Tree planting on the plain

GUMS, grasses, and wattles will be the focus of National Tree Day activities at Yaramlok Plain this Sunday.

Napoleons-Enfield Landcare members, including Jenny Ryle, will lead the planting day in Scotchmans Lead, at the south end of Sykes Road.

“This is a large, flat flood plain area about two hectares, inside the curve of the Yarrowee River,” she said.

“We’re planting 800 trees, quite a lot, and we’ve been preparing by putting stakes and guards down there, ready for everyone to come and put their plants in.

“We’ve got a range of indigenous plants; snow gums and mana gums, acacias like prickly Moses and blackwood, and grasses like the wallaby grasses, but there are patches of native grasses already there, which is great.

“We planted there initially during 2019 and 2020, so we’ve got some quite big trees coming up, but it did take a hammering from floods last October. Some baby plants got washed away, so we’re replanting.”

National Tree Day is always Napoleons-Enfield Landcare’s largest annual planting day, as it falls at the right time of the year to get the trees in the ground.

“They’re at the right size and the ground is damp enough to take them,” Ms Ryle said. “There’s always a slight risk of frost, but it’s best to get them in and growing so they’ll survive the summer.

“We can’t water them down there, it’s just too big a job. Once they’re in, they’re on their own, so we need to get good roots down before the really hot season comes in.”

Napoleons-Enfield Landcare started in 1997, and the group has been focusing on the river at Scotchmans Lead for 10 years, putting more than 22,000 plants in the ground.

“We’ve been successful in bringing back wildlife; the plants, animals and birds. It’s also a snake habitat, and we encourage that, because that’s what it’s all about,” Ms Ryle said.

The planting day will run from 10am to 1pm. Register at bit.ly/44E8Mc0. There will be parking signs on Sykes Road.

Napoleons-Enfield Landcare Group are also leading a separate schools’ National Tree Day event with Napoleons Primary School and Ballarat Clarendon College on the carpark meadow by Franklin Bridge.