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spring 2025 Wildflower Wanders on now Nursery Gala Day 11 October Exocarpos sightingFrom the Mayor Spring is the perfect time to step outside and enjoy Bayside’s natural beauty, and to kick it off we’ve got some fantastic ways to get involved. We have joined neighbouring councils to celebrate Biodiversity Month with the Biodiversity Blitz 2025 Melbourne. It’s simple and fun. Just head outdoors, snap photos of local plants and animals, and upload them to iNaturalist or the iNaturalist app until 30 September. Every photo contributes to community science and puts Bayside on the project’s leaderboard. Our much-loved Wildflower Wanders events have returned for Spring 2025, offering guided tours through Bayside’s heathlands as they burst into bloom. Led by passionate volunteers, these walks are a wonderful chance to see rare wildflowers up close, learn about our unique bushland and share the joy of discovery with others. This year there’s something extra special: a guided walk through the newly established wildflower meadow at Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve. It’sabeautiful opportunity to connect with nature, hear stories of culture and heritage, and better understand the transformation of this unique natural reserve that is under development. Together, these activities invite us to pause, look closer and celebrate the rich biodiversity that makes Bayside such a remarkable place in which to live. Whether you’re taking part in the iNaturalist challenge, joining a Wildflower Wander, or experiencing the Yalukit Willam walk, you’ll be contributing to protecting and appreciating our natural environment. Thank you to everyone who continues to support our local conservation efforts from visiting the Bayside Community Nursery to getting hands-on at community plantingevents. Our last Gala Day will be held on Saturday 11 October. Come along and enjoy a free sausage sizzle and speak with our knowledgeable volunteers and staff. The nursery will close for sales on Thursday 30 October and reopen in April 2026. Every action you take to protect and enhance our natural assets, big or small, helps keep Bayside’s environment thriving for future generations. I look forward to seeing you out andabout this spring. Councillor Hanna El Mouallem Mayor Bayside City Council proudly acknowledges the Bunurong People of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land, and we pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging. Cover photo: Wax-lip orchid (Glossodia major) by Pauline ReynoldsIn this issue Special features 5 WALK ON THE WILDFLOWER SIDE 8 MYSTERIES OF THE EXOCARPOS 10 IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL 18 TULIP STREET POND UPDATE Other articles WEEDS OF BAYSIDE 4 WHAT TO DO IF YOU SEE A SEAL ON OUR BEACHES 4 A DIFFERENT KIND OF GARDENING 6 BIRD SWOOPING SEASON 9 COMMUNITY UNITES TO RESTORE BLACK ROCK FORESHOE ON NATIONAL TREE DAY 14 HELP BAYSIDE’S CLIFFS RECOVER 15 GARDENING WITH NATIVE AUSTRALIAN PLANTS 16 HISTORY IN PICS: SANDRINGHAM 20 BUZZING ABOUT BEES 22 HAILEYBURY ELC CREATES A ‘LIZARD LOUNGE’ 23 AUSTRALIA’S RAT UPRISING 24 VOLUNTEER GROUPS 26 Would you like Banksia Bulletin delivered directly to your email inbox? Subscribe through BaysideCityCouncil’s website under ‘News & Media’ or request a subscription by emailing banksia@bayside.vic.gov.au.English ivy (Hedera helix) Weeds of Bayside By Aaron Hurrell, Citywide Bushland Crew English ivy (Hedera helix) Hedera helix, commonly known as English ivy, is a vigorous evergreen vine that can climb 20–30 metres when given support, or spread along the ground as dense cover. It is also referred to as common ivy, European ivy, King’s choice ivy, bindwood, lovestone, or simply, ivy. Widely grown as an ornamental plant, English ivy is often used to cover walls and fences, providing natural insulation by cooling buildings in summer and retaining warmth in winter as well as protection from harsh weather. Its late summer to autumn flowers, small and green- yellow, attract nectar-feeding insects while its berries (orange-yellow to purple-black, 6–8 mm in diameter) are a valuable food source for birds. The plant’s leaves grow alternately along the stem and vary in form: five-lobed juvenile leaves, and unlobed adult leaves often found in sunny, exposed positions. Leaves are typically 50–100 mm long. Native to Europe and western Asia, English ivy ranges from Ireland and Scandinavia south to Portugal, and