Lorax Project 2013

Recently we have been busy with our Lorax Project along the Yea River and it's tributaries.

NAB volunteers at Murrindindi

JBWere volunteers at Break O Day Reserve

In late September a large team from NAB planted almost 700 plants at the Lawson property in Murrindindi and another team from JBWere helped plant and mulch over 225 plants at the Break 'O' Day Rd Reserve in Glenburn and then after a BBQ lunch we put in another 50+ at the nearby Alf Miller Park.

JBWere volunteers after a days planting at Alf Miller Park

On 24th October a group of TAFE students studying Conservation and Land Management planted 250 trees and shrubs on a section of the Katy's Creek at 'Graceburn' the farm of Sally and Tom Abbott-Smith who also provided a delicious BBQ lunch.

TAFE students at the Abbott-Smith farm in Glenburn

Our final Lorax Project planting for the year was on 29th October on the Yea River at Devlin's Bridge. Again the TAFE students returned to plant many trees and shrubs. After the planting it was back to Graceburn where Tom gave the enthusiastic students a tour of his free range chook and cattle farm.

TAFE students at Devlin's Bridge Glenburn

The Lorax Project has now come to the end of another very successful year.

This year over 500 volunteers from NAB, ANZ and JBWere and students from Yea High School, Flowerdale and Kinglake Primary Schools and many more planted over 10,000 plants on farms and properties from Strath Creek and Kinglake across the Upper Goulburn region to Marysville and Buxton.

If you are interested in volunteering with our Lorax Project in 2014 or a landowner thinking about revegetating a section of your property contact UGLN Landcare Coordinator Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Marysville Tree Planting

Our Lorax Project has been busy in the Marysville area lately.
Recently with the help of students from Kilberry Valley Primary School we planted many trees and tall shrubs at Camp Marysville to provide shade and shelter.

Students from Kilberry Valley Primary School

We also created a bush tucker garden using shrubs and smaller native herbs and lilies.
The plants are indigenous food plants that were used by aboriginal people in the area such as Mountain Pepper, Native Raspberry, Dianella sp. and Prickly Current Bush.

Students from Kilberry Valley Primary School

We also had a very enthusiastic team from NAB spend a day planting trees and shrubs along the Taggerty River.

Volunteers from NAB at the Taggerty River

The plantings will help create an important corridor through farmland for wildlife moving along the river between the east and west sections of the Marysville State Forest.
It will also provide protection from wind and sun for stock on the neighbouring cattle farm.

Thank you to Fifteen Trees and there supporters for providing the funding for some of the plants.

Lorax Project starts back for 2013

On the 3oth May, Corporate volunteers from JBWere and National Australia Bank descended on the property of Rick and Claire Clark, Wildlfe carers and members of the King Parrot Creek Environment Group. Other members of the group; David, Laurie, Steve and Heather also assisted on the day.

JBWere and NAB volunteers 

We planted 480 native trees, shrubs and ground covers into a narrow gully to provide good cover for local fauna using the gully as a link to the remnant vegetation along the top of the ridge.

Revegetated gully at the Clark property

On 31st May we had a return by one of our ANZ teams for the 4th consecutive year. This year the dedicated bunch helped plant 350 trees and shrubs on a hillside at Paul and Denise Webster's property in Murrindindi. The Webster's treated us all to a great lunch of roast beef rolls and salad which everyone appreciated.

ANZ volunteers at Murrindindi

And just over the hills at Limestone on 26th May another NAB team put in a great effort to plant out a fenced off gully at the property of Judy Brookes with 320 indigenous plants. These plants will help to halt the erosion in the gully and also eventually provide a wildlife corridor linking the remnant vegetation on the Brookes farm with the Black Ranges in the east and the Yea River in the west.


Planting site at the Brookes property

NAB volunteers at Limestone

Lorax Project 2012

The Upper Goulburn Landcare Networks revegetation 'Lorax Project' has finished for another year after a very successful year of tree planting throughout the fire affected areas of Murrindindi Shire.

JBWere volunteers at Buxton

This year 452 volunteers from NAB, ANZ, JBWere, Camberwell Secondary College, Strath Creek Landcare Group, Kevin Heinz Garden Centre, Conservation Volunteers Australia, Kinglake Landcare Group and the Salvation Army helped plant a total of 12110 indigenous plants.

ANZ volunteers at Kinglake

We also had great support again from Fifteen Trees who were able to provide much needed funds to purchase many plants for our project.

NAB volunteers planting trees funded by 15Trees

The Kevin Heinz Garden Centre with funding assistance from Rotary again grew many thousands of plants for us and even came up for a day to plant some at the Kinglake Lions Park.


Kevin Heinz Garden Centre volunteers at Kinglake Lions Park

We developed a great project with the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority which allowed us to fence and revegetate many kilometres of riparian areas along the King Parrot Creek and Spring Creek in Flowerdale.

NAB volunteers planting along the Spring Ck at Flowerdale

We revegetated 32 hectares of farmland and waterways on properties at Strath Creek, Flowerdale, Kinglake, Glenburn, Buxton and Murrindindi.


ANZ volunteers at Glenburn

The Lorax Project will continue in 2013 and thousands of seedlings are being grown as we speak in preparation for next years planting season.

NAB volunteers at Buxton

We will also be helping the Strath Creek Landcare Group with the tree planting component of their biodiversity project.

Volunteers at Strath Creek

Anyone interested in volunteering with our project in 2013 or landowners interested in getting tree planting carried out on their properties contact Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Tree planting time.

Now is the perfect time to plant a tree and with the help of many volunteers we have been doing just that.

