NORTHSIDE: Dixon Rd Community Park, Northside.

Community tree plantings at Dixon Rd Community Park:

• 1998 Alice We Care Week 60 trees,
• 2003 National Tree Day 125 trees,
• 2005 National Tree Day 30 trees,
• 2009 Schools Tree Day 220 trees.

The planting of over 200 local native trees and shrubs in Dixon Rd Community Park has been the culmination of many years of work by the community to revegetate this park. With the help of students from Braitling Primary School year 6 class the Alice Springs Landcare group (Inc) was able to complete the final tree planting in a project that has planted over 400 local native plants over the last 10 years in this important buffer on the northern edge of Braitling. This year’s work was funded by a Power and Water Corporation Melaleuca Award Environment Grant, and was supported in-kind by Alice Springs Town Council, and Conservation and Land Management students from Batchelor Institute.

The community comes together for ‘Tree Day’ plantings.

This park is important in many ways. It is situated between two sacred sites, and supports old Corkwood trees that are also significant. It connects these two rocky outcrops providing for a wildlife corridor through to Charles Creek and the Alice Springs Telegraph Station Reserve. As the trees grow they will provide a visual buffer for the residents of Braitling to the activity from the Sargent St industrial area.

The old Corkwoods, Ironwoods and Beefwoods left in the park tell us the natural plant community formerly present was the Corkwood and Ironwood woodland on alluvial soils. Aerial photos show that apart from these old trees the park was very bare in the 1960’s and 70’s. So what happened to the other plants? These plants are referred to as’ icecream’ plants by local botanist Peter Latz, which are the plants that tend to disappear out of country from fire, ferals, and overgrazing. These include important native food plants such as plum bush, native passionfruit, wild orange, native apricot, and even the quandong tree, that were included in the plantings this year.

Plants used for this project were sourced from local growers including: Tangentyere Nursery, Greening Australia NT, The Olive Pink Garden Growers, Alice Springs Desert Park, and Alice Springs Landcare members Andy Vinter and Tim Collins.

An important part of the project was the protection of the old trees, including Corkwood trees, from the threat of fire and other disturbances. This has been done by spraying Buffel Grass underneath the canopy of these trees and throughout the park. The landcare group negotiated for the installation of bollards around a corkwood tree at the north-west corner of the park that was subject to dumping and other potentially damaging impacts. Buffel grass and woody debris was also removed from around this tree to prevent it getting burnt.  These works were carried out under an Authorisation Certificate provided by the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA)