David Hare-Scott wrote:

....snip.....

I will attempt to get material that was drawn from the
district or nearby if I can.

I am not sure I really understand your question here in relation to the
above sentence. If you want to ensure you are getting local providence,
then either you do your own seed collecting and raise your own tube
stock, or you pay someone else to do it. It might be more feasible for
you to collect the seed from local stuff and send it off to be returned
as seed stock from a professional seed stock propagator. It really
sounds to me that you are not looking at local providence, but species
that occur locally (from any providence).


...snip....

If I start my own seeds and plant out the seedlings it is likely to be
cheaper as tubes are about $1.50 each in bulk and seeds are about $10 to
$25 per 25gms which is several hundred to many thousand seeds depending
on species. If I can get sufficient viable seedlings starting from seed
this approach looks like saving a couple of thousand dollars which could
be put to good use!

Umm, how much do you value your time? Do you regularly raise seed stock?
If not, then I would suggest it will cost you more to raise your own
seed stock.


Using tube stock will give me a head start in time but how much time?
In other words how old are good tube seedlings that are not rootbound?
Time is an issue to some extent as I need to get up some wind breaks and
nurse species ASAP

Why not consider doing it in stages over time, unless you really are
doing it in a big way and hiring big machinery. This would fit in with
raising your own and make it more fun. You see a local species that you
like, collect seed, raise your seedlings, plant out and repeat. Any
surplus seed you collect, you can also broadcast in situ, and see if it
comes up by itself.

This has the advantage that you don't suddenly invest in a large amount
of one species that all die because this year is dry, or has big winds.
This is the advantage of local providence - you know it has been
selected for your area.

My background is more DIY from collecting local seeds and raising a few
plants for bush regeneration sites and the last year has seen a
significant number of plants in our mass plantings from the last five
years die off from drought. So can you also ensure that they are going
to get adeaquate watering to allow them to survive. (thinking of all
those road side plantings that never go anywhere).


--
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