The Wonthaggi Seed Bank started with a few local farmers planting shelter belts. Today it's helping to revegetate hundreds of hectares of public land.
 An aerial shot of Tank Hill after the hill had been quarried for sand. By Terri Allen
IN SOUTH Wonthaggi, the tallest sand ridge on Reed Crescent proved its worth in the town's infancy by providing good clean spring water and thus became known as Tank Hill. Before the Lance Creek Reservoir, these springs filled a watercart which toured the streets supplying householders. A windmill on top of Tank Hill pumped water from a spring on the south side of the hill to a tank from which ran a pipe down Matthew Street. There was a tap at each intersection – it would take a long time to fill a billy on hot days.  Walking Wonthaggi’s Wetlands by Terri Gitsham Allen, Friends of Wonthaggi Heathland and Coastal Reserve Inc, 2014, $10 [proceeds from the sale of this book will go back into the environment].
By Terri Allen
IF YOU fancy local plants in your garden, vegetation suited to your soil and climate, look around, inquire, and see if you can add some of these plants to your garden.  Photo: Michal Rubeš By Terri Allen
WINTER is enlivened by the appearance on damp sandy soils of sundews (droseras), which in spring put forth minute white or pink blooms, becoming dormant in late summer. These small carnivorous perennials usually grow in nitrogen-deficient soil, so need to lure insects to supplement their diet.  We’re lucky to have five local banksia species, lighting up the bush with their candle-like blooms and providing food for birds, insects and mammals.
Wattle seed icecream, anyone? Bracken ointment? A cumbungi bag? Terri Allen lists some locally indigenous plants useful for food, fibre and medicine.
 By Terri Allen
A RECENT botanical foray took a group of us to the Barb Martin Bushbank at the Koala Park on Phillip Island. Established in 1998 by local conservation groups to revegetate the island with indigenous plants, the nursery propagates more than 60,000 tube stock from seed or cuttings annually.  By Terri Allen
Shimmering water under an azure sky, a patchwork of colours threading through greenery, birdsong, frog calls, butterflies flitting, insect hum – a tropical paradise? No, a wetland on Wonthaggi’s outskirts.  By Terri Allen
Sweet Pittosporum, Pittosporum undulatum, that beautifully perfumed tree when in flower, is the bane of my life, thanks to the ubiquitous blackbird.  By Terri Allen
Visit a fire-ravaged stretch of sandy bush and you will be met with an army of grass-trees, spears raised and unfurling colour. Xanthorrhoea (xanthos = yellow, rhoea = flowing, as in resin) has 28 species, all endemic to Australia, with three of the four Victorian species found in Gippsland. |