Growing a network
The Southern Tablelands Tree Start Growers Network, for those that love growing plants but have nowhere to plant them.
Capacity building - LEP23-014_LLC12_6
The issue
Growing plants is a fundamental activity for many Landcare members. Growing plants is a low cost, can be undertaken at home, can fit in with whatever your lifestyle and is an enjoyable and rewarding activity. Nothing is ever perfect however and often growers are limited by planting space for their seedlings. Conversely, local revegetation projects are often lacking the desired species diversity and local provenance can be hard to secure. Our challenge was how to bring these two activities together to support our members and local projects.
The solution
To meet this need we explored various options and found a number of other states have established volunteer grower networks. Using these frameworks and with support from the NSW Environmental Trust we established a pilot project called the Southern Tablelands Tree Start Growers Network. The project provides training and the materials for members to grow 200 plants at home. Growers propagate and care for the plants for 7 months and then return the seedlings for distribution to local revegetation projects. We ran a number of propagation workshops where growers could meet other network members and learn how best to manage their plants.
The impact
The network proved so popular that we have partnered with Upper Shoalhaven Landcare and now support 80 growers across the Southern Tablelands. In our first year the growers network grew 7,000 plants that were used in a range of revegetation projects, from small landholder plantings to large projects within National Parks. We have just completed our second growing season and numbers have grown to over 11,000 plants. The project has helped members learn about native species and develop skills for growing them and has also provided growers with a community of like-minded people that are passionate about growing plants.