100 Ways to Celebrate National Wattle Day

STARTERS

1. Ask your local parliamentarian to promote the celebration of Australia’s National Wattle Day (1 September)
2. Contact your local council to ask if they can light up your local landmarks in green and yellow for the evening of 1 September
3. Ask your council to celebrate the National Wattle Day
4. Ask your council to highlight your local wattle for National Wattle Day
5. Decorate local statues and monuments with wattle
6. 

Above: Leven River Bridge Ulverstone Tasmania 

Below: Matagarup Bridge courtesy of Mainroads WA

WATTLE WOOD 

1. Display your wattle wood artworks. They may be made from Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) or Mulga (Acacia aneura)
2. Dust and polish your Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) furniture

GROW YOUR OWN

1. Collect wattle seed for sowing & planting

COOK

1. Cook with wattle seed
2. Create a wattle design on your cupcakes

EAT

1. wattle seed chocolate
2. wattle seed ice cream
3. wattle seed biscuits
4. wattle seed macarons
5. savoury dishes made with wattle seed

VISIT

1. Visit spring festivals (Dalwallinu WA), Hurstbridge (Melbourne Vic.), Cootamundra NSW & Mt Morgan Qld) and markets (Old Bus Depot Markets, Kingston Canberra) with a wattle theme
2. Visit your local nursery
3. Visit your State Forest or National Park

AT SCHOOL 

1. Encourage your local primary school to have a special assembly for National Wattle Day
2. Do some wattle craft with the kids

DECORATE

1. A cake with a wattle-theme for morning or afternoon tea with friends and family
2. Cupcakes with green and or yellow icing
3. Your classroom with flowering wattle
4. Your dog’s collar with yellow and green ribbons or fresh wattle when you go for a walk
5. Your lunch and dinner tables with yellow napkins and vases of fresh or artificial wattle
6. Your home with wattle-themed cushions
7. Decorate with wattle-themed cushions
8. Your shop window with wattle
9. Your home with wattle in vases
10. 

FIND

1. Find a bird’s nest in a wattle
2. Find early photos of people celebrating wattle days around Australia from 1910 onwards
3. Find out how Australian wattles are used around the world today – for land revegetation and for their wood, bark, flowers and seed
4. Find out how bees use wattle pollen to feed their brood back in the hive
5. Find out how long wattles can live
6. Find out the name of the tallest wattle
7. Find out the names of the different wattles on each of Australia’s five banknotes
8. Find out the names of wattles that have white, mauve, or red blossoms
9. Find out the year that wattle was first included on Australia’s Commonwealth Coat of Arms
10. Find out which medals for Australian honours include wattle in their design
11. Find out which wattles have foliage you can use to wash your hands – nature’s bush soap.
12. Find out why wattles are called legumes and how they return nitrogen to the soil
13. Find sporting clubs that include wattle in the design of their logos
14. Find wattle songs performed by Australian artists
15. Find which Australian military badges include wattle in their design

COLLECT

1. Collect coins with wattle on them

GO

1. Go for a drive to find the best flowering wattle
2. Go for a walk to enjoy wattles in flower around your garden, suburb, nearby bush, arboretum, or botanic garden
3. Get out into nature and draw the wattles in your area
4. Go to a wattle- themed festival
5. Go to a wattle-themed market
6. Greet friends and family with ‘Happy Wattle Day’
7. Hold your own Collectors Show to display and talk about anything that uses wattle as a design or is made from wattle.
   
8. Invite a speaker about some aspect of wattle around 1 September (history, art, botany, landscape regeneration, habitat creation, soil improvement, wood turning & furniture, ecology, human food) to your local club
9. Go to the beach and a wattle in the sand

CONNECT

1. Invite your family and friends to a barbecue
2. Plan a bush tucker lunch for your friends and family
3. Involve your neighbours in community planting in your neighbourhood
4. Create a high tea with wattle-themed decorations for your friends
   
5. Invite your friends, family and neighbours to a street party
6. Enjoy a special lunch with the ones you love
7. Picnic with your family and friends
8. Raise funds for a community cause through a special wattle day dinner
   
9. Put on an Australian play or poetry reading
10. Paint a wattle shrub or tree
11. Paint an old shirt the green and gold of the wattle and wear it on National Wattle Day
12. Paint your nails yellow and green
13. Photograph a bee or other insect on wattle blossoms
14. Photograph birds in wattle trees
15. Photograph the best flowering wattles that you can find
16. Photograph your dog against flowering wattle
17. Pick wattle for a vase to decorate your home

MAKE

1. Make a wreath of wattle for your front door
2. Make some wattle pom poms using yellow yarn
3. Make wattle-themed handicrafts for your local handmade market
4. Make your own National Wattle Day badge
5. Make your own wattle perfume from the wattle’s floral oils
6. Finger paint wattles in green and yellow
7. Make a wattle book mark

PLANT

1. Plant a wattle in your garden or wattles in a grove or revegetate a landscape
2. Plant a wattle to improve the nitrogen in the soil
3. Plant wattle trees and shrubs around your school grounds every year
4. Plant wattles to create a low-allergy garden (because they are insect-pollinated and not wind-pollinated)

POST

1. Post a photo of your favourite wattle on your social media
2. Post about what you did to celebrate wattle day when you were at primary school
3. Pre-treat & sow wattle seed to grow new plants for planting next Autumn
4. Prune and fertilise the wattles in your garden
5. Read a story about wattle
6. Read May Gibb’s Wattle baby stories to your children and grandchildren
7. Scent your home with fresh wattle in a vase
8. Send a card with wattle on it to a friend to wish them ‘Happy Wattle Day’
9. Showcase your collection of wattle memorabilia in your home or at a community meeting
10. Show-off your wattle tattoo
11. Sing a wattle song
12. Subscribe to a wattle interest group online
13. Suggest a wattle-themed meeting to your local community club (Probus, Rotary, View, Zonta etc.)
14. Use dry wattle wood for your barbecue
15. Use wattle wood utensils, kitchenware, chopping boards, trays to prepare and serve on National Wattle Day
16. Use wattle-decorated cups and saucers and plates for the day

WEAR

1. Wear a sprig of wattle in your hair
2. Wear a sprig of wattle in your hat
3. Wear a sprig of wattle on your lapel
4. Wear a wattle badge
5. Wear a wattle brooch
6. Wear a wattle shirt
7. Wear a wattle-designed or yellow scarf
8. Wear Australia’s national colours of green & gold
9. Wear green and yellow earrings
10. Wear socks with a wattle design or colours
11. Wear wattle earrings
12. Wear yellow or green ribbons in your hair
13. Wear yellow or green nail polish
14. Wish your friends and family happy a Happy Wattle Day via your social media

Edwin Ride wears wattle with style

JOIN

1. Join the movement to celebrate National Wattle Day at https://wattleday.asn.au/join-us/
2. Join a tour to learn about indigenous uses of wattle
3. Join a wattle walk in your local botanic garden
4. Join in some folk dancing

Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha Wattle walk

WRITE

1. A Letter to The Editor of your local newspaper about what is happening for National Wattle Day in your community
2. A story or poem on what you think National Wattle Day is or what the day means to you
3. A wattle-themed quiz
4. An article about National Wattle Day for your local community newspaper

LEARN

1. About the wattles in your local area from others or a book or the internet
2. A wattle poem
3. The names of the wattles in your area that herald the coming of spring
4. Listen to a talk about wattles
5. Listen to a wattle song

LISTEN

1. To a talk about wattles
2. To a wattle song
3. To the sound of bees humming in the wattles