NEWS ARCHIVE

Remember when the Wednesday Nursery crew was like this? When there were so many people there was a queue round the shed to wash dirty tubes? Sadly, those days are gone. Many volunteers have retired, some have moved away, some have gone to the great nursery in the sky...

Opopaea sown A small goblin spider has been named in honour of Save Our Waterways Now. SOWN Secretary Anne Jones, who is also an ambassador for Queensland Museum, arranged the naming of Opopaea sown through the Queensland Museum Foundation's 'Name a spider' program....

Our breakthrough with the "subscription" facility at PayPal has proved a bit hit, with members being able to renew membership with just a click. And the best part is, when next year rolls around, PayPal automatically sends out the reminders. This saves valuable time...

Minister plants a Eucalyptus tindaliae Talking environment Follow up works, local ALP branch continue planting and mulching Mulched and weeded, July 2011 Minister plants a Eucalyptus tindaliae More than 50 SOWN members, campaign workers and media representatives...

The SOWN Plant Guard Water Saver has been designed to protect young plants from wind, weeds and herbicide over-spray. However the most appealing advantage of the Plant Guard is its ability to provide a reservoir in which to hold water and direct it directly to the...

Stopping the tick Treating tick bite More tips from a SOWN member Report of another Rickettsial infection In April 2010, SOWN's Director Robert Whyte spent five days in hospital with a very nasty illness caused by a tick bite. The little-known scrub or tick typhus, a...

SOWN has applied to redevelop the property at 98 Yoorala Street. You can download the plans to have a look. Landscape plan - PDF 1Mb Architect's plans - PDF 2.6Mb Development notice - PDF 66Kb

Water is central to our identity as Brisbane, the river city, and is vital for our health, industry and to support the liveability of Brisbane. To guide Brisbane towards the goal of becoming Australia's most sustainable and water smart city, Brisbane City Council has...

As SOWN members we need to get our heads around the new herbicide arrangements. Basically, Habitat Brisbane herbicide will NOT be available at the SOWN Nursery. It will only be available direct from Habitat Brisbane. If you want herbicide for your Habitat Brisbane...

Concerns were recently raised at the Advanced Herbicide Training Workshop about the health hazards of spray marker dye. This is the dye that is used in herbicides to help with minimising over spraying, avoiding hitting good plants and seeing where you have missed. It...

SOWN Nursery is bursting with plants longing to get into the ground. So get along on Wednesdays and Saturdays between 9am and 11am, or by appointment on Fridays, to pick up tubestock and get planting. Who cares if it's raining? If you plant in the rain you don't have...

Charlie writes: I found before I put my first tank in that we would get up to 60 L a night as condensation from the iron roof. When I put the tank in, this would run down into the first flush system, but because it didn't accumulate fast enough, it would always drain...

Honey-Eaters Parrots, Lorikeets, Cockatoos, etc Kingfishers Fresh Water birds Pigeons/Doves Black, White, Black & White birds Ibis Pied Currawong Magpie Pied Butcherbird Pee-wee Crow Spangled Drongo Koel (male, black, red eye) Koel (female, black head, other markings...

Conservation Volunteers Australia help to revegetate Enoggera Creek Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) local and international volunteers braved the rain and humidity to give a much needed helping hand to local SOWN volunteers at Riaweena Street just days before...

Mapping Cat's Claw Creeper (Macfadyena unguis-cati) is an exotic weed vine that threatens Brisbane's waterways and bushland areas. In a bid to target a single species, thus focussing efforts city wide, Brisbane Catchments Network (BCN) has proposed control and...

Rainforest Rescue needs your help to save the Cassowaries of Mission Beach in Far North Queensland. Their rainforest home has been devastated by Cyclone Yasi and they face starvation. Rainforest Rescue is helping to provide food for the Cassowaries and is restoring...

Rainforest Rescue needs your help to save the Cassowaries of Mission Beach in Far North Queensland. Their rainforest home has been devastated by Cyclone Yasi and they face starvation. Rainforest Rescue is helping to provide food for the Cassowaries and is restoring...

SOWN's Clean Up Australia Day event at Woolcock Park, Red Hill was a great success. Organised by the Ithaca Intact Coordinator, Glenn Withers and Creek Ranger Emily Brash, Clean Up Australia Day is one of the regular events SOWN takes part in each year. The day was an...

SOWN partners with Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre Bush Regeneration at Arthur Gorrie or BRAG is a new partnership that's providing SOWN with plants for our bushcare sites. In 2009 Brisbane City Council formed a partnership with Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre...

SOWN, BRAIN and the local community planted more than 1500 rainforest trees, shrubs and grasses in Glenella Parklands, The Gap on 26 March. Glenella Parklands was once farm land that was reclaimed as riparian bushland by Brisbane City Council and gazetted as a park....

