Jun 18, 2023 2 min read

National Tree Day Activities At Eaglemont

Improving our place & improving our community

Plants held in our FofEV nursery ready for National Tree Day.

There will be 2 planting activities at Eaglemont to mark National Tree Day.

On Friday 28th July Friends of Eaglemont Village will host Year 4 Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School students for planting in Sherwood Road.

Ashby Grove underpass work by FofEV has made a more attractive entry point to Eaglemont - there is scope to make this a head-turning space.

The selected site is the adjoining patches we refer to as Ashby Grove underpass and Substation West.

FofEV has been approached by the Environment Association of Australia and New Zealand for an opportunity for volunteers from their organisation to participate in our event scheduled for Sunday 30 July.

This activity will be based around Sherwood Road but up at the eastern end of the outbound platform.

Equity Trustees volunteers opened up this inaccessible thicket adjoining the outbound platform to allow light in to support new plantings.

This is near our Bluestone bed and where volunteers from Equity Trustees did a great job clearing a rehabilitation zone of ivy, mirror bush and a self-seeded casuarina thicket.

Again we will be seeking to make the area attractive to people while providing good habitat for our local wildlife.

Later in the year FofEV will undertake works along Alandale Road where we have had several years of work rehabilitating plantings by residents going back some 40 years.

We are in discussion with Banyule Council about the Banksia Reserve off Sherwood Lane, and the railway land at the Studley Road & Odenwald Road junction.

The bleak space between the rail cutting and Studley Road - it has only ever been an un-interesting, under-utilised bit of "left over" land - it cries out for a better use, a better look.

The rail authorities have signalled a preparedness to have us - in our Eaglemont Stationeers guise - create bushland garden patches where there has only been mown grass in loving memory.

The Righi Reserve

Since the land was purchased by Heidelberg (now Banyule) Council in 1940 for an "off-street" play space for local children it has languished as a poorly equipped site.

The original playground had to be equipped by the local progress association as Council declined to be involved beyond buying the land.

There is certainly scope for community involvement in upgrading the plantings in this pocket park.

Perhaps we need a dedicated "Friends of " group to champion the case for improvements to the basic play equipment.

It is a rather stark contrast to look at the equipment and facilities funded by our Council in, for instance, the McLeod Village playground - award winning efforts there; very paltry inputs at The Righi.