Our History

The Bassendean Preservation Group Inc (BPG) was formed in 1985 by concerned community members. They organised to oppose and ultimately defeat an inappropriate Mandurah-style canal development proposal for Ashfield Flats.

In 1986, BPG started revegetating this former dairy’s degraded paddocks with purchased native seedlings in hopes of discouraging future such attempts. This work was undertaken with the advice and support of Dept of Planning Land and Heritage (DPLH), Dept of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), and the Town of Bassendean (TofB) Environmental Officers.

The revegetation program led to native seedling propagation, with individual members initially hosting a nursery bench or two in their backyards.  However, the scale of the program and the need to comply with emerging industry standard nursery hygiene practices meant that BPG soon outgrew these informal arrangements. Funded by a Lotterywest Grant received in August 2011, BPG consolidated their operations at a disused DPLH compound at Black Swan Island, Ascot. On 4 February 2012 we commissioned the BPG GroCentre Native Nursery and held our first potting morning.

 A much needed second sea container for storing propagation equipment was added in November 2017 and a dedicated breakroom donga for volunteers in June 2019.  Our next major project is adding additional propagation benches to double our current capacity of 4,050 seedlings.

To date, BPG volunteers have grown more than 25,000 locally appropriate native seedlings at the GroCentre for planting out in Bassendean and surrounding Parks and Reserves.  We continue to plant-out the majority of the native seedlings we grow, and are supplying an increasing number annually to like-minded groups and individuals.

You can see our work at various locations around Bassendean, including:

  •  Ashfield Flats - including at the end of Whitfield St; fenced areas along the foreshore, especially near the wooden bridge; and the slope near the Lookout.

  • Pickering Park

  • Surrey St drain

  • Bindaring Park

  • We have also previously planted at Broadway Arboretum and Jubilee Reserve