Willow Flat Revegetation
2000 Stems
Planted
trees, shrubs, groundcovers
ACT PCS
Client
government conservation
6 mo+ Visible recruitment
acacias returning on site
Catchment Landscape role
cotter water supply lands
Project snapshot
Project Name
Willow Flat Revegetation
Client
Parks Conservation Service (PCS), ACT Government
Land / Country
Lower Cotter Catchment, approximately 5 km south-west of Cotter Dam, ACT. Ngunnawal Country.
Sector
Government — catchment restoration / former pine plantation conversion
Year delivered
Planting campaign 2022–2023, with follow-up site walk-through April 2023
Project aim
Re-establish a diverse native plant community on a floodplain formerly under pine forest, so the site can function as habitat and contribute to catchment health rather than remaining a weed-dominated clearing.
Scale
Targeted floodplain / riparian planting zones within the Lower Cotter restoration estate
Stems planted
2,000 trees, shrubs and groundcovers installed under the PCS contract
Lead
Regenerative Landscapes Australia — on-ground delivery and adaptive site reading
The site
Willow Flat sits on an old pine-forest floodplain
After harvest and years of disturbance the ground had been colonised by dense blackberry, with native raspberry and scattered remnant natives in the mix. Forest mulching opened planting lanes. The soil still carried the acidic signature of a pine site — a condition blackberry exploits, and one that native pioneers (especially acacias) will occupy once light and space return.
The brief was not “replace pine with a tidy plantation.” It was to plant a mixed native community into a living, weedy, recruiting system and then read how the site responded. That distinction matters to future clients: RLA treats weeds as part of the successional conversation, not only as a defect to spray out.
Aim, in the client’s terms
Install 2,000 locally appropriate trees, shrubs and groundcovers to specification.
Work around existing recruitment rather than flattening the whole successional response.
Leave the site able to keep regenerating — habitat function for a diverse suite of species, not a single canopy crop.
Demonstrate to PCS that a regenerative contractor can deliver government stems-in-the-ground work and still think like an ecologist on site.
What we delivered
Contract planting of 2,000 trees, shrubs and groundcovers across prepared lanes.
Tree-guarding where browse and microclimate required it — guards used as a growth aid, not as decoration.
On-site reading of blackberry / native raspberry mosaics so planting did not fight the recruitment already underway.
Follow-up walk-through (April 2023) documenting natural acacia recruitment in mulched blackberry zones within six months — evidence that the site was doing part of the work.
Practical briefing for the client on organic regeneration versus design-led planting, so PCS staff could see why both were present on the same flat.
Species logic followed catchment practice for the Lower Cotter: a mixed native palette of canopy eucalypts and casuarinas suited to the local woodland/forest types, nitrogen-fixing acacias as pioneers, and a shrub/groundcover layer for structure. Final species lists should be attached from the PCS packing slips before this sheet is issued externally.
Outcomes
Planting delivered
2,000 stems installed to the PCS brief on a constrained, weedy floodplain.
Natural recruitment
Acacias and other natives germinating in mulched blackberry within ~6 months — the site was not a dead canvas.
Method
Guards, lane planting and successional reading rather than wall-to-wall chemical wipe and monoculture rows.
Client type proven
ACT Government conservation agency. Useful when a new council or state agency asks “have you worked inside a public land system?”
Landscape context
Work sits inside the broader Lower Cotter catchment repair effort (water quality, pine conversion, habitat). RLA can operate as a specialist crew inside a larger public program.
Communication
Site video and walk-through used as a living report — useful for time-poor agency managers.