April 2025
The Bunanyung Landscape Alliance (BLA) in partnership with the Yarrowee Leigh Catchment Group (YLCG) was awarded, a Victorian Government Green Links Program Grant of $701,000 to deliver a project titled: Urban Ripple: Restoring our Yarrowee River and its Little Creeks during 2025 and 2026. The partners are working with five Landcare groups to deliver the planting of 39,500 trees and shrubs on 80.5 hectares of land along 8.6 km of local creeks at 13 sites.
Project Partners
The key partners are the Yarrowee-Leigh Catchment Group, Seeding Victoria, City of Ballarat, Friends of Canadian Corridor, Friends of the Yarrowee, Napoleons Enfield Landcare Group, Wattle Flat Pootilla Landcare Group, and Upper Williamson’s Creek Landcare Group. Additional partners are Friends of Specimen Vale, schools and service organisations, plant and material suppliers, contractors, businesses and interested individuals.
Tree and shrub orders
19500 trees and shrubs have been ordered from local native plant nurseries for planting this year. The Wadawurrung Indigenous Plant Nursery at Bostok is supplying 6500 plants for the four sites along the Canadian Creek.
The Tree project is working with eight local residents to grow 3000 plant for planting in winter this year. The City of Ballarat Indigenous Plant Nursery and Wild Plants in Canadian are growing the remaining 10000 plants.
Behind The scenes: Plant Propagation and pricking out workshop March 19th 2025
The plant propagation and pricking out workshop was held at the City of Ballarat Community indigenous plant nursery of Wednesday March 19th.
“Was a great event, I learned a lot, and appreciate how much effort, time and knowledge goes into preparing for planting out.”
The well attended workshop covered all aspects of native plant propagation from seeding to pricking out to being ready for planting. The workshop included with a session of the importance and how to collect native local seeds for propagation.
Works at Ditchfield Reserve: Site 1 works underway
The Wattle Flat Pootilla Landcare group Urban Ripple site 1 project began with the removal of a large amount of gorse and other weeds before planting can occur.
In February 2025, a day of spraying was done at the top of the gully, which was currently inaccessible due to a large stand of willows blocking machinery access. The willows will be also chemically treated soon. On the 4th of March EME Contracting conducted works in the gully at Ditchfield Reserve Brown Hill. A 14-tonne excavator with a claw was used to physically uproot and remove woody weeds from the gully. Weeds were then piled up and mulched with Bobcat with a rotary mulching attachment. The City of Ballarat assisted by felling three large pine trees prior to the work commencing.
The end result is pleasing and ready for the next stage of planting.
Planting
The first planting of 750 trees, shrubs and grasses is scheduled to take place on Sunday April 13th beginning at 9am for members and 10am for the general public at Ditchfield Reserve Brown Hill. More information: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wfplg/
Site 6 Franklins Bridge fencing
The Napoleons Enfield Landcare Group project involved the installation of a cattle proof fence. The group has over many years has been steadily restoring the land at Franklins Bridge. The fence was to protect to protect plantings from the previous year’s plantings. More info Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/661762587335448/
Site 11 Lavery Avenue Mt Clear
A privately owned block of land located within Woowookarung Regional Park. Contractors have removed a large infestation of pines in preparation for planting later this year. The site straddles a creek known locally as Sailors Gully creek. The plantings will restore a significant section of the riparian zone along the creek. Further plantings will occur upstream and downstream on public land. The end result is a “little creek” that will be healthy for its full length.
More information: https://www.focc.asn.au/urban-ripple/
City of Ballarat sites
12 of the 13 sites are on City of Ballarat land. In the planning of the project Council staff and the Urban Ripple Project Officer and volunteers have inspected all sites and worked through the siting of revegetation plantings to take into account drainage, mowing, neighbours and other factors. The City of Ballarat weed removal crews have assisted site preparation with the spraying of weeds at sites and removing rubbish.
Urban Ripple governance and management
The project is governed by a joint management group with 3 representee’s from the Bunanyung Landscape Alliance and Yarrowee Leigh Catchment group respectively. Funding is received from the Victorian Government as a series of payments over time as agreed milestones are achieved.
The project plan contains the details of the outcomes expected for each site. The project funding is to be spent entirely of delivering those outcomes. Each Landcare group site has the plan, an environmental assessment and delivery funding to achieve the outcome expected.
The project officer is Kate Martin. Contact details: projectofficer@leighcatchmentgroup.org
Workshop beyond planting a tree
The launch of the Bunanyung Native Habitat Restoration Guide was held at 2pm Sunday April 6th 2025 at Ross Creek Hall Sebastopol – Smythesdale Rd, Ross Creek by the Bunanyung Landscape Alliance.
The restoration guide is based upon local ecological best practices and incorporates the latest Floristic Mapping Units developed here in Ballarat, by Tim D’Ombrain and Sci Link and now publicly available via the Corangamite Catchment Authority website. The guides principle underpins the Urban Ripple project in particular the selection and planting of appropriate species.
More information: https://bunanyunglandscapealliance.org/habitat-restoration-guide
Yarrowee Leigh Catchment Group new Planting Trailer funding.
A new trailer designed to provide on-site planting equipment for future plantings including the “Urban Ripple” project was funded by the Community Bank Buninyong “Spark Tank” funding.
The award valued at $10k was for the purchase of a trailer and equipment such as shovels, tree planting trowels and hammers.
This year there are 66 scheduled planting days expected in the Urban Ripple Program alone. Landcare groups are now busily organising their planting dates so as share around the trailer use.
More Information: https://www.facebook.com/LeighCatchmentGroup
Sites and Volunteers contacts
