This planting helped rebuild a resilient vegetation community along the creek line of Warners Bay North Creek. The vegetation structure along the banks of a creek line are critical to the health of that waterway and others downstream. We've donated 1,500 plants for this project!
A healthy creek line improves the quality of the water flowing through it, into the lake and eventually out to sea. The project followed up on over a year of site preparation, removing weeds that were inhibiting the growth of native plants and degrading the structure of the creek banks. As these plants establish, they will replace vegetation structure that has been missing from the site for many years, and will gradually become a self-sufficient ecosystem.
Planting dates: 960 plants: planted late July– Aug 2020 Partnering with Warners Bay Landcare Group, Greater Bank volunteers assisted with the planting of the remaining 540 plants on Tuesday 4 August 2020.
Strong, intact vegetation provides habitat to support wildlife that is dependent on the creek line for food, water and shelter or as a corridor to move safely from reserve to reserve.
The trees, shrubs and ground cover give protection to smaller birds, reptiles and mammals, as well as opportunity for nests or other breeding sites.
This also provides food, either from the leaves, seeds and fruits of plants or the fungus, for insects and other species that live in that environment. The roots of the plants hold the creek banks in place and the vegetation captures and filters runoff.
As the new vegetation shade out the banks, they will out-compete weed species and eventually begin replacing themselves naturally.
All these positive changes help offset the impact to the creek lines caused by urban runoff and development.
The site is a public thoroughfare, with many local residents choosing to walk via the creek on their way down to the lake.
The site is also a wildlife corridor and through the regeneration of the site, it's hoped that more bird species and wildlife, including bandicoots, will populate the area.