Tall Trees is an established nursery in Balnarring Victoria, wholesaling native trees and plants for new suburban developments to roadside verges and revegetation projects. Their plants help keep Melbourne’s vast suburbs and built environment cooler than they would be without tree cover.
For over 10 years, Tall Trees has had access to, and been using, recycled water to propagate their plants. This is water that would have otherwise been released at the sewage outflow near Gunnamatta Beach.
Whilst the security of water supply has been beneficial over recent years, Tall Trees has had to deal with another issue that threatens nursery viability – power. The nursery has access to an abundant water supply, but if the power goes out, then so do the pumps that distribute that water through the nursery. Although this part of the Mornington Peninsula’s power supply is becoming increasingly reliable, the risk of summer outages and impact on irrigation water supply is still unacceptable to operations.
Diesel generators trialled at their nursery were unreliable and cumbersome. This led to the decision by Tall Trees management to invest in some real power security and put control back into their own hands.