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Parks & Horticultural Service
The City of Whitehorse has 550 hectares of open space, including parks, gardens, remnant bushland, recreation reserves and trails, most of which provides important habitat for local flora and fauna. The municipality is also known for its distinctive tree-lined streets that contribute to the amenity of the area.
The ParksWide team maintains and improves these extensive park and horticultural assets in close collaboration with the community, particularly Parkland Advisory Committees. Major activities undertaken include maintenance and enhancement of remnant bushland reserves, management and maintenance of street and park trees, general parks and gardens maintenance and horticultural services.
ParksWide also manages Council’s nursery, maintains and manages Council’s sportsfields and maintains playgrounds and other open space infrastructure.
ParksWide consists of five teams. See below for a list of each team's responsibilities.
Asset Management Team
- Maintenance of irrigation system for garden beds, lawn areas and sportsgrounds
- Coordinating of contractors responsible for graffiti removal from park assets
- Coordinating of contractors responsible for boundary fence erection in parks
- Coordinate temporary advertising signage in the municipality
Horticultural Services and Nursery Team
- Implementation and maintenance of all floral annual and perennial displays
- Liaise with committees and community groups
- Provide high quality sites and horticultural displays for community festivals
- Provide horticultural advice and info to community
- Minor landscaping, design and co-ordination of parks and gardens planting
- Production of local indigenous, native and exotic plants for use within the municipality's parks and gardens
- Maintain high profile gardens such as Box Hill Town Hall, Schwerkolt Cottage and Whitehorse Civic Centre
- Assisting community nurseries
- Plant donations to local community groups
Sportsfield Team
- Maintenance of sportsfields
- Supervision of sportsfield capital projects
- Liaise with the Arts and Recreation Department and sporting groups
- Specialised turf maintenance programs i.e. aeration, topdressing, seeding, renovations, repairs and fertilising
- Management and maintenance of turf-wickets
- Design, installation and maintenance of sportsfield infrastructure including irrigation systems, drainage, fencing, wickets and oval construction
- Turf pest and disease control
Open Spaces Team
- Management and maintenance of more than 450 sites of public open space
- Community liaison with Open Space Advisory Committees
- Maintenance of 43 schools, child-care and community facilities
- All aspects of open space management and maintenance
- Broad acre mowing
- Streetscapes and traffic management devices
- Shopping centres
- Handling park access permits
- Responsibility for ParksWide involvement in the depot including soil yard
Arbor Team
- Prune street trees on a two-year programmed cycle using contractors
- Attend to customer requests for pruning in streets and parks using in-house crew
- Pruning and removal of hazard trees in bushland areas using contractors
- Maintenance pruning of trees in parks
- Purchase and planting of new street trees using contractors
- Assessment of planning related issues such as new crossovers and their effect on street trees
- Reports and assessments on all trees on Council property