A Growing Concern

COMMITTEE

Gretta Fuller President

Carol Atkinson Secretary

Duncan Baxter Treasurer

Ian Morrish Minute Secretary

General Committee

Bernie Heinze

Stephen Kinniburgh

Ian Morrish

Carol Wind

Nursery Propagation Team

Jamin Walker & Claire Pertile

Admin Clerk Carolyn Cusworth

Editor Gwen Whitney

Sunday retail Daniel Benincasa

Candlebark Hours

Monday to Thursday 9.00am to 3.30pm

Sunday 10.00am to 2.00.pm

Nursery Contacts

Phone 9727 0594

Fax 9727 0594

Email: info@candlebark.org.au

Website: www.candlebark.org.au

C a nd l e ba r k C om m uni t y N ur s e ry

December 2016

A Growing Concern

Candlebark Community Nursery

CONTENTS

Propagation Managers Report 1

Bird Attracting Plants- 2

Festival Month 3

Volunteers 4

Mulching 5

Christmas Ideas 5

PROPAGATION MANAGERS’ REPORT

Well, the weather has been unusually wet for the last three months and this has

resulted in a huge growth of plants that we have not seen for a while. Rather than

seeing the occasional Chocolate Lily in various bushland areas, we are seeing

beautiful drifts of purple flowers. Blue Pincushions (Brunonia australis) are flowering

in masses in local Maroondah reserves.

Seed collecting this year looks to be a bumper year and it will be ‘all hands on deck’

to make sure that we take advantage of the opportunity. We are really keen to have as

many people as possible coming out to assist with this task as it is a way to learn

about our indigenous plants as well as enjoy being outside in the bush. If you have a

few hours available, do let us know by email or give us a call.

The corollary to collecting seed is that it will need to be cleaned, recorded and stored,

so keep your eyes open for our “Seed Cleaning” evenings which will begin in

January.

Activities in the nursery

over the past three months

include having the sails

put back over the retail

area which certainly

protects our plant stock

and provides a much nicer

environment for customers

browsing for plants for

their gardens.

S tage one of the

Coranderrk planting in

Healesville is going ahead

for next year and it is a

great to be working with Friends of Helmeted Honey Eater, Wandin family,

Wurundjeri Tribe, Yarra for Life and Port Phillip Catchment Authority to bring this

project to life.

We are also busy getting

ready for the construction of

our new “Seed Growing

Polyhouse”. Our volunteers

have taken down the old

structure, levelled and

prepared the ground for

Monbulk Rural who will do

the actual building of the

structure. Following that

event, it will be the task of

setting the new polyhouse up

with tables and sprinklers. A

big job!

Claire Pertile / Jamin Walker

A Growing Concern Page 2

Attracting Birds Into Your Garden

Hearing and seeing birds in our gardens is definitely

one of life’s pleasures, and with a little planning, can

be something we all enjoy. At the recent Maroondah

Festival, we chatted with volunteers from BirdLife

Australia and thought it would be useful to provide

you, our members, with some information that could

be used to encourage more birds into your gardens

using indigenous plants.

When attracting birds to your garden is important to

consider planting for shelter and nesting as well as

planting for food. Below are some suggestions.

Plants for shelter and nesting. Plants that have dense or prickly foliage in small or

larger shrubs, provide shelter for birds but restrict

access of larger bird or animal predators.

Trees and larger shrubs that can be used include:

Acacia dealbata (Silver wattle), Allocasurina Littoralis (Black sheoak), Banksia spinulosa, Bursaria

spinosa, Hakea decurrens or Hakea nodosa.

Understory plants that can provide shelter include:

C o r r e a s ,

G r e v i l l e a s ,

s c r a m b l i n g

creepers such as

H a r d e n b e r g i a

v i o l a c e a

(sometimes called

Happy Wanderer),

Tussock grasses

such as Poa

labillardieri or Poa

ensiformis, Mat rushes for example Lomandra

longifolia or Lomandra filiformis and other grasses

such as Themeda triandra.

Plants for food. It is worth knowing

when selecting

your plants that

native birds are

attracted to red and

yellow flowers.

Candlebark has many varieties of plants that have

flowers in those colours.

Different types of Birds like different food, and so

you need to provide for insect eating, seed eating and

nectar eating birds.

Insect eating birds like plants such as Acacia

decurrens (Black wattle), Acacia implexa (Lightwood

wattle), Banksia

marginata and

s p i n u l o s a ,

Leptospermum

species (Teatree).

They are all great

plants that will

attract insects in

the bark and on

leaves that will in

turn attract birds

such as the Blue wren and Yellow robin. Also lots of

leaf litter will attract insects and hence the birds.

Nectar eating birds will be attracted to Banksias,

Correa reflexa (Native fuchsia), Grevillea alpina and

Callistemon sieberi (River bottlebrush) and many

other indigenous plants.

Seed eating birds will love any of the tussock and

mat rush grasses

such as Poa

seiberiana and

L o m a n d r a

longifolia, as well

as the berries on

the Dianellas and

s e e d f r o m

R y t i d o s p e r m a

pall idum (Red

anther Wallaby grass). Shrubs such as the Acacia

myrtifolia and

leprosa , and

Goodia lotifolia

(Golden t ip)

provide abundant

seeds to attract

birds to your

garden.

For more information click onto

http://www.birdsinbackyards.net

Or

http://birdlife.org.au

Page 3 A Growing Concern

NOVEMBER WAS FESTIVAL MONTH FOR CANDLEBARK

Candlebark has enjoyed being at the two local community festivals and hope that the building of links

to other likeminded groups and organisations builds a positive force for ensuring the environment in

our community is protected.

