The Viatek Group is a services-based organisation, offering business solutions for print, scanning & technology. With over 17 offices operating within Victoria & NSW, it makes them the largest regional supplier of managed print services, backed with local technicians on site.

The team at Viatek Bendigo have been supporting tree planting projects since 2015 and to date have purchased 2,210 trees for local community groups. These trees are forming part of regeneration and habitat projects, where they will grow to stabilise the soil, provide shade and food to native fauna, and encourage biodiversity.

This year’s trees were planted by Northern Bendigo Landcare (NBLG), Djaara Country, at the Huntly Reserve on Mother’s Day Sunday May 12th. This is a much-loved annual event for the Northern Bendigo Landcare Network (NBLN).

The 95 volunteers planted native species alongside the creek. This site had been damaged in the past due to gold mining and grazing. The project is ongoing, indeed the group have been working on it for the past 10 years. Their aim is to boost the ailing Creekline Grassy Woodland vegetation community.

The Huntly Lions Park is at the northern entrance to Bendigo and is a lovely little rest stop with mature River Red Gums adjacent to Back Creek and leading to a larger natural reserve that, in the early 1900’s, was the original Huntly Botanical Gardens. Many residents felt they had lost their connection with this local park and no longer viewed it as an asset or a safe green space. After giving residents alternative options, this was the right time to give the park a fresh start and reinstate it as a place of community pride.

Volunteers planted indigenous trees, shrubs and grasses such as Saltbush, Spreading Wattle, Sweet Bursaria and Bushy Needlewood, Kangaroo Grass, Common Tussock Grass, Wallaby Grass and Anther-Flax Lily.

These plants over time, will provide under-storey to the existing eucalypts at the site, help restore indigenous vegetation, showcase native vegetation to the visitors who stop off and use the area, and complement the native vegetation found in the natural reserve adjacent to the Lions Park. This area is a valuable piece of remnant vegetation with enormous potential for Bendigo. In future, the NBLG aims to work with council to link the Lions Park, via the old Botanic Gardens and along Back Creek to the Recreation Reserve. From here there are linkages to Bendigo Creek and to Goldleaf Wetland to link up all the valuable pieces of green space.

We are incredibly grateful to the sponsors for helping us create such a unique experience each year.

Our ‘Trees For Mum and High Tea’ Mother’s Day planting event has become an annual tradition for families in our area. It’s so special to provide this opportunity for new mums, families year after year as their children grow, families who’ve lost their wife/mother or those remembering a nana/grandma.

Nicole Howie | Secretary | Northern Bendigo Landcare Network

The park is home to Sugar Gliders, Brush-Tail Possums, Echidnas, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Galahs, Eastern Rosellas, Musk Lorikeets, Magpies, Kookaburras and members of the Honeyeater family.

Here at Fifteen Trees, we are always happy to have a chat about the best way to incorporate sustainability into your organisation. We can help you to connect with the broader community and reduce your company’s environmental impacts. If interested, please contact Colleen at <[email protected]>

Writer – Sarah Hart.

Sarah is an artist whose passions include the stories and experiences of women and narrative driven creative work. Her aim is to delight, to reveal glimpses of everyday beauty, and to celebrate flights of the ordinary. Sarah works across a range of media, with an abiding interest in pen and ink, mixed media and the human form. You can find Sarah here.