Grow Agri Pty Ltd – Andy Edwards and Gus Gilkeson are the owners of Melaleuca, a wildlife sanctuary situated in Putty, New South Wales. The property is a protected wilderness area located in the heart of the Hunter Range. Melaleuca sits within the Wollemi IBRA Sub-region of the Sydney Basin Bioregion, with Wollemi Creek forming its natural boundary. Positioned at the gateway to Wollemi National Park, the reserve forms part of a critical wilderness corridor. Through extensive ecological surveys, scientists have confirmed ten threatened species that depend on this land. The property is being established as a Biodiversity Stewardship Site under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act, creating a protected buffer zone for the Greater Wollemi Wilderness for generations to come. The owners offer ecology students the ability to utilise the property for studies by a mutual agreement and invite government departments, National Parks staff, environmental students and other related fields to visit and conduct appropriate studies.
Melaleuca spans 506 hectares across wet and dry sclerophyll forests and is home to federally threatened flora species such as Endangered hairy geebung (Persoonia hirsuta) and the Vulnerable brown pomederris (Pomaderris brunnea).
An extensive and growing number of wildlife is found at Melaleuca, including federally threatned fauna species such as the Endangered koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) and large-eared pied bats (Chalinolobus dwyeri), and the Vulnerable brush-tailed rock-wallabies (Petrogale penicillata) and NSW state threatened species such as the Vulnerable Eastern pygmy-possums (Cercartetus nanus), sooty owls (Tyto tenebricosa), red-crowned toadlets (Pseudophryne australis), Southern myotis (Myotis macropus), barking owls (Ninox connivens) as well as sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps) and superb lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae).
