Concern has been expressed by some members about the planting of lomandra on creek banks at Cooroy Golf Club.
In Queensland, no landholder owns creeks, the water in the creeks nor creek banks. The Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy (DNR for short) has oversight of creeks. Cooroy Golf Club (CGC) has two creeks that link with Lake MacDonald. The only fairways owned by CGC next to these creeks are the 7th and 15th.
About mid – 2018, two engineers from DNR Gympie were invited to CGC to speak with Greens staff and some members of the Greens Committee. The engineers were very helpful, but they told us, in no uncertain terms, what we can and can’t do about water storage and creek banks. At the time our greens staff were wiper-snipping weeds near and on creek banks, and this was taking up a lot of their time. We told the engineers that we planned to contact Noosa Landcare to get their advice about our management of creek banks, and they were happy for us to do so. lt was timely to do this, because SEQ Water had allocated funding for a program to help clean up Lake MacDonald.
Environmental issues of relevance to CGC were the off-site removal of sediment, nutrients and weeds especially seed from weeds.
Noosa Landcare have a very good reputation, and they were able to tap into the SEQ funding to the tune of $15,000, which included the supply of plants, most of the planting, watering after planting and on-going maintenance. The cost to CGC will be nil and our in- kind contribution is volunteer work, and rocks donated by lan Lumsden for a drain that links into one of the creeks. They will be planting Lomandra Hystrix one of three varieties native to the Sunshine Coast and one of two varieties available for purchase through Landcare.
Other considerations:
- Lomandra will not be planted on fairways. It will only be planted on creek banks, which in many areas will be well inside water hazards. They will not be planted around lakes.
- To source other native ground-covers as suggested, would be a cost and labour constraint that would not be contemplated by CGC committee. Compared to Lomandra, they would be shallow rooting and would have less soil binding ability, nor would they be likely to survive serious flooding.
- Lomandra are very common on golf courses on the Sunshine Coast that have big memberships and visitor participation. They are everywhere at Maroochy River, in low lying areas, around tees, lakes as they are at Pelican Waters where they are between bunkers on some holes, around trees being common. Mt Coolum is also a very popular course as is Noosa, and both have very significant populations of Lomandra around tees, trees and in low lying areas. Obviously golf architects and course superintendents consider them desirable, as they provide low maintenance areas throughout a golf course.
