Tales from the Wider Landscape
by Ruth Beilin

The Global Garden extends out from the fringes of the city to the wider landscape where the agricultural character of the work has shaped and organised its borders. In the last ten years in Australia, the rise of the Landcare movement, programs supported through Greening Australia, Save the Bush, A Billion Trees and countless others, have encouraged us as a nation to reconsider our vision for the 'sunburnt' landscape.

At Burnley, research projects concerned with this area of applied ecology focus on the experience of local people, principally farmers, who are variously restoring or creating our rural landscapes of tomorrow.

The emphasis in many of these plantings has been on trees and shrub establishment. Local Landcare groups have encouraged a local nursery trade, as the groups demand for indigenous and locally selected plant material increases. There has been a huge revolution in the bush as evidenced in the shelterbelt plantings. Early plantings in southwest Gippsland Victoria, for example, often include species from Western Australia and Queensland. There was little information available to the farmers when they made their selections, and things like tolerances, mature height and adaptability were not usually prioritised. However farmers quickly noticed that once they fenced out an area for planting, regeneration often occurred from previously dormant seedbanks within these sites. The regenerating material tended to be shrub-tree acacia species and local eucalyptus species. Usually, this self-perpetuating material quickly outgrew the nursery acquired stock.

Farmers, looking for similar plant material on their landscapes, recognised the road verges, gullies and remnant reserve areas as existing seed nurseries, and many Landcare groups began collecting their seed from within their local areas. Local nurseries responded by widening the available stock of local material. During the Farmcare project in the Leongatha area, local Landcare groups applied for a grant to set up a seed storage facility. Here they kept the local seed stock viable and available for groups in the area. This facility has continued under the auspices of the South Gippsland Landcare Network.The attention to acquiring local seed also led farmers to developing adaptable methods of direct seeding rather than being solely dependent on tube stock plantings. Direct seeding creates what farmers describe as a more 'natural' appearance to the plantation sites. It can be easier to seed and faster to establish. However, for many farmers, it is not a practical possibility because of the steepness of their terrain. Some innovative work using slurries and mulching in the direct application of seed has occurred, with mixed results overall.

The locations of the new or regenerating 'bush' have largely been on the edges of the pasture and cropping areas. Landscape corridors, created in 'fencing out' stream access; unworkable or low productivity gullies; erosion sites and slips, have provided 'land out of production' for revegetation projects. These new 'conservation zones' continue to grow in size and quality. Farmers seek to link corridors and gullies to roadsides, and to similar areas on neighbouring land, both public and private.

The management of these burgeoning bush areas becomes the next focus for concern both on-ground among farmers and with researchers at Burnley. The Landcare funding has been largely targeted at the establishment of these plantings. The reality of their growth in the landscape presents new issues to farm managers. It is here that horticultural expertise is most needed as the reality of planting trees in severely modified and largely degraded landscapes attest. The two hundred years of white settlement and cultivation often mean that the conditions in which the farm plantings occur are as difficult as any streetscape in the urban centres. Further, the farm management agenda and labour force rarely include the time to 'nurse' plantations, or to modify the management of the agricultural landscapes that abut these new 'bush' plantings.

Recent research in this area used photography in a project that involved participating Landcare farmers photographing their significant landscapes. The individual's relationship to his/her land provided insights to the location of conservation areas and reinforced the importance of the socio-economic imperative within Landcare. Current research initiatives involve the testing of the Stream Index on Water Quality along riparian plantings in the Archie's Creek area. Possible outcomes from this research include suggestions to improve or consolidate the design and layout of these corridors. At a postgraduate level, a system for farmer-based monitoring and evaluation of on-ground works is underway in the Powlett Catchment in Victoria. In central New South Wales, an investigation into the creation of sanctuaries on private land includes evaluating the process by which bettongs are to be reintroduced into that landscape.

The need for horticultural research, as applied ecology, in landscape management and in the design of integrated production and conservation landscapes of the future is an important thrust of the program in Environmental Horticulture and Resource Management at Burnley.

Illustration above right: Gullies like this one at Poowong East may be a source of seed from remnant vegetation.

About the Writer:
Ruth Beilin is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Horticulture and Resource Management at Burnley College. Her particular interest is in extending the 'visions' for the design and management of the Australian wider landscape.

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