The Bee Line Project: Barkers Creek Landcare & Wildlife Group Pollinator Planting
Posted on 11 November, 2024 by Hadley Cole
In 2023 Connecting Country received funding through the Victorian Landcare Grants for a pollinator corridor project; The Bee Line project. The project has involved working with five Landcare groups in the Mount Alexander region to coordinate the planting of 1600 pollinator attracting plants with the aim of further expanding pollinator corridors throughout the region.
Research demonstrates a serious global decline in pollinators due to habitat loss, a lack of connectivity between isolated pockets of habitat and climate change. By ensuring restoration efforts include pollinator attracting plant species and are connected to existing bushland or restoration sites, we can help to build resilience across ecosystems at the landscape scale. By increasing connected habitat for a diverse range of life forms, we are encouraging pollinator populations to thrive which will have a flow on affect to all flora and fauna across the Mount Alexander region.
Barkers Creek Landcare & Wildlife Group (BCL & WG) took part in the Bee Line Project and added 400 pollinator attracting plants to a site they have been working on for approximately 6 years, ‘The Old Tip site’. The site is adjacent to the Barkers Creek Bushland Reserve which is a 35 hectare bushland reserve that the group plan to restore as a long term project. The planting of the pollinator attracting species close to the bushland site provide extended habitat for pollinators to move across the landscape, increasing pollination services and encouraging healthy and robust flora that will be better equipped to cope with the effects of climate change.
Barkers Creek Landcare & Wildlife Group and Harcourt Valley Landcare Group team up for National Tree Day. Photo by BCL&WG.
BCL& WG group members provided the following report on their participation in The Bee Line project.
The site is an old tip site and is supported by a ‘Partnership Agreement’ with Mt Alexander Shire Council. The main focus of the works on the site has been to create pods of grasses (200 per year) that have been planted across the clay cap of the Old Tip, plus, a few extra trees and shrubs have been added each year.
From April to August 2024 BCL & WG prepared the site and planted out the 400 pollinator attracting plants as well as a further 200 grass species provided by the Mount Alexander Shire Council.
“Our participation in the Pollinator Project will help transform the site to be more in keeping with the Bushland Reserve that it neighbours.”
On National Tree Day, Sunday July 28, BCL & WG teamed up with Harcourt Valley Landcare Group for a planting day. The day was well attended by 21 volunteers which resulted in 250 shrubs and grasses planted across the site.
The preparation work for the plantings took up a great deal of time. The group found that there were a few members who couldn’t make the work bees on the weekends but were available on weekdays so they decided to form a “B team” which involved a small group of volunteers who attended weekday work bees to help prepare the site for planting. This proved a wonderful success with the weekday preparations resulting in the holes being dug for the weekend planting work bees.
What an enormous effort by Barkers Creek Landcare & Wildlife Group. Congratulations and Thank you for your contributions to The Bee Line Project.
This project was funded by the 2023 Victorian Landcare Grants through the North Central Catchment Management Authority.
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