CONSERVATREE

Imagine feasting from a diverse and delicious array of native foods as you wander around Woodfordia. The uses for these amazing plants are limitless. The Bush Foods Pod nurtures existing edible plants onsite. It is also creating new plantings, including a Bush Foods Walking Path that will help educate all those who wander about the treasure trove of edible plants in our environment.

High above the festival precinct is an important Woodfordia campground known as Cloudland. Every December, it houses the amazing volunteers who build the Woodford Folk Festival. The work of this Pod aims to maintain and enhance the campground so that at the end of the year, the Build Volunteers have a beautiful place to call home.

Creative in the kitchen? This Pod might be your happy place. We envisage a group of enthusiastic folks cooking up a storm with the bounty of beautiful bush foods at Woodfordia. Chutney or jam anyone? This Pod also serves up a delicious BBQ lunch each month.

This Pod creates beautiful spaces and increases the areas we can use at Woodfordia. Projects involve landscaping, tree care, minor earthworks, drainage, and planting more trees for shade and species diversity. Want to get creative with space design at Woodfordia? This might be the Pod for you.

It is hard to imagine Lake Gkula being more beautiful than it is now. This group of lake-loving folk lovingly tend to plant and water maintenance each month to make our beloved Lake Gkula even more spectacular. What a great place for a working bee on a warm day. Does it even count as work if you’re surrounded by the beauty of the lake? Don’t want to get wet? That’s okay, this Pod has plenty of tasks for water lovers as well as those who would prefer to stay dry.

The possibilities are limitless. So much can be done with our native grasses. This Pod sees great possibilities for native grass plantings at Woodfordia, including future harvests to make stunning woven creations. A living library of grasses has been lovingly created to showcase the varieties already on site.

There are an estimated 25-30,000 species of orchids and Australia has 1,700 of them. Regrettably, 25% of orchids have become extinct in Australia. Prior to 1994, Woodfordia was a dairy farm and its orchid numbers and diversity suffered. Through the Orchid Project, we propagate and care for orchids at Woodfordia’s nursery. Over 200 orchids of 20 different types have been planted since 2010. The goal of this project is to plant as many orchids as possible.

The idea for this special project had its origins fifteen years ago. Renowned performer and Woodford Folk Festival favourite, Dya Singh, imagined a special place at Woodfordia; a place where he could practice his faith in quiet solitude, away from the beating heart of the festival precinct. The Sacred Forest idea was born. This space, on the eastern part of the property, is being transformed into a calm, meditative forest that will provide small performance spaces and quiet nooks for contemplation and peaceful retreat, overlooking the Glasshouse Mountains.

Don’t be fooled by the sleepy creek bank behind our beloved Children’s Festival area. Here, a dedicated group of volunteers diligently and lovingly tend to the needs of the creek banks and plantings to create a location that is rich in plant diversity and is the perfect spot to find some of the many native orchids that adorn Woodfordia.

The hilltop behind one of largest performance venues at Woodfordia is being transformed by this industrious Pod. Loads of trees and shrubs have already been planted. The look and feel of this ridge is evolving into something really special. If you’d like to be part of enhancing the stunning backdrop to some of the Woodford Folk Festival’s biggest artists at The Grande, this might be the Pod for you.

We all need to stay hydrated. This group of volunteers spread the love by spreading H2O around recent plantings to ensure they have the best start in life. Some of them come to Woodfordia a couple of times each month to keep the love flowing.

Enhancing Woodfordia by removing the unwanted is the purpose of this Pod. The Weedos are committed to weed removal to make way for more of the good stuff. On land and on water (yes, we have a few dams onsite), this dedicated band of weed busters enjoy their destructive work while they happily create revived spaces for others to fill. The Weedos Lab is an experimental testing ground for comparing new ideas in weed suppression. Keen to learn more and share ideas about ridding Woodfordia of its weeds? The Weedos will warmly welcome you.