Putting ideas into action: you beauty!
Posted on 12 March, 2015 by Connecting Country
Jon Marshall: “I had these ideas in my head and Connecting Country came along and I thought, ‘you beauty!’”
Jon Marshall has only ever had one job that matters to him – and that is being the manager of a large grazing property in the spectacular rolling granitic hills near Metcalfe. He has been there for 22 years and he told Krista from Connecting Country during a recent visit that “you’ve got to respect the land. There are benefits down the track – it’s good for stock and it’s good for the environment”.
After the Redesdale fires passed through part of the property on Black Saturday, Jon was involved in the local recovery program. Through this process he and Connecting Country were put in contact with each other in 2011. Here was an opportunity for Jon to put some of the ideas he had for improving the property into action.
By early the following year, Jon and the owners formally agreed for the property to become part of Connecting Country’s yellow box woodland program. The five year site project has a number of aspects; Jon controls weeds and pest animals, he established vegetation corridors in two locations, and he installed stock-proof fencing around eighteen hectares of land that was burned in the fires, allowing this area to naturally regenerate with the indigenous flora that was already starting to sprout.
Three years on, and the natural regeneration occurring across the eighteen hectares looks amazing. Everlasting daisies, lomandra, cassinia and native grasses cover the ground while young she-oaks, silver wattle and red gum saplings are above head height. In the revegetation corridor, some of the tubestock he planted in the first year failed, but he replanted it all in the second year and it took off. “I got rain at the right time” he explained.
This is just one of the many projects that Connecting Country has supported across the Mount Alexander shire and surrounds over the past six years. Opportunities to get involved still exist in our current programs, and if you’d like to find out more contact the team on 03 5472 1594 or click here.
Connecting Country’s Yellow Box Woodland program was implemented between 2009 and 2013 with the support of the State and Federal government, and in conjunction with the North Central CMA.
Sticky everlasting daisy’s returning after fencing installed
Before fencing installed and grazing removed
What a great story, good luck to Jon and his farm.
Well done.