celebrating 6 years of hard work

It was great to join the John’s Hill Landcare Group to celebrate the finalisation of six years of planting along a tract of land straddling the Shire of Yarra Ranges and the Cardinia Shire.

Me pictured with John's Hill Landcare group president, Karen Alexander. Behind us is the very first planting of the Landcare group 6 years ago and it is thriving.

The success of the planting is overwhelming, from years of planting and weed work along the unmade section of Ridge Road, Kallista and Ridge Road East, Emerald there is a now a mini forest thriving and full of wildlife.

It was terrific to see the group take the time out to recognise and celebrate their achievements and acknowledge the efforts of all of their volunteers.

landcare plants up emerald

Today I dropped in on the John’s Hill Landcare group who were celebrating 7 years of work in the local region. The festivities including planting up behind the scout hall in Emerald, ably assisted by the first Selby Scouts, a walk Hogans Park to see the wildflowers and a talk by John Hick from Trust for Nature about the Trust and about their work on addressing climate change by capturing carbon in new plantings.

The John’s Hill Landcare group are a well oiled machine, after digging holes, a spoon of water crystals go in, then the plant goes in with a weed mat fitted over the top. Here I am on water crystal duties. This planting included grasses, understorey plants and a few canopy trees too.

landcare gets planning

A stormy day welcomed members of the Johns Hill Landcare group to their planning day today. So rather than a walk through Pepi's land for inspiration, members gathered round the open fire at the Emerald Scout hall to talk about the future. I was pleased to be invited along and find out about some of their successes.

Before and after photos showed some great results for our natural environment, with many areas weeded and revegetated. The in depth study of the Puffing Billy corridor was a great piece of work and it will be extremely valuable to help inform where resources should be best put to improve the corridor.

Me and the Johns Hill Landcare Group, celebrating some of their successes and working on a plan for the future.

The purpose of the day was for the group to plan the where to from here for the next 3 years. The John's Hill Landcare group focuses mainly on Menzies Creek catchment and extends right through to Gembrook. Their vision is “working with the community to reconnect the bush between the Dandenong Ranges National Park and the Bunyip State Forest” with their main focus dealing with better protection and restoration of remnant bushland, and “connecting” and “creating” areas of bushland on both private and public land.

It was great to come along and I look forward to seeing more of their successes in the future.