Most days, the team at Nursery Near Me are busy getting plants onto trucks and out to backyards, balconies and front gardens across the country. They’re an online nursery, so there’s no shopfront and no bell on the door, just a lot of people who love plants, making sure the right ones land safely at the right location. It’s a lovely job, but it’s mostly about gardens. This time, they decided to think a bit bigger.
Nursery Near Me has just bought 60 native trees for their home state of Queensland, and these ones won’t be going to anyone’s letterbox. Read the story below.
On Jinibarra Country in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, a dedicated group of volunteers from Hinterland Bush Links turned up across numerous planting days to plant 500 native trees, of which 60 were generously donated by Nursery Near Me.
Hinterland Bush Links works across properties throughout the hinterland, partnering with landholders who care about what’s happening on their land. Their most recent planting took place at Booroobin which features a natural spring that forms part of the headwaters of the Mary River. This new revegetation around the spring and headwater areas, will help stabilise soils, reduce erosion and protect water quality in the Mary River catchment downstream. The quality of the water filtering through the ground into the Mary River all depends upon what happens here at this planting site.
The species planted reflect the ecological complexity of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. At least 20% of every planting in known koala habitat areas consists of koala food and habitat trees – blue gums, grey gums, tallowwoods, brush box and swamp box. Pioneer and rainforest species including bleeding heart, acacias and sandpaper figs fill out the rest of the mix, building the layered structure that a functioning ecosystem needs to establish and sustain itself.
Koalas are the headline species here and the Sunshine Coast Hinterland is critical habitat for them. Koalas are what ecologists call an umbrella species, meaning that protecting their habitat also protects the dozens of other species that share it. Species such as Greater gliders, sugar gliders, brushtail and ringtail possums, echidnas, microbats, black cockatoos, king parrots, lorikeets, tawny frogmouths and kookaburras all live in this landscape. Every tree planted here is doing work for all of them.
We are incredibly grateful to supporters of Fifteen Trees for generously sponsoring the tube stock that made this community planting event possible. Your support is helping us restore vital koala habitat and strengthen biodiversity across the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. We’d also like to acknowledge the landholders who continue caring for these trees long after the planting day is over – their ongoing commitment is essential to the long-term success of these restoration projects.
Finally, a heartfelt thank you to all the volunteers who gave their time and energy to do something truly selfless for the environment. These events are about far more than planting trees – they build community, connection, and hope for the future.
Louise Court | Project Officer | Hinterland Bush Links
Hinterland Bush Links has been restoring native ecosystems across the Sunshine Coast Hinterland for years. The results are visible in the wildlife returning, the vegetation thickening, and the community of volunteers that keeps showing up.
This is community tree planting at its best – over 50 people turning up to plant 100s of trees that will grow into habitat for the native wildlife that call Queensland home. Over the years, trees like these will create biodiversity corridors while restoring the native ecosystem. This partnership between Nursery Near Me and Fifteen Trees is a great way for a plant business to give back to the planet.
Writer: Colleen B. Filippa
With a background in Environmental Science (Melbourne Uni), Colleen is the Founding Director of Fifteen Trees. In 2009, after 20 years in secondary and tertiary education institutions, Colleen left the classroom to start the company. Fifteen Trees is a social enterprise assisting individuals and companies to reduce their carbon footprint by supporting community groups such as LandcareQLD.
