Mark Thomas

Our guest speaker today at the monthly Friends of the Belair National Park meeting was Mark Thomas of Gondwana Landscapes and Consultancy. They specialise in indigenous flora, native plants and low water use gardens and Mark generously shared much of his information with us.  In a way it was like coming home for Mark having worked with our S.A. State Government for State Flora Nursery (within the park) for 12 years.
 
What Mark does is to design and create drought resistant native gardens or regenerate public areas using cost effective low disturbance techniques. Mark had a wonderful PowerPoint presentation showing different plants and talking in detail about many of them. What was different was his interaction with members of the audience who asked him questions during his lecture.

Revegetation can be achieved by using a process of assisted regeneration if native plants are already present or nearby. Weed control for fire hazard reduction was also discussed being most relevant in our fire prone state.