east to Iran and northern Türkiye. It is widespread in Britain, though absent from the Channel Islands. While popular in gardens, English ivy is classified as an invasive weed across southern Australia, particularly in the south-east. Its aggressive climbing habit can damage brickwork, gutters, and trees, and it readily smothers native plants. Management usually involves manual removal or chemical control. Juvenile subantarctic fur seal. Photo by John Eichler What to do if you see a seal on our beaches Every so often, a seal may take a rest on Bayside’s beaches. While they look adorable, remember they are wild animals and protected by law. For their safety and yours, please keep your distance and follow these guidelines from DEECA: • Do not approach within 30 metres of a seal on land, whether you are on land or in the water. • Keep dogs at least 50 metres from a seal on land. • Do not approach within 5 metres of a seal on a boat ramp, pier, jetty or other infrastructure connected to land. • Do not approach on a vessel within 30 metres of a seal haul-out site. • If swimming, do not approach within 5 metres of a haul-out site. • Dogs must not enter the water within 150 metres of a dolphin, 300 metres of a whale or 50 metres of a seal. • It is illegal to touch or feed a seal. If you spot a seal on a local beach, call Council on 9599 4444. If you believe a seal needs help, contact the Marine Response Unit on 1300 245 678 or DEECA on 136 186. Banksia Bulletin | Spring 20254Walk on the wildflower side Spring wildflower walks in Bayside's reserves After months of chilly days, spring has finally arrived, and with it comes a chance to celebrate nature in full bloom. Bayside’s Wildflower Wanders are the perfect way to shake off winter and enjoy the burst of colour across our heathland and bushlands. Part of Bayside’s annual Spring Opening program, these guided walks showcase the beauty of local heathlands and reserves,where wildflowers carpet the ground and native wildlife makes the mostof thewarmer weather. From delicate orchids to resilient coastal plants, you’ll get up close toindigenousspecies that come alive inspring. Our friendly volunteers will guide you through Bayside’s most biodiverse sites, sharing their knowledge and love for theenvironment along the way. Running from 17 August to 12 October, tours depart every 15 minutes during session times (depending on guide availability) and last around 30minutes. There’s no need to book — simply turn up, bring a hat and water bottle, pop on some sturdy shoes, and join thefun. Please note these walks take place on narrow, unsealed tracks, so accessibility is limited and appropriate footwear isessential. Come and see Bayside in bloom this spring – it’s nature at its most spectacular! When and where to wander Bay Road Heathland Sanctuary 246 Bay Road, Sandringham Sunday 28 September Sunday 12 October Visit from 2-4pm Gramatan Avenue Heathland Sanctuary 3 Gramatan Avenue, Beaumaris Sunday 21 and 28 September Visit from 2-4pm Balcombe Park Reserve Balcombe Road, Beaumaris Sunday 28 September Visit from 2-4pm Long Hollow Heathland Sanctuary Reserve Road, Beaumaris Sunday 28 September Visit from 1-3pm Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve (Wildflower Meadow) New Street, Brighton Thursday 18 September A one-hour long tour at 10-11am Find out more Visit: Council’s website under What’s On Phone: 9599 4815 Email: amalone@bayside.vic.gov.au ). Photo by Pauline Reynolds Banksia Bulletin | Spring 20255A different kind of gardening Words and photos by Matthew Grover Citywide Bushland Crew ‘ What do you do for work? ’ It’s a straight-forward question, no hidden meanings, no wrong answers (usually), ubiquitous and enduring; the conversational cornerstone of the 21st centuries’ newly acquainted. It’s never a surprise to hear it and yet I still never really know how to answer it. I’m sure it’s a struggle that is not exactly unique to my line of work, but I have found it to be a relatively universal experience – a kind of running joke – amongst my bush crew colleagues and those with similar jobs. What should I call myself? How do I best and most succinctly explain my job to people totally unfamiliar with the industry? And most importantly, what do I write on the immigration card! ‘Bush crew’ or ‘bush regeneration’ – my go to – is probably the most accurate, assuming people understand what the ‘bush’ is. Alternatively, I quite like ‘vegetation management’, that or ‘ecological restoration’, both sound intelligent but I fear are too vague in the context of a general audience. Usually people recognise the term ‘park ranger’, which is nice, however it’s not really what my job is. Perhaps I should get more specific instead; weed exterminator, plant facilitator, fire initiator – the two-word combinations are endless! On this particular day, my explanation was going reasonably well, they were clearly interested but admitted that their familiarity with the specifics of bush regeneration work was low. So, I began to give more details about my day-to-day, mentioning tasks like hand-weeding, spraying and planting. ‘Oh! So, you’re like a gardener!’ they exclaimed. I hesitated. A gardener? I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t work in a garden, Iwork in the bush – sand heathland, ifwe’re being specific. But, despite gardener not appearing on my aforementioned job title list, I saw no good reason to contest such a friendly proposition. ‘Yeah!’ I responded enthusiastically. ‘Like a gardener but for native plants’. The gardener A few days later I found myself revisiting this gardener ‘accusation’ in my mind and asking myself some curious questions. What actually defines a gardener, or even a garden, and which one comes first? Also, how different is my relationship with the heathland to that of the average gardener and their garden? And if it’s similar, as I suspect it might be, then why am I so reluctant to self-identify as a gardener? The first step in answering these questions came to me in the form a book. It’s title so enticingly relevant – TheAccidental Garden – by esteemed British nature writer Richard Mabey, spotlights a life and death botanical drama taking place across the seasons in the quaint yet dynamic arena of his own backyard in south Norfolk. Of course, Richard and his wife are not just audience to this esoteric play, they are also a part of the cast; immaculately woven into the books’ narrative is Richard’s deeply personal interrogation of this fact as he seeks to discover his coveted role in nature’s eternal performance. A lover of natural environments, Richard describes himself as the ‘instinctive, hands-off rewilder’, and when they first move onto the property, he has lofty ambitions for this approach, hoping simply to allow nature to run its course and reclaim its rightful home; awild wood self-actualising in his own backyard. But his two-acre patch had not been occupied by native forest for at least half a millennium, it is overrun by a diversity of weeds and suffering from a greatly diminished seed bank. Richard realises he has no choice but to get his hands dirty, and much to his relief, he is happier for it. In the first couple of years this involves big projects, often hard, destructive work, clearing weeds and renewing the landscape. But eventually the need for such heavy-handed management diminishes and Richard finds space for amore intimate management style. Supported by his elegant yew and hazel walking stick (the nudger) he pokes, prods and potters his way around, Banksia Bulletin | Spring 20256this prosthesis offering to him an intensified physical link to the backyard beauty that surrounds him. His stick – an instrument of minimum intervention – becomes the perfect tool for helping him to connect with his garden in exactly the way he was hopingto. Interestingly, this philosophy of minimum intervention is pretty much the philosophy we apply to managing our heathlands in Bayside. As Richard astutely identifies, the natural world is a highly dynamic environment, not a static composition; ‘Time is folded into natural communities by way of natural processes… regeneration, colonisation, succession’, he explains. Our job is not only to protect individual organisms, but to protect nature’s processes. Enabling the ecology, not controlling it. So, it turns out, Richard Mabey is a ‘gardener’ that I would have a lot in common with – but is this overlap in methodology enough to declare myself agardener too? The context after all is totally different, Richard operating in the seclusion of his own backyard, versus myself, looking after wild, indigenous heathland conserved on public land. Can I really be a gardener if I don’t work in a garden? The garden Grey and windy weather shuffled a patchwork of clouds across the sky as my grandfather and I made our way across the gravel carpark of the Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre at Budj Bim National Park in western Victoria; the tour