Breaking News
City set to bloom
Tuesday 22 April, 2008 9:01am
LA Nina is slowly sweeping the effects of her scorching brother from Australia's landscape, and the Penrith Council nursery is tentatively taking the advantage.
Council parks, construction and maintenance manager Raphael Collins said it was gradually building up its depleted stock of plants and beginning to plant more trees in its parks and gardens after a decade of drought.
But the big dry has forced a change in thinking: the practice of planting swaths of thirsty colourful annuals has been restricted to a handful of locations like the council chambers and Memory Park.
The new look is drought-tolerant Australian natives and established trees which don't need as much water, Mr Collins said.
Between 20,000 and 30,000 plants used to be planted each year by parks and gardens staff.
"Then we had these terrible, terrible drought years when we just didn't plant," Mr Collins said.
But the bolstering of nursery plant numbers is still done cautiously: "We don't want to get caught with a bunch of plants we can't plant that would be criminal."
These days the council usually buys tube stock (about 60 cents each) and grows plants to a plantable pot size (worth about $10) before planting them, which "saves us a fortune".
Contractors from groups like Muru Mittigar also collect seeds of indigenous plants and grow them.
Council tree planting is conducted in winter after the summer lawnmowing season. Horticulturalist Kevin Harris who has worked at the nursery for 15 years and at the council for 22 said the current stock included a range of native grasses, about 70 olive trees, magnolias, fig trees, casuarinas, brush boxes for street trees, fatinias and gardenias.
While the council tries to use as many Australian native plants as possible, introduced species like hardy azaleas are also used.
"We have so many constraints on what plants we can put out because Penrith is so dry," Mr Collins said.
The council has recently taken to using peppercorn trees as a theme, which can be seen around Jamison Park and extending along Mulgoa Rd.
Large she-oaks have also been removed from under overhead wires and replaced with more appropriate trees.
"In the 1970s and 80s they planted all these big eucalypts along the footpaths and they've grown into monsters, so now we are trying to replace them all with more appropriate trees."
The nursery and ground crews have also adopted a more restrained approach to water use.
And about four times a year green waste like tree branches cut down in council-owned spaces is taken to the site, chipped and turned into mulch.
By next financial year, recycled water will soon be used at the nursery and filling stations for water tanker trucks will be installed under an agreement with the council and Sydney Water.
"We're pretty excited about that," Mr Collins said.
"It should have happened a long time ago, but the infrastructure is more expensive than people think. We've had to just chip away at it."
The nursery is also home to the council-owned Bennett wagons used for festivals and events.
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