Nipaluna Nursery 2025 — A Celebration to the Nipaloonies
Twenty-twenty-five.
A year where everything grew.
Plants, yes—
but also people, community, connection,
and this wild, hopeful vision
we keep tending
with our bare, soil-stained hands.
We started the year grounded.
We ended it award-winning.
the Tasmanian Community Achievement Award
—YES—
that was us.
Because a small nursery with a big heart
can move mountains
(one seedling at a time).
We grew to 135 members,
65 volunteers,
a forest of activists
showing up, week after week,
because this work matters.
Because Country calls,
and we answer.
We built structure—
A membership coordinator.
Production reports. A seed data base,
A LIVE website.
Instagram blooming to 880 followers—
It turns out people love watching things grow.
Gardening Australia called.
We said yes—
of course. because
We’re growing a story worth telling.
We planted an edible native garden
that fed more than bellies—
it fed imagination and possibilities.
And then—
Pocket Forests.
TEN of them.
Two thousand, one hundred plants
shaking off their tubes,
growing green at
Clarence High.
Taroona High.
Hobart City High.
Mt Stuart. Lenah Valley.
Princes St.
Mt Carmel.
Triabunna.
Tiny forests with BIG futures.
We won a Recfit Grant
to establish the Triabunna Native Plant Nursery.
A Science Week grant for Feast on Ferals—
because learning can be nourishing
and a little bit wild.
A Wild Food video sprouted.
We supported the Circular Living Festival.
We welcomed interns from Hobart City High—
with fresh eyes, and bespoke nails.
Dirt under our nails feels right.
There were Prick out Parties
And workshops:
Seed collecting,
weeding, washing, propagating
passing knowledge hand-to-hand
like the precious, fragile seeds we collect.
We helped a Hutchins student plant a dream.
We returned to Fosterville—twice—
Restoration is a slow dance
and we are learning the steps.
Plant sales at Cygnet.
Plant sales with the Beekeepers.
Native love spreading far and wide.
We trained in First Aid to keep our skills sharp;
We listened to brilliant minds—
Maria Yee, Adam Muyt, Peter Harrison,
Sue Stack, Graham Greene, Jo O’Brien—
voices like rainfall
on thirsty soil.
We ventured out:
Tunbridge Wetland, the RTBG seed bank,
Wind Song Country,
Midlands seed collection days—
gathering the future
one seed at a time.
Playback Theatre took the mic:
We Speak for the Trees—
and yes, we do.
Every day.
And on Connorville fields,
with Tanya Bailey,
we stood in that wide, beating heart
of Country,
We are learning, listening, planting,
becoming more than a nursery—
more of a movement.
So here’s to 2025—verdant, vibrant and alive;
A year shaped by all of us, and especially by you.
A year of roots deepening,
branches stretching,
community flourishing.
Here’s to YOU volunteers
every hand, every heart,
every tiny miracle in a pot.
May next year grow even wilder.
Even kinder.
Even greener.
Because together Nipaloonies—
we are unstoppable.
Together—
we speak for the trees.
