For the second time in five months, thousands of plants are on the move as a Victorian nursery begins the huge task of returning home after the Murray River flooded during summer.
Key points:
- The GrowAbility nursery is a social enterprise providing employment for 10 adults with a disability
- It moved to SuniTAFE in late November and continued trading while its home base was surrounded by water
- Irrigation upgrades and a general tidy-up have taken place at the site before the plants started being moved back
GrowAbility's nursery manager Kuldeep Kaur said it took the Mildura business two weeks to move all the stock from the site prior to the floods.
"We have hundreds of big trees in 35-litre bags and thousands of tube stock," she said.
The nursery, which is part of the Christie Centre and provides employment for adults with a disability, was surrounded by floodwater during summer, but fortunately the buildings on the site stayed dry.
Ms Kaur said GrowAbility was very fortunate to be able to continue trading during the floods from SuniTAFE, about seven kilometres away from the nursery's Cureton Avenue site.
"They've got an established shed for propagation, polyhouses, greenhouses and a really good watering system, so we really appreciate what they did for us," she said.
While the nursery was closed to the public Ms Kaur said it enabled some improvements to be made.
"We've done some new irrigation and we've done some cleaning while the plants weren't here," she said.
Supported employee Jack Knight said it was important to make sure the plants were returned to the correct sections of the nursery.
"It's really, really good exercise and hopefully we don't have to move again," he said.
His colleague Matthew Smith said it was exciting to see the plants coming back.
His favourite job at the nursery was weeding, but he also helps with watering and fertilising them too.