Treasuring Our Trees

I’m now on a journey of discovery as a sculptor. For anyone interested in seeing some of these works and more, please come along to this year’s Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. It’s on March 25th - 29th

Sometimes in life it's the simple things that make our hearts sing. A few months back we were asked to support a beautiful memorial garden project at Wonga Park primary school. We have been blessed to be invited to create lots of wonderful projects over the years, but this one felt very different right from the beginning. It was an emotional experience listening to the story about the passing of Wonga park primary's much loved Mrs Gilbee (Nadine) last year.
Having lost a brother and father to cancer, I could relate immediately to how devastated the family, children, teachers, staff and community would be. After learning a little more about Nadines family's First Nations connection we just knew that there were only 3 seats for this project "in fact it had to be the best 3 seats that we ever made" . Boonwurrung, Erub & Yorta Yorta artist Uncle Steve Parker from I made these seats earlier this year.
Uncle Steve is such a good soul and talented artist. So when I first drove the seats into school for the 130th anniversary last week, we all got very emotional. I'm not afraid to shed a tear or two for beautiful projects like this one and it certainly reminded me of our personal heartache. We always knew how special these seats were and couldn’t be happier than to know that they now will play a meaningful role in the healing. We hope that this memorial garden will make Nadine's family and the wider school community very proud.

Thank you Keep Australia Beautiful VIC, this one meant a lot to us last year 🙏

Treasuring our trees was born out of a tragic 2021 storm event, which saw 25,000 trees felled across the yarra and dandenong ranges. Arborist David Ferrier couldn't sit by and watch them simply rot away or be turned into woodchips - so he set about creating Treasuring Our Trees. A non-profit, that has at its heart, a mission to salvage and repurpose these beautiful trees into something meaningful for community and country. Winner of the 2024 Tidy Towns Community category, David has worked with government and community partners since those '21 storms to expand the capacity and program offering at Treasuring Our Trees to include salvaging trees from infrastructure projects, working with schools and community groups and, First Nations projects across the state. A keen St Kilda Football Club supporter, David's passion and enthusiasm are immediately obvious as soon as you step into their workshop/factory/learning space in Lilydale. The team at Keep Australia Beautiful Victoria have been out to see David several times, to learn more about their great work, and stand amongst the beautiful, processed trees - on their way to new long, productive lives - safe from the woodchippers. The storms were a tragedy, but Treasuring Our Trees has turned that tragedy into a great range of outcomes for the environment and the community. @treasuringourtrees

It’s always a pleasure to collaborate with our good mates from the Montrose Men’s Shed. We happily support one another in lots of meaningful ways. I always make sure that the boys leave with some presents as they just love our milled and kiln dried timber. Today T.O.T was gifted a beautiful clock made by Eddie Newton out of one of our red gum off cuts. Better than firewood right? This clock will now be on display at the front of our educational hub so that all of the school groups can be inspired by the salvaging/recycling ethos, and of course “mate ship”