The area where the native transplanted
seedlings of the area were to stay.

Well planted and they disappeared.

Approximately fifteen years ago the now Latrobe City Council nursery person came out to the Hazelwood [South] Reserve and showed us how to use the tools to plant over one hundred tree saplings around the then Hazelwood Reserve.

The saplings were a wide variety of nectar and gum producing natives of the reserve area. The idea was to encourage the native animals while furthering a native corridor.

The second side to planting the sampling trees and shrubs as to lessen the retained water that lay over the Reserve during the wet season. The water sat from the reserves middle to the far North Corners. That is the side of the Reserve nearest the Monash Highway. The trees and shrubs chooses loved getting their feet wet.

The third reason was that when these trees and shrubs grew they would provide a wind shelter for the Churchill Soccer Club

The fourth and main driving factor that got the Guides out of home on a bitterly freezing day was they were working towards a badge. The Wombat Wattle one which involved doing something for the Australian Native vegetation and animals.

With in a few weeks the Churchill Soccer people were parking all over the saplings while games and practice sessions were occurring. People were 'hooning' around in the wet ground. During practice times and games the saplings went missing. As the kids grew up they have told of how they were encouraged to pull out and throw around the saplings so that they would not grow.

The scrubs that remain are next to the Hazelood Small Bore Rifle Club, One behind the Hazelwood South Hall and a small patch near the entrance dirt road that leads into the Soccer Club.

Even the six Calistamon trees that lined the front of the Hazelwood Reserve nearest the Tramway Arterial Road went missing.