Community plants 2000 new plants at Royal Park

Community plants 2000 new plants at Royal Park
Katie Johnson

Thousands of native plants have been planted at Royal Park in a community effort to bring native vegetation and wildlife back into the space.

With the help of a $12,000 grant from the federal government, The Royal Park Protection Group (RPPG) planted 2000 new plants into Brens remnant and invited locals to come and participate.

RPPG secretary Anne Phefley said the planting project brought back the native bush feel in the park which had been lost over time.

“This special space amazingly still holds remnant vegetation, but we’re going to be planting native plants that are part of the palate of the park that they believe would have been there before,” Ms Phefley said.

As part of the federal government’s Communities Environment Program 2019, the Royal Park Protection Group was given the grant to plant native plants such as kangaroo grass, gold dust wattle, and hedge wattle.

The 2000 new plants have been sourced from all over Victoria from areas including Diggers Rest, Thomastown and Galada Tamboore.

Ms Phefley said that the new plantings would entice small birds and other native wildlife to dwell in the main section of the park.

“There’s a fabulous population of blue wrens in the wetlands but they won’t come into the main part because they’re often scared off by cats and other animals when they don’t have enough protection,” Ms Phefley said.

“We want to plant native prickly plants which provide good protection for birds and recreate the native habitat which would have been there before it was destroyed.”

Due to development projects and destruction by park owners over the past few decades, Ms Phefley said the protection group’s goal was to educate the public about the significance of Royal Park.

“Some of the plants have survived, but not everybody looks at bush land and recognises the significance,” Ms Phefley said.

“Just recently a whole lot of trees were taken out and someone put a bike jump and ripped up all the dirt.”

Ms Phefley encouraged the community to come and participate in upcoming plantings as it was an initiative that generations to come would be able to appreciate.

“There’s so much joy in being able to contribute to the park and then come back and look at what you’ve done,” Ms Phefley said.

“You can think ‘we did that!’ which is so satisfying.”  •

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