On the fringes of the Mount Alexander Shire, Frances Cincotta has spent decades gathering seed and cutting material from remnant bushland to propagate almost 200 species of local provenance — plants suited to the region's punishing dry summers and sharp frosty winters. This is a working nursery rather than a retail spectacle: some 25,000 plants raised on site each year, tubed and hardened outdoors before sale, mostly destined for Landcare projects, farm revegetation and habitat restoration across the shire. Display gardens wrap around Frances' home and nursery, offering a rare chance to see how these same species behave once established in a garden setting rather than a punnet. Alongside the strictly local-provenance stock, she also grows a range of non-local natives — emu bushes among them — available to any gardener regardless of postcode, while the indigenous plants are reserved for local revegetation. It's a nursery built on close, patient knowledge of place: Frances is an active Landcare contributor and bushwalk guide, and that grounding in the district's ecology shows in the range on offer. Open by appointment through the planting months of April to November, before closing over summer while she returns to seed collecting and propagation for the next season.