Hunter Region Landcare

Dixon Park Landcare, Newcastle

30 Years of Landcare Book

2004  – Present

 

Our group started in 2014 when Barbel Stuhr was asked to run a group at Dixon Park to look after an area planted by Newcastle City Council on the hill behind Dixon Park surf club and car park, and to carry out  remediation works on the dunes at Dixon Park beach.Barb was asked by Henrietta Alexander and Brad West from Newcastle City Council.The group consists of 14-18 people who meet  on the first Tuesday of the month from March to either November or December, depending on conditions. Most of this group are regulars at the Merewether Revegetation Project and without their assistance little would get done. Merewether Landcare was started about 2003 by Griff Foley and Lori Hungerford and later run by John Stuart who has been incredibly supportive of the Dixon Park project. Dixon Park Landcare has extended northward the good work done by the Merewether group, as Dixon Park and Merewether are adjoining beaches

Our plantings add biodiversity and dune stabilisation. They keep sand on the beach and not in the parks or on the roads, catch soft plastics on the foredunes so they don’t end up in the ocean and enhance the aesthetics of the Bathers Way walk. Weeds of note are couch, bitou, gazania and Galena pubescens, with most of the bitou on the site now removed. 

We are a committed group of volunteers both young and more senior. We work in close cooperation with Council workers who supply equipment, mulch, expertise, prepare  larger tracts and  coordinate other volunteer groups such as CityServe. The benefits of being in Landcare are working with positive like-minded people, exercise, learning new skills and more about the environment.

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Big Wins

Removal of most of the bitou on site and many thousands of plantings and many cubic meters of mulch.

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Lessons

The benefit of TerraCottem in allowing tube
stock better strike rate.