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Community and partners engage to establish the Grampians Endemic Garden at the WAMA Botanic Gardens
Community and partners engage to establish the Grampians Endemic Garden at the WAMA Botanic Gardens
Neil Marriott, Flora Team Leader, WAMA Botanic Gardens
In an exciting development for the WAMA Botanic Gardens, the first community plantout was held in July 2022. Following big rains during the week, the skies cleared for a wonderful day with volunteers coming from far and wide to help with this historic day’s work. We were honoured to have a group of Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Cranbourne Gardens staff come and work tirelessly for the day, volunteering to plant the numerous large, advanced endemic plants we had accumulated in our nursery over the last few years. Following the planting, a lovely picnic lunch was provided by our great volunteer support crew for all the hard workers.
We grouped our plantings into three major vegetation communities that occur in the Grampians: subalpine woodland, riparian woodland and heathy woodland, with dozens of plants of the endemic species only found in the Grampians, mostly in attractive drifts or for larger species in groups of three. As well as the endemic species we added clumps of local iconic species such as Common Heath Epacris impressa, local Grass Tree Xanthorrhoea glauca, Common Everlasting Chrysocephalum apiculatum and many more. These will provide showy flowers and colour to enhance the overall effect of this unique garden, which is proposed to eventually house all the 75+ endemic plants of the Grampians.
Amazingly, the day following the plantout the heavens opened and the gardens were thoroughly well watered in. Now, nine months later, the success rate is high. The main fatalities were Grampians Thryptomene Thryptomene calycina and Truncate Leonema Leonema bilobum ssp. bilobum, because they were overgrown and pot-bound. This demonstrated that old, overgrown plants rarely make good garden plants. In contrast, not one plant was lost from the large pots so carefully root-pruned and planted out by the Cranbourne team. We have now had our second large plantout this autumn, and the gardens are looking wonderful.
Many of the beautiful plants have flowered already, including the extremely rare pink flowered form of Grampians Tea-tree Leptospermum turbinatum, discovered by our Grampians Australian Plants Society (APS) Group on an end-of-year party on the top of Mt William. We are planning on registering this beauty with the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority, due to its showy flowers and hardiness.
Grampians APS group members are regular volunteers at WAMA working bees, including weekly propagation days at our community nursery, where we are propagating large numbers of our Grampians endemic plants.
RBGV Cranbourne Gardens/WAMA field trips to the Grampians
In the last 12 months we have been involved in two field trips with staff from our WAMA partners, RBGV Cranbourne Gardens. This has been an absolute privilege and has allowed us to access more Grampians endemic plants. Previous trips with Cranbourne to Mt William have meant that we now have most of the subalpine endemics growing in our WAMA garden. This includes the lovely Grampians Correa Correa lawrenceana ssp. grampiana and Grampians Mint-bush Prostanthera lasianthos ssp. coriacea, both of which are now thriving and flowering in our garden.
An amazing discovery in the Grampians
In November 1966 the wonderful botanist Cliff Beauglehole discovered a grevillea new to Western botanists on the edge of Halls Gap in the Grampians. In 2000, botanist Bob Makinson from Sydney Herbarium described and named this grevillea as Grevillea gariwerdensis in recognition of its home, with the Beauglehole location being the Type Location for species. Sadly, in 2006 a massive wildfire ran through most of the Grampians, including the site of this new grevillea. All plants were burned,
and in attempts to protect private property ‘assets’ in Halls Gap, this whole area was subsequently burned regularly by Parks Victoria/Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) staff every few years. This rapidly resulted in the sad conclusion that Grevillea gariwerdensis was extinct at its Type Location. Numerous searches by several botanists failed to find a single remaining plant for over 15 years.
On a recent field trip with staff from Cranbourne Gardens, I took them to this former site of Grevillea gariwerdensis, and within a short time we rediscovered a small number of seedlings emerging from the recently burned swampy heathland. Walking in further we found more and more, until eventually we counted several hundred new young plants. Fortunately, Cranbourne Gardens have a permit to take flora from the Grampians National Park, and a few seedlings were carefully dug up and returned to the botanic gardens for growing on. This will secure the Type of the species for the future, as well as for the WAMA Botanic Gardens.
Cranbourne then contacted Parks Victoria to ensure this site is not burned again for many years, thus allowing this rare and beautiful grevillea to recover, flower and set copious seed to secure it against any future wildfires. A recent on-site meeting with Cranbourne staff, Parks Victoria, DELWP and my wife and I resulted in the wonderful agreement that this entire area will be exempted from control burns for at least the next 10 years, to ensure that the species sets copious seed for future regeneration events.
Unfortunately, we discovered that a lot of the young plants had been eaten since the rediscovery. Feral deer were the suspected culprits and Parks Victoria are now planning regular spotlighting visits to the site to eradicate deer from the area. It is wonderful that Parks Victoria is so keen to work with the local community to protect this site from future controlled burning as well as feral animals.
It is wonderful that Parks Victoria is so keen to work with the local community to protect this site from future controlled burning as well as feral animals.
There are currently only three known sites for the Gariwerd Grevillea; the Type Location mentioned above, a tiny population in the Victoria Valley, and the largest population north of Plantation Picnic Ground on Mt Zero Road.
Grevillea gariwerdensis elsewhere in Grampians National Park
This population is highly variable in its flower colour, ranging from pure white through to deep pink. Unluckily, it was badly burned in an out of control ‘control burn’ several years ago. This makes Grevillea gariwerdensis a very rare and probably endangered plant. Fortunately, we discovered numerous young plants coming back at this Plantation Picnic Ground site as well.
As a result of the rarity of this species, Russell Larke from Cranbourne Gardens and I are writing a submission to the relevant federal government department, nominating Grevillea gariwerdensis for listing as a Critically Endangered Species.
The Victoria Valley population
The Victoria Valley population of Gariwerd Grevillea, unlike the other two populations which reproduce via seed, reproduces by root sucker. It is also a dwarf plant, around 30 cm high, compared to the ~1 m height of the other two types. Unfortunately, this dwarf population was also destroyed by a bushfire and had not been seen for many years.
However, on our most recent field trip last month we were thrilled to relocate this presumed extinct population of Grevillea gariwerdensis after much searching. We only found 17 small plants, but they were big enough for the Cranbourne crew to collect DNA material and cuttings. It is being studied by staff at Cranbourne and Sydney Herbarium. It is suspected to be a completely new and un-named species. We then went up into the Victoria Range and collected about nine new endemic species. We also collected seed from several endemic eucalypts for Stage 2 of our Endemic Garden.
We have a large collection of Grevillea gariwerdensis in our Endemic Garden from donations from private collections from our WAMA Propagation Team, as well as a naturally established population growing in the WAMA covenant area. It was therefore suggested by the group that WAMA should adopt Grevillea gariwerdensis as our floral logo. The DELWP and Parks Victoria staff are keen to help us advertise this, and they even suggested a presentation on the rediscovery of Grevillea gariwerdensis for the next Wimmera biodiversity seminar. Exciting food for thought!
It is wonderful to see WAMA, Cranbourne Gardens, Grampians APS Group and Jallukar Landcare Group all working together to achieve such positive results in the development of our WAMA Grampians Endemic Garden. As well as our goal to grow all the Grampians endemic plants, we are also aiming to grow a genetically diverse range of all these species in the future.
If you are interested in helping in any way with this exciting project, please contact us and join our enthusiastic team of volunteers by visiting https://wama.net.au/join-support/volunteer/
