Buffers to Bushland

Buffers to Bushland is the City of Playford's rural revegetation scheme.

 

 

Each year the Buffers scheme distributes more than 10 000 local-native tubestock seedlings to rural properties across the council district.

Beginning in 1999, we distributed our 100 000th seedling in 2010! We currently distribute somewhere between 10 and 13 thousand seedlings a year.

 

Biological Zones

To do this we first divided Playford into general biological zones, to ensure that the right mixture of species would be directed towards what can be strikingly different habitats, at least when comparing the relatively well-watered hills and its multi-layered woodland vegetation with the semi-arid plains.

There are 3 zones: Hills, Foothills and Plains:

The Plains (P) is fairly obvious.

The Foothills (F) is defined as the area between the plains and One Tree Hill / Precolumb Road and, to the north, the Gawler One Tree Hill road west of the Humbug Scrub Road intersection.

From there to the top of the range counts as the Hills (H).

 

Standard Boxes

For each of these three zones we then create 2 'standard boxes' of a mixture of local-native species seedlings; one Overstorey (or A) box containing trees and large shrubs, and one Understorey (or B) box, containing shrubs, herbs, grasses, climbers, grasses / sedges, and groundcovers.

Each standard box contains 50 plants, comprised from anywhere between 10 and 13 different species.

(Examples of the most recent selection of species lists to be made available can be found in the related links column at left. These are only provided as examples - the actual content of these boxes will vary from season to season)

Property owners may place orders for plants in units of these boxes of 50 plants suitable for the zone their property is located in. So, for example, a Hills property might order 200 plants in total, consisting of 1 Hills A (Overstorey) box and 3 Hills B (Understorey) boxes. (We encourage higher ratios of understorey to overstorey, as there is vasty more of the former in nature.)

These three pairs of boxes are designated, according to the abbreviation for the 3 zones, as HA, HB / FA, FB and PA, PB.

Here are the species lists for the standard boxes made available for the 2012 Buffers season, combined with a link to the collection of Playford Biodiversity's photos of those species:

 

Hills: B2B Hills 2012(48 kb)

(Hills species slideshow)

 

Foothills: B2B Foothills 2012(48 kb)

(Foothills species slideshow)

 

Plains: B2B Plains 2012(47 kb)

(Plains species slideshow)

 

Stakes and Treeguards

   

 

Stakes and treeguards may be available to properties to protect Buffers seedlings if required.

These are an expensive component of a scheme with a limited annual budget, and cannot be routinely offered with every order.

They may only be used to protect Buffers seedlings - not those from any other source - from damage by stock, rabbits, kangaroos and deer. They remain the property of the scheme, and while they may be - and frequently are - rotated onto new plantings on the original property in subsequent seasons, they must be returned clean for redistribution to other Buffers properties when they are no longer required to protect Buffers plantings on any particular property.

 

Boxing-Up Day

   

 

Boxing-Up Day is the annual morning where we sort the 10 000+ tubestock plants - extracting them from their single species boxes of 50 plants and allocating them into the multiple species Standard Boxes (as described above.)

All Buffers participants are invited to participate on the day, which takes place in the council's nursery at the Playford Operations centre in Davoren Park. Your involvement is not compulsory, but it's a great way to meet other landowners, and members of Playford Greening and Landcare, who also help out (and who have cultivated at least half of the tubestock we distribute each year!)

Playford Greening is also responsible for cultivating at least half of the plants distributed by the scheme each year, with the remainder being purchased by council from Trees For Life.

 

   

 

This revegetation scheme is available to all owners or managers of rural properties within the City of Playford. The scheme doesn't cost anything to participate in, but you'll need to register. Sorry, plants are not available for suburban yards and gardens!

Please contact Playford's Revegetation Officer, Bill Doyle, for more information or to register to participate - phone 8256 0531, or via e-mail.

Download the map for details of how to get to the Playford Operations Centre's nursery: COP nursery access(285 kb)

 

Slide Shows 

For an idea of some of the plants we're distributing here's the Buffers to Bushland images sets; both of these slideshows - and many more images - can be found on the City of Playford Biodiversity and Landscape Strategy team's Flickr site -