By Gabriella Payne
Plenty of green thumbed locals pulled on their gardening gloves over the weekend to take part in a special planting bee at the Wilson Botanic Park in Berwick.
Hoping to see more native plant species thrive in the park in the near future, members of the Friends of Wilson Botanic Park Berwick were eager to get involved in a real ’grass-roots’ project, Care for the rare – and it was great to see this come to fruition on Saturday morning.
The Care for the rare project, organised and presented by the Botanic Gardens Australia and New Zealand (BGANZ) and Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, is a fantastic initiative that aims to protect and nurture rare and threatened plant species throughout the state.
On the morning of Saturday 20 November, many people came along to support the great initiative and get their hands dirty as they got busy planting some native flora.
David Richardson, City Presentation Manager, said that it was great to see representatives from Casey Council, Friends of Wilson Botanic Park Berwick, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and Botanic Gardens Australia and New Zealand Inc in attendance on Saturday and overall it had been a very successful day.
“This was the first working bee that we have held for many months due to Covid-19 lockdowns and it was great to see so many of our regulars return to the park to support us for such an important project,” Mr Richardson said.
“On Saturday, we planted approximately 300 plants on the Victorian rare or threatened plant species list,” he said.
The plants that were selected for the planting bee were chosen because they are either near to where the species naturally occur, or the growing conditions in the wild are similar to those within the botanic garden.
The aim of the project is to establish a multi-site conservation collection of Victorian Rare or Threatened plant species (VROTs) and the project is as much about building capacity for regional botanic gardens in Victoria as it is a conservation program.
Judging from Saturday morning’s turn out in Berwick, it’s one that the local community is eager to get behind and will passionately support into the future.
