Ross Shepherd’s blooming banksia paradise

Ross Shepherd speaks to Sarah Halfpenny about his visionary quest from plant enthusiast to the founder of the pioneering Seaford Banksia Arboretum Project.

What was the vision behind the Seaford Banksia Arboretum Project?

I moved into Seaford nine years ago from a larger property where I’d grown some banksias for over 20 years. Upon seeing the sand dunes my house was on, I quickly cleared away some nondescript plants and put in four different pretty banksia species that I’d previously not been able to grow. To my great joy they took off, and have flowered every year since. I planted more, as well as some other Western Australia varieties, with the same result. I started to wonder if my neighbourhood was aware of how special Seaford was for growing banksias from other parts of Australia. This led me to looking for a local site that could possibly take advantage of this knowledge. Around the corner from home was two plots of land which I learnt belonged to Vic Roads; after about a year I’d acquired roadside beautification rights from them, along with insurance for volunteers from Keep Australia Beautiful Council. I was ecstatic.

What inspired you to focus exclusively on banksia species for this arboretum?

As a long-term member of the Australian Plant Society, I was drawn to their prominence in Australia’s history by the events in Botany Bay with Captain James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks who, as the botanist, got to name them. To these men back in those days, they were strange but pretty bottlebrush flowering bushes and trees.

What are some of the challenges and rewards of coordinating a largescale planting project like this?

Initially we faced removing large amounts of dumped rubbish and invasive weeds species en masse. Over an 18-month period, volunteers with slashers, chainsaws and shovels got the 2ha of land spread over two lots transformed into a reasonable-looking reserve. Inside a year some of our new banksias were up and flowering – some already over 2m tall – taking advantage of the Seaford soil.

The project started in February 2022 and aims to plant about 3000 banksias. How has the progress been so far, and what milestones have you achieved?

With grant money from local Rotary Australia, Australian Plant Society and Frankston City Council, we were able to buy and plant out about 1800 banksias so far using local volunteers who became known to us via a Facebook page we set up, and other like-minded groups here. In our first year, starting out initially with a gift of 60 tiny seedlings from Bunnings Frankston, we had planting days and the volunteers came from various parts of Seaford and Frankston to assist. The banks of Lot 1 suddenly looked strange with hundreds of green plant protectors on show where there’d been weeds.

For more information or to register your interest in volunteering, visit the Facebook page @SeafordBanksia

A banksia bloom – like nature’s fireworks – lights up the young arboretum. Protective sleeves shelter newly planted banksias on the arboretum’s slopes in Seaford.