NAB & JB Were join forces

JB Were volunteers planting on the Spring Creek

Camberwell High School students in Flowerdale

So far this season as part of our fire recovery revegetation project we have planted 3760 plants with the help of volunteers from JB Were, NAB, CVA and Camberwell High School students.

Our aim is for about 10,000 plants by the end of the season. If you have a fire affected property that needs some revegetation or you are interested in volunteering on one of our days phone Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Lorax Project 2012

Our revegetation project (Lorax Project) has kicked off for 2012.
We recently have had volunteers from NAB, Aspect Personnel, Camberwell Secondary College and Conservation Volunteers Australia planting trees and shrubs along the Spring Creek, Stony Creek, at South Cathedral Farm in Buxton and the Kinglake Lions Park.

South Cathedral Farm - Buxton

NAB at Kinglake Lions Park

CVA at Stony Creek

Buxton Burger Lunch

For enquiries about tree planting on your fire affected property or to volunteer phone Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Lorax project 2011 winds up for another year

The UGLN's Lorax Project has finally finished for 2011.
The high demand for trees on fire affected properties and the good soaking spring and early summer rains allowed us to continue our revegetation program a bit longer than usuall.
This year we revegetated over 31 hectares by planting 9580 plants with assistance from 562 volunteers. We also potted up over 2000 plants for next years reveg program.

The volunteers came from many different community and corporate groups including stalwarts NAB and ANZ, Stiefel Laboratories, Conservation Volunteers Australia, Kinglake

Scouts, DSE, Dept of Planning and Rural Communities, Kevin Hienz Garden Centre, Christ Church Grammar School, Marcellin College and JB Were.
Our program will kick off again in Autumn 2012.
For enquiries about tree planting on your fire affected property or to volunteer phone Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Lorax Project In Full Swing

Our fire recovery revegetation program 'Lorax Project' is motoring along at the moment and the volunteers are enjoying getting outdoors amongst the fine spring weather.

Over the last two months with the help of many volunteers from NAB and CVA as well as local volunteers from the Kinglake Scouts and Strath Creek Landcare Group we have planted almost 3000 plants throughout properties in Flowerdale, Kinglake, Glenburn and Kilmore East.

We have also had great support from the following organistations and business' by supplying plants or funding for our plants: Fifteen Trees, Kevin Heinz School of Horticulture, Apprenticeships Plus, NAB and Rotary.

NAB dig in to help the helper

A team of volunteers from NAB put in a great days work planting trees for Blaze Aid founders Kevin and Rhonda Butler.

Kev and Rhonda have been coordinating the fire and flood recovery program 'Blaze Aid' over the last couple of years and it is about time the favour was returned.

The group helped to revegetate the steep hills of their sheep farming property in Kilmore East.

Thank you to Rhonda and Tom (Kev's righthand man) for putting on a great morning tea and bbq lunch.

Thank you also for the supervising assistance on the day from Shane Monk the GBCMA weeds officer.

Fencers Without Boundaries - Still bounding along



Terry Hubbard thanking our volunteers

We recently said goodbye and thank you to two of our stalwart fencing teams SA Rotary and the 4WD drivers at a bbq in Strath Creek (pictured left). Between the two teams they have rebuilt 62km of fencing as part of UGLN's Fencers Without Boundaries (FWB) fire recovery fencing program.

This is by no means the end of FWB.
UGLN is committed to the program until the end of 2011. With the continued assistance of the Uniting Church, our loyal volunteers from Shepparton and Melbourne and corporate groups such as NAB and Earnst & Young, all ably lead by our fencing team leader Alan Stafford.
We will continue to assist landowners rebuild their fences.

Alan Stafford and UGLN Coordinator Chris Cobern

Volunteers from  E&Y.

Out of the ashes - Plant your Paper Back heads into fire affected areas

The NAB 2011 Plant your Paper Back program has officially launched, with many employees signing up to plant trees, shrubs and grasses all over Australia.

Recently, NAB employees have been rolling up their sleeves in the Black Saturday fire affected area of Flowerdale and joining Chris Cobern from the Upper Goulburn Landcare Network to spend a day planting trees on land set aside for conservation.

The tree planting at Flowerdale is part of the "Lorax Project" which is a revegetation/tree planting project focusing on fire affected landowners in the Murrindindi and Mitchell Shires. The property they worked on is a 450 acre cattle farm owned by Diego and Georgia Puyol. With the assistance from Landcare of volunteers like NAB employees, Deigo and Georgia Puyol hope to plant up to 2,000 plants in areas of their property that they have fenced off and set aside for conservation.

Funded by the federal governments ‘Caring For Our Country program’, Landcare’s fire recovery project has been a great success with 30,000 plants planted in 2010 - 16,600 of them planted by corporate volunteers, like the teams you see pictured.

NAB volunteers at Narbethong

The first large group of NAB volunteers for 2011 arrived Narbethong on 10/3/2011.

Forty volunteers from Head Office arrived at Saladin Lodge by coach & car .

Originally a day of fencing was planned but heavy overnight rain made vehicle assess to the fencing site impossible . Kim had plenty of other jobs to be done so after a delicious morning tea Plan B was put into action . The Uniting Church men converted a large heap of logs in firewood which one NAB team split and stacked in the shed . The fire restrictions have been lifted so Leon the gardener supervised another group clearing fallen dead timber . The bonfire they built was impressive . The third group worked with Janet on maintaining the revegetation work done last year. Kim supplied an amazing a BBQ lunch for the 50 workers in her new accommodation centre . After lunch Alan and his team took the volunteers next door to remove an old burnt fence line .

The next large NAB team will do the fence building we promised Kim.