Article by Jim Seager, photos: Debra Filippis & Jim Seager

On Sunday 7th May, an enthusiastic group of landcarers braved the cool showery weather to visit some of the past revegetation projects in the Barrabool Hills. We met at Geoff Anson’s property for the start of the tour. This would also be the lunch stop and end point of the tour. We headed to Ross & Lyn George’s property in nearby Georges Road. Here we walked through the extensive biodiversity and farm forestry plantings 15-18 years old. Ross explained how they had chosen to plant trees instead of running livestock, resulting in a significant change to the environment on the site. Increased wildlife habitat, lower windspeed, reduced threats from invasive weeds and giving them the freedom to work and travel off farm. In recent years there has been a significant amount of natural regenerating through the property. Ross showed us a new area of local heathland plants they are establishing adjacent to the greenstone quarry, which will hopefully thrive in this harsh environment.

Next door at Peter George and Catherine Murphy’s we looked at some well-established indigenous plantings, demonstrating the need to include understory plants for shelter in windy areas. In 2022 following recent changes to property management and some fencing subdivision, Peter and Catherine began some new biodiversity plantings along rocky areas. These aiming to provide wildlife habitat, slow wind speeds and improved weed control against Serrated Tussock. In 2024 they plan to extend the boundary fence along the Barwon River, protecting a large area of remnant vegetation.

Leaving Georges Road, we travelled to Campbell and Sally Roydhouse’s property to revisit a biodiversity site the landcare group had helped plant about 6 years earlier. The Roydhouses have also established some plantings of proteas for flower production on the well-drained sandy hill sides.

The bus took us back to Geoff Anson’s for lunch and a walk through some of his native plantings, amongst these we saw some newly established Kangaroo grass and Bidgee Widgee.

Next it was off to ‘The Maze’ in Walters Road, owned by Wayne Moodie. We looked at the Spotted and Sugar gum plantings and listened to Wayne passionately talk about these and many other attractions to see on the property, from the restaurant, extensive gardens and a run through the Cypress maze.

We travelled east to Ceres and down Cochranes Road to Robert & Rita Costas property. Since purchasing the property, they have established significant native plantations along their boundaries for livestock shelter, wildlife & bee friendly habitat and aesthetic value. Some of the improvements include a well-structured fencing plan, securing a good water supply for livestock and domestic use, establishing productive perennial pastures and using composting fertilizers to improve soil fertility and nutrient recycling.

The Bus took us westwards along Barrabool Road to Peter McCann’s farm. This property features a well revegetated creek running through the middle of the farm, established in 2017-18, linking earlier projects upstream on the neighbouring properties of Sally & Anthony Jones and Jim Riordan. The creek flows towards the Barwon River linking more revegetation at Jennifer Hallowes.

After a short trip back to where we started the tour, we had time for a cup of tea, some slice and a chance for some wine tasting at Barwon Ridge Wines.