Another late afternoon working bee done and dusted.
Privet has been goading me for a few weeks now. There have been many privet trees that I can spot from the front of the reserve.
In the past I had been relying on manual removal or cutting trees to their base and then removing any regrowth that appeared over time. This, of course, relies on me being on site regularly to ‘tend’ to the regrowth. However, after seeing the amount of regrowth after a quite substantial leave of absence, I have begun to be more willing to use poison. I have been convinced there is no long term impacts from glyphosate and it either kills the plant or greatly hinders their growth.
This was my approach on Saturday. I cut the trees to their base and then applied glyphosate. I will be interested to see the results over the next few weeks or months.
There is still a lot more to do of the same type of work. I was able to get to most privet trees in the upper two levels but there are many more at the lower level. I will be trying to get to them this weekend as they are currently so easy to spot while they are flowering.
A few wins I noticed…
This young pittosporum was hiding behind a small but mature privet tree. I suspect it will take off now that it will be getting more sun. I have noticed that self seeded plants tend to do better than anything I plant. Case in point, the cheese trees in the background that I planted many years ago are still only a few metres tall.
This stand of ferns on the cliff behind fern wall is going strong…
On the path between 2nd fall and site A, I found these Dianella sp. going strong. These were much taller than I had seen previously. Between 1 and 2 meters tall.
In this area there was also a lot of young Sandpaper figs, some Clerodendrums and various other natives. Still, they are in the minority…
On the downside, site A, which I was beginning to call ‘bleeding heart forest’ is back to being called ‘site A’ now that the bleeding hearts have all disappeared. I have no idea what happened…
In conclusion, a productive working bee with some pleasant discoveries.