Working Bee – 18.04.2021

It was a late start for Sunday’s working bee but it still turned out to be a productive day.

Mist flower is popping up again in numbers. Grrrr. I am not sure if that one will ever completely disappear.  It seems fairly well established in the seedbank. Some of the plants grow in very difficult to access locations so they do not get removed as quickly as I would prefer.

One win I noticed on the weekend is the false bracken fern on the East bank after first fall. I had noticed a few struggling bracken ferns amongst the fishbone fern about twelve months ago. I cleared around those and they expanded and I cleared around that and it has expanded again. It appears the false bracken fern is very capable at taking on the fishbone fern. when it gets a chance.

Another win was a dead camphor laurel tree which the green team had dealt with in their last visit. A bunch of privet was also killed via glyphosate. I typically avoid using herbicides but then, I tend to end up with situations as seen at ‘Glen’s alley’ which has a troubling number of privet saplings and trees springing up.

Many privet saplings can be seen in the foreground
Cabbage tree palm and poison peach seen here will be crowded out by next year if privet is not held in check
In the adjacent areas, not yet cleared, privet and lantana dominate.

My original intention was to start on the area in the photo above but instead, I learned a large, dead, rotting tree had finally fallen. I had noticed it a long time ago and was amazed it was still standing given the amount of rot at the base. Finally it has come down.

Looking at the base of the tree, it boggles the mind how it was standing at all.
There was a lot of burnt pieces lying around. Hopefully from a fire long ago and not from someone doing anything silly.
It was once a very large tree. A substantial portion of it landed on the other side of the creek. Very lucky that it did not take out anything notable.

 

Rather than let the lantana close in on the vacated space, I thought I would open up the area for the nearby sandpaper fig trees which are sure to appreciate the extra light.

The privet tree holding my bag was previously scaffolding for lantana. I will still need to remove more from that tree.
Sandpaper fig on the left should now get much more light. I will be surprised if I don’t see some natives popping up here within the next 12 months.
This lantana pile looks larger than it is. I use the sea of lantana to keep the cleared lantana off the ground.

I have a long list of areas that need attention so I will need to get to work a bit earlier next week. That privet beckons me…

One thought on “Working Bee – 18.04.2021”

  1. Hello there 🙂
    My property was cleared in 1980 and fishbone fern has established itself all too well. To think that I used to pay good money for fishbone ferns as indoor plants!
    Soft Bracken Fern is indigenous to my area and part of my Regional Ecological system so all together a good thing here. As I’m de-weeding, I’m beginning to see it pop up.
    I am really happy to find your comment about your experience in the Soft Bracken taking over the Fishbone given a chance. Very helpful in understanding what may happen and an incentive to replace one with the other. Thankyou

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *