We’ve been busy little bees during the winter coming up with some exciting new ways to engage with the community about native plants. Keep your eyes peeled for the start of the Yarra Link Project Indigenous Plant Packs and as always throw us any ideas you have for the YLP this way!

Go on, guess…

Provides home to wildlife

– These sites attract and provide native animals with places to live. Native birds, reptiles, spiders, insects and animal species live, breed and forage for food in places with native vegetation.

Stabilises soil

– The roots of native plants can decrease the effects of erosion.

– Leaf litter from trees and plants provides nutrients for soil and brings about new life.

Offers a sense of community

– These places provide areas for people to connect with the native Australian landscape and with each other. The flowers, waterways and wildlife are uniquely beautiful in this part of the world and can be enjoyed by everyone.

We love any opportunity to spread education at the Yarra Link Project especially when we’re able to collaborate with students to help make real their project visions. Rowan Turnham, an honors year Industrial design student at Monash University has been an enthusiastic and insightful individual to work with and has given us here at the YLP the opportunity to see how we may install and use a waste catchment system in the river. This previous Saturday Rowan came and tested out his latest design in hopes to have a full prototype for the Monash MADA Graduate Show in November. Catch a sneak peek here and keep your eye out for more news from Rowan about this amazing project!

Check out the flyer for the grad show here.

Test Launch

Sneak Preview

Checking out the prototype

Last Saturday two members at the Yarra Link Project visited the kind folks at Bee Sustainable for a intro workshop on backyard beekeeping. The Lovely Robert told us everything there is to know about bee keeping as he understands it from the long history of honey merchants within his own family.  We did everything from watch baby bees hatch from their egg to building our own beeswax frame for our first bee box! We felt welcomed by the people at Bee Sustainable and were amazed by the vast knowledge of the staff along with the beautiful array of bee keeping and sustainable gardening products. If you go for no reason at all but to sample the amazing collection of honey then you will feel fully satisfied.

Putting the frame together.

Rachel adding her real beeswax foundation for the honey.

Melting the beeswax to the frame.

Last Saturday the members of the Yarra Link project felt it was time for a field trip  and to get out and see what other native gardens in Victoria have to offer, the feature location for this adventure was the Cranbourne Royal Botanical Gardens located about a 55 minute drive from inner city Melbourne.

First stop on our excursion was for a quick warm up at the welcoming  Boon Wurrung cafe and to take in the beautiful view of the Red Sands garden.  After that we made our way through the entrance into the impressively laid out Diversity Garden that featured small sections of Australian plant-life from nearly every region.  Further along you experience the calm pleasure of moving from stone to stone along the Rockpool Waterway, the high stepping stones keep you dry while you see and hear the water rush all around you as it cascades down to the river bend.

We really enjoyed the Kid’s backyard, especially the red slide and how the use of natural materials allowed  the play area to meld into the surrounding landscape.  For a relatively young garden it  was visually stunning even in winter.  We can’t wait to see it in Spring and in the years to come.  The experience left each of us in awe of such a vast project and inspired to move forward with our own little piece of local Australian plant-life.

Download a map of the garden here Map_of_the_Australian_Garden