Landscaping can play an important part in making your home sustainable, by providing shade, directing wind, breezes and frost.

Growing your own plants from seed can help reduce the overall energy used in creating your garden, by eliminating transport of plants between production, retail and your garden. Our local tip shops have plenty of pots available for reuse.

Mount Alexander Shire Council is running a free two-hour seed collecting workshop at Campbells Creek this Saturday, 24 November.

Ian Higgins from Friends of Campbells Creek will demonstrate how to collect native plant seed, and you’ll have the opportunity to help collect seed for upcoming Landcare projects.

“During the workshop we’ll head along the Campbells Creek walking and cycling trail and identify local plants that are ready to harvest,” said Ian. “You’ll learn a couple of different seed collecting techniques as your approach needs to adapt to the types of plants you’re collecting from”.

“Importantly we will also touch on issues such as collecting from the right plants. Collecting seed and then growing plants from incorrectly identified plants can create future weed problems”.

“I’ll also cover the restrictions when collecting from native plants as you need a permit to collect native plant seed,” he said.

The workshop is suitable for people of all ages.

Wear a hat and sturdy boots and don’t forget to bring a water bottle. The event will be cancelled in the event of bad weather.

To book contact 5471 1834 or email Council’s Gabe Macauly at g.macauly@mountalexander.vic.gov.au