After installing our new VPOP brochure dispensing sign on the Wildflower Walk on 1.6.17, we noticed this lovely but very, very small Mosquito orchid (Acianthus pusillis) just up slope from the new sign.

June VPOP on-site dates have changed due to clashes with Rose’s Fungi lessons with Vale Park Primary School students and a focus on preparing the Wildflower Walk for the Fungi Foray on 2nd July 2017. New dates listed below:

We have finally installed our new information sign in the Gilberton Woodland, our large dispensing sign on the Wildflower Walk (pictured) and one of the 2 smaller directional  signs also on the Wildflower Walk.

Bookings are now open to hear Fungimap’s Dr Sapphire McMullan-Fisher Public Talk on  “The Vital Importance of Fungi!” on  30th June, 2017 from 7.30 – 9pm at Vale Park Primary School.  

VPOP events in May 2017: (including changing Vale Park dates to the 1st and 3rd Monday mornings in the month, and Gilberton to the 1st and 3rd Friday  mornings in the month)

On a sunny afternoon on 8.5.17,  VPOP members visited Marianne & John’s new Blackwood home among the the gum trees for lunch & a tour of their ‘backyard’ – a  hillslope of remnant grassy woodland! 

We have  noticed the first of 2017’s native orchids sprouting on the Wildflower Walk including the little rosettes of the Blunt Greenhood (Pterostylis curta, pictured on 25.4.17) in a number patches. 

Video of a Blue-banded bee (Amegilla spp) visiting Annual Bulbine Lilies (Bulbine semibarbata) in Adelaide garden, South Australia. Video recorded 1st November 2015. Yes, it is pollinating the flowers – by headbanging at 350 times per second (buzz pollination)! To see this buzz pollination in incredibly slow motion, see this video on the ABC website here.

We are inviting members and friends to a relaxed Open Day to view our amazing reintroduced native orchids, lilies and other spring flowers on Sunday 11.9.16 10am – noon, followed by a shared BYO picnic BBQ. Bush tucker tastings (including icecreams), plant giveaways and morning tea also featured.

At our Gilberton Open Day on Saturday 28th August 2016, Andrew from the Kensington Residents Association, accepted our donation of a clump of Pink Fairies orchids to be transplanted to Borthwick Park, to help with their reintroduction of the Pink Fairies there.