Indigenous Gardening Guide
Whitehorse Council’s indigenous gardening guide Indigenous Gardening in Whitehorse (PDF) can be downloaded here (14MB).
It’s an impressive resource for home gardeners – covering sustainable, indigenous gardening from scratch – the benefits, planting and maintenance techniques, garden design tips, a list of indigenous Whitehorse plants that may be purchased from Bungalook replete with glorious colour photographs of the plants and a list of weeds.
Gardens for Wildlife
The Gardens for Wildlife program is active in our municipality to support local residents setting an area aside in their gardens for local wildlife – the benefits including assisting bio-links and corridors.
Whitehorse Bushland Parks
- Antonio Park – Mitcham Map: (Melway Map 49 C8)
- Bellbird Dell – Vermont South Map: (Melway Map 62 J6)
- Blackburn Creeklands – Blackburn Map: (Melway Map 47 H11)
- Blackburn Lake Sanctuary – Blackburn Map: (Melway Map 48 B11)
- Below the Lake Friends – Blackburn Map: (Melway Map 48 B12)
- Campbells Croft/Abbey Walk – Vermont Map: (Melway Map 63 C4)
- Cootamundra Walk – Blackburn Map: (Melway Map 48 A7)
- Heatherdale Reserve – Mitcham Map: (Melway Map 49 C12)
- R. E. Gray Reserve – Nunawading Map: (Melway Map 48 G6)
- Somers Trail/Simpsons Park – Mitcham Map: (Melway Map 49 B11)
- Wandinong Sanctuary – Blackburn Map: (Melway Map 61 K1)
- Wurundjeri Walk – Blackburn South Map: (Melway Map 61 H3)
- Yarran Dheran– Mitcham Map: (Melway Map 49 B7)
Bush Tucker Plants
- Indigenous Plant Use Guide by the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub at the University of Melbourne – authored by Barkandji woman Zena Cumpston. It explores the cultural, nutritional, technological and medicinal use of indigenous plants.
Plant Identification
The following list contains some very useful plant identification sites even though some remain works-in-progress. Botanists refer to plant identification systems like these as “keys” – typically for specific groups of plants such as wattles or grasses. The keys will take some effort for first time users to learn, but are worth the effort:
- Wattle key – Lucid
- Eucalypt key – Lucid/Euclid key
Pea key – Lucid
(was: keyserver.lucidcentral.org/key-server/player.jsp;jsessionid=C56E705C77E929FA7D6DEF002F1777B5?keyId=5)- Eucalypts – VicFlora Flora of Victoria
- Asteraceae – VicFlora Flora of Victoria
- Grasses – Ausgrass/Lucid
- Rubus or Blackberry – Lucid
- VicFlora – Flora of Victoria general link
- New South Wales flora
- South Australia flora
- Vascular plants – University of Tasmania
- iNaturalist – Connect with experts who can identify the plants you observe.
Other Plant Information
- Indigenous Fauna & Flora Association (IFFA)
- Australian Museum – Biodiversity
- Atlas of Living Australia – Explore & contribute