MAROONDAH FESTIVAL

Candlebark took the opportunity to

participate in the wonderful Maroondah

Festival held on Sunday November 6th.

The weather was very kind and the whole

day had a real community and family feel.

We were able to talk with many local

people about the value of indigenous plants

in their gardens and also met with other

like-minded environmental groups who

had displays which is always a great

experience.

Maroondah Council Festival team did a

wonderful job, even setting up our tent

area for us prior to our arrival.

CHELODINA FESTIVAL

This is our third year attending the

Chelodina Festival at Elizabeth

Bridge Reserve in Durham Rd,

Kilsyth. We always enjoy taking

part and sharing our knowledge

and ideas with the local

community. This year we took

along trays of Chocolate Lilies

(Arthropodium stricta) to give

away as well as a range of

flowering plants to sell. It was

definitely a positive experience to

be part of the festival, and our new

shade structure had its first real

outing; it performed beautifully,

keeping us warm and dry.

Of course going to festivals does not happen without lots of planning and effort from our Committee

and volunteers. A big thankyou to all who assisted with organising plants, collecting and delivering

tents and other paraphernalia and coming along to “man and woman” the stall.

Our first festival for next year is likely to be the Mooroolbark Festival in March, which is having a

“Green” theme. I think we should fit that one nicely. We look forward to seeing you there.

Page 4 A Growing Concern

VOLUNTEER OF THE MONTH Hi, I'm Trevor, and I've been a volunteer at Candlebark since

December 2008. On day one I was given a task of cleaning

some seed and within 30 minutes of struggling with my clumsy

fingers, I was pulled off that job and thrust into Tim’s car to go

bush walking to collect seeds, and I have primarily been

involved in seeds ever since. Sure I do other jobs around the

nursery, but my main aim is to collect, clean and collate and

manage the seed bank.

Shortly after the move from Croydon Golf Club to the present

location, Daniel and Tim decided that the existing method of

storing the seeds in card board cartons was unsatisfactory. So it

was decided to sort them out and store them in mouse proof

plastic bins with a lid. In sorting them out, the new bins had

labels made up to let you know what was in each one.

As an extension to this, I suggested that we should create a database on the computer and enter each container of

seed and all its details. This enabled us to see at a glance what we had in stock. It also gave us the ability to

produce accurate reports that we have to provide to gain our seed collecting permit.

Information held on the database contains:

Family, Species, Reserve Name, Council Area, Date Collected, Weight, No of Parents, Date Sown/Destroyed.

The database was created in February 2009 and the initial load had approx. 1,300 entries and was stored in 12

plastic bins. At the time of writing we have keyed in 6,769 entries, of which 2,773 containers of seed have been

either planted or destroyed (usually due to age). That then equates out to 3,996 containers remain in the seed

bank, which has grown from 12 plastic bins to 123 bins. These figures do include the collection period for this

financial year.

TEABAG MADNESS

It takes all types to make up the world and one of

our volunteers, Jean, has embarked on a very

‘different’ project that we are hoping our

members and friends could assist with.

Jean has decided to take on the challenge of

knitting a scarf using the strings from teabags!!!

In the past 6 weeks all teabag strings have been

kept and Jean, carefully ties the ends together to

form a long length. She is hoping the texture of

all the little knots and the colour from the tea, will

make for an interesting look in her scarf. So far

her ball of twine is about tennis ball size, so more

strings are needed. If you are a tea drinker and

would like to bring your ‘strings’ into the nursery,

Jean would love the extra assistance.

Page 5 A Growing Concern

MULCH, MULCH, MULCH! We have been very fortunate to have been given large

donations of mulch from Matt Kerr, of “Toolern Tree

Services”. When spread, the mulch not only to give our

plants and shrubs actually planted in the nursery a better

chance to survive hot summer days with cooler roots

under a layer of mulch but also to help to reduce the

growth of weeds in the nursery as well. Our inventive

volunteers have acquired carpet, which they have put on

the worst areas of weed followed up with a deep covering

of mulch. The weeds do not stand a chance!

Matt is happy to provide mulch to local gardens at a very

reasonable cost as well as offering tree services.

CHRISTMAS IDEAS

Are you looking for a few ideas for Christmas gifts that just keep on giving? We

have plenty of beautiful pots or shrubs, groundcover, flowering grasses and lilies.

Or you may like to consider a SIGNED copy of ‘Flora of Melbourne’ – our bible

for all things plants in the Melbourne area, and there’s more. What about a

membership or gift voucher to those ‘not so easy’ to buy for people?

To all our Members, Customers, Volunteers and friends, we wish

you a safe and happy holiday break.

Candlebark Community Nursery will be closing Thursday

afternoon December 22nd and reopening on Tuesday, January 3rd

2017.

New Members

The Committee of Management would like to extend a warm welcome to all new

members since the last newsletter.

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AUSTRALIA

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Monday to Thursday 9.00am to 3.30pm

Sunday 10.00am to 2.00pm

Closed on Public Holidays

NURSERY LOCATION

5 Taylor Rd

Mooroolbark

Melway reference: 37 J12

CORRESPONDENCE TO

The Secretary

Candlebark Community Nursery Inc.

PO Box 6064

CROYDON NORTH, VIC. 3136

DISCLAIMER

The articles contained in this publication are not necessarily endorsed by Candlebark Community Nursery Inc., its staff, mem-

bers or volunteers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this organisation. The purpose of this publication is to share

information with those interested in the conservation of our local flora and fauna and related environmental issues.

Candlebark Community Nursery Inc

PO Box 6064

CROYDON NORTH. VIC 3136

Telephone: 03 9727 0594

Email: info@candlebark.org.au