Healthy, Spiny-headed Mat-rush tube-stock ready to plant. Purchased from St Kilda Indigenous Nursery Cooperative, SKINC.

Tube stock is readily available through all indigenous nurseries, tubes are cheaper to purchase than larger potted plants.

Although tubes pots look small the plants grow rapidly once they are removed from the tubes and planted.

If your plants are small when purchased, this will be okay, just keep them for a while till they have grow larger then plant them out.

After bringing your plants home keep them in a reasonably shady area until you are ready to plant. Water regularly whilst in tubes. At least twice per day if the weather is hot.

Water or soak the tubes well before planting, you can stand the tube in a container of water and let them soak up the water. If your plant is hard to remove from the tube, carefully split open the tube then remove the plant. Gently tease out the roots before planting.

If the area you are going to plant into is mulched firstly clear away enough of the mulch to allow yourself to dig the planting hole comfortably without mixing the removed soil with the mulch. You can even add the removed soil into a bucket.

Dig your hole larger and deeper then the tube size. Add some soil back into the hole to get the top of the tube approximately flush with the ground level. Place the plant in the hole then back-fill firmly but carefully. The growing roots and water will infiltrate the surrounding soft soil & success should follow.

Finally make a shallow well around your plant, this will make sure your water flows towards the plant and not away from it. This is important in some of the hydrophobic sandy soils found across the Sandbelt region.

Gently firm the soil, and water well.

Once planted we recommend keeping all your new plants moist over their first spring and summer seasons until they are established. This will save plants, money & water in the long-run, not to mention time & effort.