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GEOGRAPHE COMMUNITY LANDCARE NURSERY
Busselton, Western Australia

Newsletter 5: September 2010

Geographe Community Landcare Nursery
Spring Open Day
Saturday 2nd October
8.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m.

In this issue:

SPRING OPEN DAY
Our new Nursery List for 2011
A children's book: A Tale of Two Honey Possums
Tree decline: Quambalaria species in Marri
Tree decline 2: Myrtle Rust on Agonis
A Volunteer Day - thanking our volunteers
Keeping up with events
Our newsletter email list
Visits to colleagues
Carbon Neutral
ID and seed collecting
Thanks to Ann
You guessed it - return of pots and trays

SPRING OPEN DAY

Our nursery has had an exceptional production year, with good pick-ups of pre-ordered plants. We have also been in the position to fill many late orders and sell to customers visiting the nursery.

Our Open Day has so far been in early May, but we have decided to have an extra Open Day - this year in October.

It's an opportunity to visit the nursery on a Saturday, to see what we're doing, buy plants that we'll have on sale, talk about orders for next year, look at our garden and flowering specimens, ...

We also hope that some visitors to our Open Day may like to come again on other days to help out at the nursery, or to learn 'take-home' skills in propagating local native plant species.

2011 NURSERY LIST

Our new list is now available as a Word or Excel download (links on the front page), and we'll soon have an online edition on the Nursery List page.

There are a few changes to species, but don't forget that we're willing to grow any local species we are able to - for species we haven't attempted before, we just need a bit of time to collect seed. Don't be afraid to ask, "Do you grow this?", or "Can you grow that?", ...

We have some interesting new species in the pipeline all the time, but some have to wait another year or so as we crank up production, and in some cases, carry out growing trials (thanks to those who are carrying out in-ground trials).

A CHILDREN'S BOOK

A Tale of Two Honey Possums is a really wonderful locally-produced children's book about honey possums written by zoologist Felicity Bradshaw and illustrated by Patricia Negus. It should be easily available in local bookshops, but it is also available from the Wildflower Society, and online from a dedicated website. It is of great interest to us as the book lists some of the plant species honey possums use as food. We grow several of these species, including one of our mainline species grown from cuttings, Adenanthos meisneri.

Adenanthos meisneri is basically our 'Albany' Woolly Bush. There doesn't seem to be a day at the nursery when we don't have a customer asking for Woolly Bush (Adenanthos sericeus - which actually, with a few subspecies, grows in several locations on the South coast), but as this is not a local species, we have to say that we don't grow it, but that we grow our own local woolly bush.

Adenanthos meisneri is well-worth a place in a garden, and it would be fantastic to one day be asked to grow it for a restoration project. From our Nursery List page:

Cutting-grown species chosen for ecologically-sound revegetation projects need to be ordered a couple of years ahead of the planting time so that the nursery can prepare a mixed genetic batch - that is, cuttings are not taken from one plant, but from a set of carefully chosen 'mother-plants'.

Anne Cochrane's excellent notes on collecting Adenanthos seed are available online from the DEC website (though a pdf download of over 1 MB). We have never thought of collecting this species, but we're prepared to give it a go! - Adenanthos species are usually grown in nurseries from cuttings, as seed collection is very difficult, and the seed germination is poor. It is one of those trying genera that will germinate in the field after fire, but is reluctant to germinate in a nursery.

Tree decline - Marri (Corymbia calophylla) + Corymbia ficifolia

We had a note about tree decline in our last newsletter. At the recent Kwongan Colloquium in Busselton (brochure, about 500KB pdf download) , we heard about a fungus that is spreading throughout the WA Marri areas, causing tree death in extreme cases. The fungus genus is Quambalaria. There is not very much online information about this as yet, but Murdoch has a brochure which is available as a download (as a PowerPoint publication, about 1 MB), and the Australasian Plant Pathology Association has an online pdf download (about 400KB) from Trudy Paap, Canker disease of Corymbia species, with excellent ID photos.
Program for Australian Tree Health website.

Whilst there does not seem to be much we can do about this canker, the following note from the brochure is of great importance to anyone planting Marri or planting around Marri:

While there have not yet been control or management options developed for this disease, fencing off remnant stands of trees to encourage seedling recruitment and planting understorey species is encouraged.

Our page on the Marri - Corymbia calophylla.

