Following the recent bushfires taking a heavy toll on New South Wales’s animal and plant populations, residents and staff from Catholic Healthcare’s The Haven village in Wagga Wagga are working to regenerate the environment with a phenomenon called seed bombs.

 The Haven’s Maintenance Officer, Jade Kemp (who has a background in horticulture) in conjunction with his wife who works for WIRES Wildlife Rescue thought it was a great way for the residents to become involved in helping their community recover from the fires at the grassroots level.

According to Jade, seed bombs are a mixture of compost, soil, seeds and clay air dried into balls which can be thrown into devasted bushland areas. When it rains the clay coating dissolves and over time the seeds germinate and grow into plants and trees.

Jade says they have been working with Landcare to ensure the seed bombs contain seeds specific to the area that needs replenishing such as are correas, grazing plants such as kangaroo grass and poa grass, and ground covers such as hardenbergia.

The habitat also includes small animals and insects such as native finches, moths, mountain pygmy possums, wallabies and kangaroos.

The Haven retirement village and local businesses have donated the seeds and clay which the residents of The Haven and Blakeney Lodge have made into a total of 1,000 seed bombs.

These will be donated to Murrumbidgee Landcare for the restoration of state forests and WIRES Wildlife Rescue to disperse on private lands with the hope that the seed bombs will regenerate an area the size of about 10 football fields.