Ever since we started growing native plants our nursery’s been in my back yard, and over time as we have grown this has become less and less practical. About 9 months ago we were invited to have a look at a piece of land in town as a possible site for a new nursery.
This was the site as we saw it that day, but immediately it’s potential was obvious to us. Flat and not too public, this was a site we could work with. There was clearly a lot of work to do as the site was covered with rocks, weeds and trees but we were underway.
Topsoil was removed and we started to level the site. Part of this could be done by hand but mostly we relied on local contractors who brought their machinery in to help us.
Once we got a small area prepared we laid some weedmat and moved the first plants onto the site. This was much needed relief to all the various places around town that we had been storing plants. Finally we could start moving them to just one site.
The next stage was to level the rest of the site and this work was done for us by Brendon from All Terrain Bobcat Services. He had all the sand spread and the levels sorted in an hour and a half and we were finally getting some idea of what the finished job was going to look like.
Lay more weed mat ...
... and begin to build the fence.
We also started work on the shade house, which was a remodel of a design I used back in my farming days. Alicia and I did the work ourselves.
In a week or so we were ready to put the shade cloth on. This was the height of summer and we were looking forward to having a bit of shade, for ourselves as well as for the plants.
Having the shade house finished has made a huge difference to our whole operation, and now there are lots more plants on site. There is still a little more work to do but basically the new nursery is operational now and we are so happy to have a flat site on which we can now centralise our operations.
There have been many businesses and organisations that have helped make this project possible and we really do want to acknowledge and thank all those people.
To learn more about our new nursery read on here. If you want to help us build a better future and be a part of MBET, you can become a volunteer or a supporter. Find out what suits you the best on our Get Involved page.
written by Kim Lawry – Trustee