Tree decline 2 - Peppermint Tree (Agonis flexuosa)

Hopefully not alarmist: a webpage about the well-publicised Myrtle Rust in NSW from the Australian Network for Plant Conservation.
The Australian Network for Plant Conservation are in Perth in a few days for their national conference.

Volunteer Day

Our annual thankyou day for our volunteers was held in August. We had a bus trip to see three locations where some of our plants had been planted - a Wonnerup coastal planting, the Tuart forest at Ludlow, and a property on the Sabina River - followed by an enjoyable sit-down lunch, together with presentations of thankyou certificates. Special thanks was given to several volunteers including long-time volunteer and amateur botanist extraordinaire, Dennis Cooper, and our treasurer, Tom Moylan.

Keeping up with events

There seems to have been a great many events lately for the nursery. Apart from the usual rush with plant orders being collected, particularly mid-year to August, we have had 'trade displays' selling plants at Great Gardens events in Dalyellup, Busselton and Dunsborough, and at the Busselton Wildflower Exhibition.
The front page of our website quite often has items of interest about forthcoming events - like the recent Kwongan Colloquium. For Geographe catchment residents, it is also useful to keep an eye on the GeoCatch front page as planting days, volunteer oportunities, walks and events are often posted.

Newsletter email list

If you are reading this as a result of receiving an email, it's because you subscribed to our list, or we have put you on our list.

Of course, you can also ask to be taken OFF the list or use the unsubscribe function on the email page.

We have been editing our newsletter list, checking for doubles, etc. To help us maintain our list:

Please get back to us if you are receiving more than one email, and
Please let us know when/if you change your email address.

Visits to colleagues

Richard has visited Rockingham MOTT (Men of the Trees) a couple of times recently. We have to thank them, and especially Nursery Manager Brenda Kent, for sharing info and techniques, and to Brian Poplar who has shown us his nursery management computer database.

As mentioned in the last newsletter, our nursery is just one of a number of nurseries in Australia focusing on growing local flora. Rockingham MOTT and Geographe's nursery lists are not identical (although we do share quite a few common species), with both nurseries growing the local species of the Swan Coastal Plain. Geographe, because of its location, also grows a few species that occur off the coastal strip.

On his last visit, Richard was able to chat to Cedric Bakewell who manages the Rockingham MOTT's seedbank. (We're very envious of Cedric's kingdom, a dedicated temperature-controlled room made from a converted container!)

Closer to home, Richard has visited The Tube Nursery (Cowaramup) which grows a selection of local species (plus a selection of Australian and overseas' species for gardens). As most Cape to Cape people know, Jeremy and Jackie Akerman are master propagators and passionate about their craft.

Another recent visit was to the Wanneroo Lullfitz Nursery which has an amazing list of Western Australian (and the wider Australian) flora.

In previous years, we have had visits to our sister nursery in Bunbury, Leschenault Community Nursery, and Apace Community Revegetation Nursery in North Fremantle.

Carbon Neutral

We don't know much about this organisation, but Richard was intrigued to read an interesting article that mentioned understorey plantings in a MOTT newsletter. Some of our customers may be interested in Carbon Neutral , as support is provided for revegetators (with some qualification).

ID and seed collecting

It would be great to have more volunteers at the nursery with fine-tuned ID (plant identification) skills, a pre-requisite for seed collectors.

If you are interested in learning plant ID and/or seed collecting skills, please talk to Ann at the nursery, contact her by email, or by phone - 0429 644 885.

Note: An article (Ecological Restoration in Busselton) about our nursery and the skills required by seed collectors was published in the 2010 Winter edition of GeoCatch's Network News. A slightly longer unedited version is available here as a Word doc. download (about 40KB) with a different title, Each Little Flower That Opens. [Richard Clark]

Thanks to Ann

Our Nursery Coordinator Ann Bentley has now been at the helm for over one year, and has done a tremendous job managing the production side of the nursery and organising our volunteer workforce.

New initiatives include us becoming a Waterwise Garden Centre, and taking the first steps to be an accredited nursery with the Nursery Industry Accreditation Scheme Australia (NIASA).

Ann's about to take a short holiday, and she has our best wishes for a well-earned break.

Whilst Ann is away, our Nursery Worker Keith Dobbe will be in charge for most nursery days.

You guessed it ...

Thanks to all who have been returning pots and trays for recycling. If you still have pots and trays to return, we'd like them asap please. We don't usually pick up pots and trays, but if you need help, please phone Richard - 0427 385 551.

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