Why Grow Indigenous Plants

Why grow indigenous plants?

An indigenous plant is a plant that is naturally occurring in a local area. A "Native Plant" is not necessarily the same as an "Indigenous Plant" and could be from any area in Australia.

The natural environment of the Moorabool Shire area ranges across two bioregions Victorian Volcanic Plains and Central Victorian Uplands. It includes grasslands, woodlands, forests, wetlands and waterways. Each of these areas has a different suite of indigenous plants suited to local conditions. See the local publication for Moorabool Shire by Grow West, Revegetation: what to plant, where and how.

Planting Indigenous plants in your garden, farm, along a waterway or as a landscaping or revegetation project has many benefits and is good for the wider environment.

Indigenous plants have adapted to our local conditions over many thousands of years and are suited to the local soil, rainfall and topography.  In addition, they:

• Attract birds, animals, insects, butterflies and frogs to your garden or property by providing appropriate food and shelter, many of which could not survive without indigenous plants.

·        Reflect the ‘original character of an area, preserving and enhancing a sense of local identity.

·        Preserve and enhance natural genetic diversity.

• They provide food and shelter for local animals in wildlife movement corridors, linking parks, habitat areas, remnant vegetation and flight zones.

• Improving the health of our waterways as native grasses and other plants filter water runoff.

• Assist in use of carbon dioxide from the air, reducing levels of this dangerous greenhouse gas in the atmosphere when more trees are planted.

• Enhance the population of some plants that are now rare in the local area.

• Restore a wider diversity of species to remaining original flora,