Meet the gardeners maintaining Banno’s main road

EVERY Friday down Bannockburn’s High Street, a group of women tend to the garden beds lining the town’s main thoroughfare.

This has been a common sight for locals and visitors since 2016, and comprises the weekly undertaking of the Beautify Bannockburn volunteer group.

Based in the region since the mid-1980s, founding member Beth Kershaw said she saw a need, as the group’s name suggests, to spruce up how the town looked.

“High Street back then just had gum trees and bark chips, litter and nothing else,” she said. “It didn’t look very attractive.

“[Golden Plains] Shire put concrete edges around the gum trees and we thought they’d be putting gardens in but they didn’t so a few of us contacted them and asked if we could.

“They were very supportive; they gave us a $500 grant and mulch, and now we’re official volunteers of the Shire.”

Following the initial project, the group now tends to about 20 garden beds dotted about the main road, beginning at the railway line up to near the Bannockburn Library.

“We’ve planted nandinas, convolvulus, salvias, a lot of succulents, some bottlebrush and grevilleas,” Ms Kershaw said. “It’s a mixture of natives and exotics.”

The group is regularly supported with signage and resources from the municipality, and also partially maintains claret ash trees near the town’s Midland Highway entrance.

Initially starting with about eight people, the group’s numbers have halved in the near decade since.

“The problem is everyone’s getting a bit older and some of us have left so we’re down to about three or four of us” Ms Kershaw said.

“It’s quite a big main street to maintain forever, so we’d really like some more volunteers

“Anyone who’s interested can come say hello on a Friday morning. We’re usually in bright hi vis vests so people can’t miss us.

“It’s very rewarding to see the difference we make. The area looks so different now and I don’t think many remember what it used to look like.”

The group operates down High Street from around 10am to 11am on Fridays.