beginning once everyone had amassed around a spa-pool like tank of eels on the deck of the beautifully designed visitors’ centre. Here we took in the sweeping views of Lake Condah as our guide Jayden, an extremely passionate and knowledgeable local Gunditjmara man, explained the history of the land aroundus. In the early stages of European colonisation, it was recorded that there were around 10,000 First Nations people living at Lake Condah where they were supported by an abundance of ecological resources including the lake’s healthy population of eels. Farming of eels involved the rearrangement of basalt rocks at the outflow of the lake to form channels manipulating water flow and setting up choke points where eels could be contained and easily trapped. Sustainability was ensured by only taking eels of a specific age, not catching eels that were too young, nor the older eels that would be approaching reproductive maturity. The second half of the tour took us to an adjacent property where we had the privilege to explore what physically remained of this aquaculture system. Aswe passed a large and hollow River Red Gum that was once used for smoking eels, Jayden began explaining something that has stuck with me. Many of us, by default, are ignorant of First Nations people and their connection to Country. The absence of urban sprawl and coffee shops is unfamiliar, and we too easily allow our own cultural landscape to render plainlyevident examples of indigenous land useinvisible. So, by putting it in terms which we are more culturally equipped to understand, Jayden hoped to make it emphatically clear that his ancestors’ relationship to the land was in fact no different, andcertainly no lesser, to what oursistoday. Translated into our cultural language, the Gunditjmara land he had shared with us that afternoon – this land was their ‘garden’, and for many thousands of years, they had been the gardeners. In fact, as we learnt more, other familiar institutions also become apparent andobvious. The Eels are contained in fridges, yam daisies are cultivated in farm fields,acacia trees overflowing with seed pods serve as the bakery, a diverse understory of medicinal herbs and shrubs stocks the pharmacy shelves, and the eel smoking tree is a kitchen available to all. Operating from the impetus of western ecological science, it can be easy to forget the context of the land I work on, that not so long ago it was somebody else’s garden, a garden taken from the people of the oldest continuous culture on earth. The restoration of the landscape at Lake Condah since its return to the Gunditjmara people and subsequent UNESCO World Heritage listing is remarkable and being shown around by Jayden was a privilege. I sincerely hope Ihave done his perspective justice. A different definition Obviously, in either a colloquial or dictionary defined interpretation, I am no gardener. Classical imagery of verdant lawns and roses elegantly pruned doesn’t come close describing the work I do. But clearly, life is a little more complex than that, and perhaps an expansion of our definition is required. Not an expansion in terms of physical attributes, but an expansion in terms ofvalues. Care and attentiveness, artistry and pride, presence and connection, respect and love – these are the values that I recognise in truly passionate gardeners. Values that are relevant to all types of land management. Values that are seriously aspirational. And so, freed by a new, slightly more fit-for-purpose definition, I no longer need to hide from the label of ‘gardener’; instead, I shall do my best to live up to itsvalues. Banksia Bulletin | Spring 20257Mysteries of the Exocarpos Words by Rob Saunders, Convenor, Friends of Long Hollow Heathland Photos by Pauline Reynolds, Convenor, George Street Reserve Have you seen the local native tree that looks like a cypress but is called a cherry? Well, it is neither. The native cherry or cherry ballart is one of our more unusual local indigenous trees. Beautifully symmetrical especially when young, it is normally a dense bright green but can sometimes turn bronze in winter. It’s neat pendulous branchlets and rough brown bark stand out among the often- scruffy eucalypts and wattles. It almost seems that it doesn’t belong here. Its botanical name is Exocarpos cupressiformis. The generic part of the name (exo – outside; carpos – fruit) highlights one of its unusual characteristics: its seed sits outside the edible fruit-like stalk. And the