Project History

Rosary School Oval

The Rosary Primary School was built in 1963 with an area set aside for a school oval. Sister Louise Welbourne, the Principal at the time, comments on the challenge to establish and maintain a grassy playing surface:

“The agony extended to a playground that lacked any vegetation and was a mud field after the lightest of rainfalls.

“In due time, the trees, grass and gardens were planted and the children, armed with ice-cream containers of water, faithfully but not always as the 'coalition of the willing', joined the morning ritual of improving the oval and its environment.”

In desperation for some sort of irrigation system, a Quick Coupler Irrigation System was installed in the early 70's to water the oval. Over time, this system deteriorated to a stage where it was extremely inefficient and eventually inoperable.

A team of parents, headed up by Brian Ashcroft, resurrected the majority of the system in 1988 and for a few years the system was used quite successfully. Over the past 15 years the system and the playing surface has deteriorated to a point of disrepair. Until Grass Roots, no water had been applied to the oval for many years as a result of the drought, leaving the facility as a wasteland.

Grass Roots

The project was conceived in 2004 when Canberra, along with the rest of Australia, was in the midst of the worst drought in its history. The aim was to develop best practice watering regimes for turf and in particular, large open spaces such as playing fields and other public areas, traditionally Canberra's largest users of water.

In order to achieve this goal ACTEW, in partnership with irrigation experts, devised a research program that would see a local school oval transformed into a complex irrigation and turf-monitoring site.

Following the easing of the drought, ground preparation for the project site began in October 2005 with the 'Turning of the Sod', an event that marked the beginning of project site construction.

In November work began on the installation of the irrigation systems and on turf establishment. Five varieties of turf were planted, each section of turf combined with both sprinkler and subsurface irrigation systems.

Despite challenging conditions given some extreme temperatures and wind resulting in high evaporation over the summer months, all turf varieties were successfully established enabling research to commence.

Ground preparation	Irrigation installation
Turf spraying

Grass Roots was successfully launched by Chief Minister Jon Stanhope in February 2006 at a community event held at the Rosary School Oval. This event demonstrated the strong community foundation upon which the project is built.

Chief Minister Jon Stanhope launches Grass Roots

Student presentations

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