By Mikayla van Loon
A group of passionate volunteers have completely transformed what was an overgrown section of the Lilydale-Warburton Rail Trail and restored the native flora.
Led by Barbara Goldfinch, the Friends of the Warburton Rail Trail was formed in December 2019 and since then the group of six volunteers have been removing weeds and replanting natives.
“I’m just passionate about doing what can be done to protect the environment because there’s a lot of introduced weeds and protecting the native vegetation for the sake of our native birds,” she said.
Focusing on the section between Old Gippsland Road, along Queens Road and down to the Maroondah Highway footbridge in Lilydale, the group have just finished one section of the area.
Navigating lockdowns and restrictions for the last two years, Ms Goldfinch said it has been slow going but it’s amazing to see the difference in what they have been able to achieve.
Woody weeds and ivy were some of the main culprits removed for the Alfred/Burton Road entrance where the Friends group removed mass amounts that were suffocating the trees and ground cover.
“The thing about these weeds is that they just outgrow everything, they take over. And the thing about the ivy, it’s not doing any harm [on the ground], but the ivy grows up the tree trunks into the crown of the tree and it’s heavy up there,” Ms Goldfinch said.
“Then what happens to the trees, the gum trees, it’s too heavy and in a strong wind it breaks the top of the tree so we lose the tree.”
Strewn throughout the weeds are native flora of all different types, grasses, trees and plants, struggling to survive.
“All of these plantings were done maybe, nobody really knows, 10 or 20 years ago, have never been maintained and were absolutely smothered with weeds.”
Ms Goldfinch said everything has to be done by hand, so it takes a lot of physical work to remove the weeds carefully.
The group of volunteers meet every third Wednesday and Saturday of the month and focus on one area at a time.
Ms Goldfinch said the council has been instrumental in ensuring the group has the right equipment, plants and mulch to get their work completed.
Next year, Ms Goldfinch said the group will move onto another section but there is still a little bit of work to do at the Alfred/Burton Road entrance.
“We need some mulch and I’m hoping that next year we’ll get some more plants to infill along here, especially to provide a bit of a barrier between Queens Road and the trail,” she said.
“We’ll also need to do some ongoing maintenance because you can see some weeds growing up already.”
Friends of Warburton Rail Trail can be found on Facebook and each month release a newsletter.
