Prickly plants for wildlife and community: McKenzie’s Hill Action & Landcare Group

Posted on 3 December, 2020 by Asha

Our ‘Prickly plants for wildlife and community’ project was coordinated by Connecting Country during 2020, in partnership with four local Landcare groups from across the Mount Alexander region of central Victoria. The project was made possible by generous support from the Albert and Barbara Tucker Foundation.

McKenzie’s Hill Action and Landcare Group is one of groups that collaborated with Connecting Country on this project. We supported groups with specialist botanical advice, developing local planting lists and planting hundreds of local-to-the-area (indigenous) understorey plants.

These understorey plants will help provide valuable food, nesting sites, and shelter for local woodland birds (photo: Connecting Country)

McKenzie’s Hill Action and Landcare Group planted 200 tubestock plants at two of the sites they regularly work on: Adelaide Gully and 70 foot Hill Reserve, near Castlemaine VIC. As a group, they have been working at these sites for many years to remove weeds and replace them with indigenous plants.

The sites have an established eucalypt canopy, so the group has been primarily focusing on planting shrubs and smaller understorey plants to increase diversity within the sites. Plants such as Hedge Wattle (Acacia paradoxa), Sweet Bursaria (Bursaria spinosa), Rosemary Grevillea (Grevillea rosmarinifolia), Bushy Needlewood (Hakea decurrens) and Tree Violet (Melicytus dentatus) are great dense species which provide protection and nesting sites for small birds and insects. Common Fringe-myrtle (Calytrix tetragona), Matted Bush-pea (Pultenaea pedunculata), Flax lilies (Dianella spp.) and Rice flowers (Pimelea spp.) provide a diversity of both flowering and lifeforms, valuable for a variety of different animals.

The groups have also installed nest boxes and provide resources for woodland birds and other animals through their planting. They have spent hundreds of hours on these sites over many years. The plants added this year required around 30 hours of volunteering to do site preparation, planting, installing guards, and watering. Luckily, they managed to get most of the work done before COVID-19 restrictions began.

Since COVID-19 emerged, members have not been getting together to share a meal at their meetings, but the executive still meets online via Zoom when necessary. COVID-19 has limited the community engagement side of their work, by restricting numbers at their working bees to keep people safe, and participants bringing their own tools and morning tea.

The group have managed to continue to do their volunteer work despite the challenges. President of the McKenzie’s Hill Action and Landcare Group, Jan Hall, said, ‘Our work helps keep the reserves healthy and supports the bird life in the area, an area which is fast becoming urbanised. As there aren’t public green spaces being provided as part of the developments, these reserves give people a chance to get out and walk in the bush and be closer to nature.’

McKenzie’s Hill Action and Landcare Group encourage interested community members to get in touch with them about care of the local reserves and future activities. To find their contact details – click here