Victoria Domain blooms with natives

Significant improvement work is underway at Picton’s Victoria Domain with Council staff, specialist contractors, community volunteers, and school groups transforming the area into a thriving native landscape.

Near the Sussex Street entrance, more than 5,000 native plants have been established over the past year on a site once dominated by a large stand of exotic Western Red Cedar. The replanting is part of biodiversity enhancement work identified in the Victoria Domain Reserves Management Plan.

Council staff have also supported the Picton Dawn Chorus – Ngahere (Tree) Group to revegetate areas adjacent to the sections of the Marina-to-Marina Track, the Lincoln Street wetland, and layby areas along the domain loop road.

By re-establishing these spaces as native bush, ongoing maintenance work is reduced, and ecological and amenity improvements achieved.

Local school students have also been joining the Ngahere Group for planting days and in doing so, gaining first-hand knowledge of the natural environment.

Parks and Open Spaces Officer Grahame Smail said the results were very encouraging.

"It's great to see so many people working together to restore Victoria Domain. The work being done by the Ngahere Group, supported by local students, is making a real difference, and the plants are establishing well,” he said.

Alongside the planting programme, specialist contractors have been tackling invasive species throughout the domain.

More than 150 wilding pines have been removed, along with phoenix palms, honeysuckle, passionfruit vine, old man's beard, sycamore, wattle, Western Red cedar and Tasmanian blackwood, all of which pose a threat to the area's native biodiversity.