species part of the name reflects the cypress-like appearance of its form and foliage. Cherry ballarts have proved remarkably difficult to propagate and to establish, because of their semi-parasitic nature. If they were easier to grow, I’m sure we would know them much better. Over many decades, people have tried to propagate cherry ballarts from seed, stem cuttings and root cuttings, generally with little success. The secret to its propagation remains a mystery. Those who have tried to propagate cherry ballart report that seed is often hard to collect and tends not to remain viable for long. Seeds that have passed through the gut of a bird seem to germinate more reliably. But they are slow. Even bird-ingested seed can take 6-18 months to sprout (Murray Ralph, GrowingAustralian Native Plants from Seed). Ralph suggests that removal of the fleshy fruit and cracking the hard outer case can improve results. But the next step in propagation is just as tricky, because cherry ballarts require a root-host species for successful growth. Potting up seedlings with native grasses seems to be beneficial. Once established they are typically hardy and drought tolerant but getting to that stage is very difficult. Strangely, in some of our reserves, including Long Hollow Heathland in Beaumaris and one section of Cheltenham Park, wild cherry ballarts abound. In parts of the south-west corner of Long Hollow where an ecological burn was carried out in 2018, they have become the most dominant species. This overabundance suggests we could perhaps do some controlled experiments in propagating cherry ballart without risking environmental damage. The 2024 Cheltenham Park ecological burn site already has many seedlings, and we might start seeing some appear in the Long Hollow 2025 burn site over the next 12 months. The juvenile leaves of cherry ballart seedlings are distinctive and look quite different to the mature foliage. Planting suitable root-hosts near young cherry ballart seedlings might assist their Banksia Bulletin | Spring 20258Cherry ballarts represent children: they can only grow by being connected to the roots of a parent plant. establishment and perhaps even allow the eventual transplantation of some. Cherry ballart is naturally widespread in dry forests and woodlands throughout south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Throughout its range, Aboriginal people are known to have harvested the sweet fruits of the cherry ballart in season. They knew to avoid eating its hard seeds, which contain a toxic acid. Other parts of the tree were also used medicinally. Cherry ballart also has important and intriguing Aboriginal cultural significance. In a story told by an Aboriginal Learning Facilitator at Cranbourne Botanic Gardens, cherry ballarts represent children: they can only grow by being connected to the roots of a parent plant. It is only after a cherry ballart has established and matured that is it able to live independently ofthe parent, just likechildren. Stories relating to this symbolic meaning demonstrateadeep ecological understanding oftheplant’ssemi-parasitic nature. Many Aboriginal communities also use the aromatic smoke produced by burning green foliage from the cherry ballart in Welcome to Country ceremonies. This adds another layer of meaning and metaphor, emphasising the way visitors to Country are being invited by Traditional Owners to share its resources. As modern life distances us increasingly from contact with nature, we tend to forget that we are part of an ecological community that includes all life within our environment. Bird s w o o p i n g season Residents are reminded to take care during bird swooping season. Native birds, particularly magpies, may swoop to protect their young during the breeding period. H o w t o a v o id b e i n g s w o oped: • Avoid known swoop areas or take an alternative route. • Cyclists should wear a helmet and walk bikes through swoop zones. • Travel in groups — most birds only swoop individuals. • Wear a hat, or carry a stick or umbrella overhead for protection. • Stay calm — running often encourages continued swooping. Please do not harass or throw objects at birds. All native birds are protected in Victoria and cannot be removed or relocated. Serious penalties apply for disturbing birds or their nests. Temporary warning signs are in place at swoop hot spots. To report an incident, call 9599 4444 or record your sighting via the Victorian Swoop Map Banksia Bulletin | Spring 20259Next >