcare tree corridors that aimed to address biodiversity decline and stabilise creek banks.
In Caragabal, a rural village within the Weddin Shire, the locals are revamping the town’s memorial garden and have now begun planting out the garden with suitable native plants that will thrive in this dry area.
On Schools Tree Day this year, each student at St Joseph’s School in Grenfell were given a tree and a representative from Weddin Landcare gave the students a talk on the importance of trees in their community. The teacher at St Joseph’s said “the students were thrilled with their trees, which further enhanced their interest in National Tree Day.”
The Covid-19 pandemic and unexpected wet weather caused some delays to the restoration projects in the Weddin Shire region, however the team at Weddin Community Native Nursery will continue providing native seedlings for community environmental projects.
Sarah joined the Planet Ark team in early 2019 to work in the Information Centre and on the National Tree Day Seedling Bank special project. She is passionate about environmental science and has an academic background in biology and conservation science. Since graduating, she has worked with small not-for-profit environmental organisations and is delighted to be able to put her range of skills and experience to use at Planet Ark.