Keep an eye out for these nasties Keep an eye out for these sneaky weeds around your local patch. Several of these species have have already infiltrated Enoggera and Ithaca Creeks in recent months. Although we are blessed to live in Brisbane with its mild climate and...

The Yoorala Street Community Garden has received a donation of 'older' seeds from organic seed distributor Eden Seeds. Michelle Peile from the community garden said she made a request while she was putting in a personal order. "I just mentioned that the community...

SOWN recently received a significant donation of bushcare gear from AECOM, an environmental service provider. Director of SOWN Robert Whyte thanked AECOM for their generosity. "SOWN members will certainly put the gear to good use," he said. The donation was organised...

SOWN and Ithaca Intact have permission to collect seed from native vegetation in bushland and natural area reserves managed by Brisbane City Council subject to the following conditions: Code of Practice for the Taking and Use of Protected Plants PDF 78Kb 1. Seed is...

With the exit of our Ithaca Intact coordinator Glenn Withers, Robert Whyte has stepped into the position and is keen to get amongst it. Rob has been working with SOWN for years and is currently the Director. He's a naturalist with a keen interest in macrophotography...

An interesting question. The reason I was asking myself this was because I had observed that when I sampled good natural areas with lots of native plants they yielded up more spiders than nearby weedy areas. As spiders are widely considered a indicator of biodiversity...

PLANTING GUIDESThese resources should help you when choosing the best locally native plants for your bushcare site or garden. You can also visit the "Plants To Plant" section using the site navigation. Download the Planting Guide - This page as a printable PDF A guide...

Enoggera Creek - Eucalypt Forest species SOWN Nursery is starting a new targeted approach to propagation so we have the most important species in stock for members to plant. That means we need to start with seed collecting. The plants in the list below are very common...

The SOWN web site has gone to great personal and professional lengths to produce, at the request of the SOWN management committee and countless pleading SOWN members, a list of drought tolerant Enoggera species. Here it is! Acacia Complanata (Flat Stemmed Wattle)...

Brisbane City Council is planning to undertake desilting and mangrove management works in Enoggera Creek between Bowen Bridge Road and Edmund Street, Windsor. The works are expected to start on 1 September and will take approximately five weeks to complete, weather...

Save Our Waterways Now is participating in the Pauls Collect-a-Cap charity fundraising campaign. For every Pauls Milk Bottle Cap you collect from their 2 and 3 litre milk bottles, SOWN can get 10 cents. All you have to do is collect the caps and drop them to the SOWN...

Rubis Probus (Native Raspberry) is a local species we are experimenting with in our attempts to regenerate small bird habitat. It can be quite aggressive in a planting, so we curb its excesses with a light trim and judicious collecting of ripe fruit. We have some...

from robertwhyteus to richardharding317H99 DATE: 26 October 3003 TIME: 4.34pm EGT (Eastern Galactic Time) First of all, Dick, don't be alarmed. Sure, it's been eleven days since I entered the Greater Enoggera Catchment on my quest to find rare exotics ... And I do...

By Geoff Monteith, Queensland Museum These notes were the text of a talk given by Dr Geoff Monteith to SOWN in 2006, covering many of the interesting recent discoveries in Brisbane surveys of invertebrates. A BIT ABOUT BEETLES IN BRISBANE - By Geoff Monteith,...

This is what is permitted on Habitat Brisbane sites: Habitat Brisbane volunteers are authorised to remove small trees to the diameter of 100mm DBH (diameter at breast height) with hand saws only. Stumps should be poisoned and left as close to the ground as possible...

Why drought is your friend: 1 First of all, the drought kills weeds. Those soft, fleshy, water-hungry weeds soon wither and die when it gets really dry. On the other hand, you see how remnant dry rainforest species can withstand extreme dry conditions. The...

SOWN Nursery held an Open Day on the morning of Wednesday 5 October. Visitors and volunteers flocked to see the nursery in operation and learn about SOWN's activities. On show were the mysteries of pricking out and seed processing. The Open Day included morning tea...

What is it? Wild Taro is a fast-growing aquatic weed with dark reddish purple stalks and very large, arrowhead-shaped, dark-green, velvety leaves. The leaves are shaped somewhat like elephant's ears. In some parts of the world wild taro is harvested for its...

Many of us already know the excellent weeds DVD - Suburban and Environmental Weeds of South-East Queensland, by Sheldon Navie, an identification and information system for South-East Queensland. It is a Lucid3 key to over 600 garden and environmental weeds found in...

by Robert Whyte I'm sure there are a lot more plants beginning with A than with X or Z. Those poor cousin letters down at the bottom of the alphabet hardly get a mention. Lets look at the Zeds in Enoggera species. We have Zanthoxylum Brachyacanthum (Thorny...