Barung Lancare nursery manager, Wayne Webb starts the move of thousands of young trees to the Maleny Precinct site
Barung Landcare has moved lock, plant stock and barrel (pot) to the Maleny Community Precinct! The move has involved the careful transportation of more than 50,000 seedlings and trees to their new home. President Heather Spring reports on the move, and what’s next in store for the Range’s popular Landcare group.
We have moved our complete wholesale nursery up there now. It’s almost as big as it was in Bicentenary Lane and allows us to continue producing tube stock while we are progressing through the Material Change of Use process. Once this is completed we can start building our permanent home on the dedicated Barung site.
Our volunteers have been amazing in helping us move and settle in and we now have a new seedling tunnel and shadehouse, tubes and potting mix, and a small demountable office for our volunteers and staff.
The water tanks provided with a grant from the State Government under the Lifestyle Waterwise scheme complete the picture.
Thanks also to the Sunshine Coast Regional Council in supporting us in the move. The site infrastructure is about the same production capacity as we have had in the past, but not as large as we plan to have when we have full access to our new site.
One of the first steps will be to move a house on-site that’s been donated to Barung. This is a great financial saving to us. The house will serve as part of the ‘farm gate’ outlet where we will sell plants and accommodate the nursery staff and volunteers. The new shadehouse will be around 65-70m long by 21m wide.
Until the new facilities are up and running residents and businesses can visit our shop at the Riverside Centre to order plants from our list and ask for advice and information about Landcare and other environmental issues.
Barung Landcare manager, Darryl Ebenezer helps to fill the new shade house on the Maleny Precinct site
The celebration of our twentieth year of service to the community of the Range and the changes and expansion that we are going through gives us many opportunities. We can reflect on the past and our successes, but to also look to the continuing relevance of Landcare to the community of the Hinterland and beyond. We need to ask how will we continue to contribute to maintaining the environmental values of the Hinterland? What changes will we need to make as a not-for-profit community group in an increasingly competitive environment? What services will we need to provide into the future so that our relevance to members is maintained?
It is an exciting time for us all and we look forward to sharing with you our native plants and our enthusiasm for the environment of the Sunshine Coast.
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