Worn Gundidj Indigenous nursery in full bloom

Nursery manager Peter Lyles said the resurrection of the defunct business had been an "amazing achievement" from a team that relied almost entirely on volunteers and young trainees.

He spoke at the site of their latest project - planting a large Indigenous garden at the revamped South West TAFE building on Merri Street - marvelling at the way the business had bloomed.

"We've got some big contracts with the Glenelg and Corangamite catchment management authorities, planting a big garden in Bridgewater Bay over past Portland, working with lots of schools and councils too," Mr Lyles said.

"We've only been producing plants for about 18 months, so it's a huge amount to have done in that time."

He said every plant for the South West TAFE garden had been harvested from the Warrnambool dunes and nurtured in the nursery hothouse.

"We don't usually do planting projects like this, we're not a landscape gardening outfit, but the guys spend five days a week in the hothouses and never see the results of their work," Mr Lyles said.

The nursery's volunteers and trainees are all young people who have faced various forms of adversity and are trying to get their lives back on track.

"For some of these guys who have never been out of Warrnambool and have had tough lives it gives them such a sense of accomplishment," he said.

"That's why we did this, it's about giving them that feeling."

Mr Lyles said the nursery had also been working closely with the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority to repair riverside vegetation around the waterways of the Curdies Catchment following major blue green algae outbreaks earlier in the year.