I could not ignore the infestation of palm grass growing on the south bank at the bottom of first fall. It has been getting steadily stronger for the last 12 months so that became my starting point this morning. I forgot to grab a photo so that will have to come later…
Fred and Sandra were on site this morning and worked like a powerhouse to clear a substantial amount of lantana and privet along the creek towards the rear of the reserve.
Hard at workJob well done
I kept on working in the same fashion as the last few working bees. With the privet being close to the creek’s edge, it is important to preserve the root system to avoid erosion. Hence I used the cut and paint method on trees close to the creek.
Here’s me in front of a section I was working on…
With a little more access to the creek, it was a little faster to get the plants watered. It is not normally required to water plants in bush regeneration but the weather is notably dry at present. I will keep giving them some water until I am sure they have established themselves.
After our working bee, we were just having a cup of tea when we saw this guy:
Pacific baza
We don’t see these guys as often as some of the other birds so it is always interesting to see them.
New years Eve. What a great day to make a little more progress on the target area. I have been feeling the need to give the plantings some water but it has been quite the struggle to get down the creek to gather some water and then back to the plants. So, to make the process easier, I intended to remove the lantana and privet to allow a shorter path to the creek.
It didn’t work so well. Numerous native vines had wrapped around the privet to the extent that it was far more difficult than normal and even after removing the privet, the vines still make the trip to the creek quick tricky. Still, it was an improvement and the plants watering was a lot quicker this time.
This was my progress for the day.
It is not possible to see the creek but it is now possible to reach the creek through that vegetation.
A very productive working bee. First step was to get some more plants into the ground. I put the lomandras in the top level after pushing back the fishbone fern. A Hibbertia scandens (Guinea Flower) went beside the creek, just before fern wall. I neglected to take photos but all the planted plants are looking healthy for now.
I had barely taken a step on the track down to site A when I was drawn to a very loud but unseen bird in the fishbone fern. I didn’t recognise what type of bird it was but it was going crazy which made me curious enough to stop and see what it was concerned about. Only because I had stopped, I saw this guy:
A small snake
A snake on the track. Not sure what type it was but I’m glad I saw it before I was on top of it. It didn’t move despite me trying to make some extra noise, stomping on the ground etc. However, I threw a stick nearby and it moved into the ferns then. I saw it go but I still didn’t want to walk on the track. I made a large detour via the alternative track. Spotting a snake is a first for me at Dick’s creek.
I notice this shrub each time I walk near site A and a few have popped up elsewhere as well.
I finally asked for identification via the facebook group ‘NSW plant identification’. Best guess appears to be: Claoxylon australe (Brittlewood)
It’s not part of the Hunter Valley Moist Forest profile but it is endemic to the East coast of Australia so it gets to stay.
I got back to the target site where I have been working for the past few weeks. It was sad to see the bower bird’s bower had been flattened.
Flattened bower bird bower
I am not sure if that is their normal behaviour or if something interrupted them but I have been seeing the female bower bird a lot lately so I think they have moved onto raising some young.
It has been quite dry and warm for the past few weeks. It made it easy to spot any lantana that was missed previously.
Lantana with some remaining roots can be spotted easily via the sprouting leaves.
On the down side, the dry soil does make it a bit harder to pull out plants with the roots attached.
I started from where I left off last week…
Before…
I believe the clump of trees & shrubs is on the mound which I remember from years ago when it was just a few instances of false bracken fern battling against the lantana. The false bracken fern is still there but so is a lot of other plants… Privet (of course), lantana still, tobacco trees, poison peach, bleeding hearts, sandpaper figs, lilly pilly, a tree fern and some others I am less sure of. I freed up most of the natives so it should all be heading in the right direction once again.
After…
A lot of the plants lean on each other and so take a while to straighten up after the exotic species are removed. You can see that here with the bleeding hearts and the false bracken fern.
With the exotic species gone, the remaining natives are going to be getting a lot more sun. I am hoping for some rain to help them transition.
There is still much more to be done so it will be a similar working bee next week.
Another productive working bee today. I was originally thinking of removing the lantana in a linear fashion but I noticed the bower bird fly off when I arrived at the site so I decided to keep a distance from it’s bower (the structure on the ground). Strangely, it was a female that flew off while I would of expected it to be a male considering it has no notable decorations around the bower. After googling, I have now discovered that the bower birds bower is not a nest like I thought it was. Shows how much I know!
I had barely started when I noticed this tree poking out from the lantana along the creek:
A Bolwarra tree (Eupomatia Laurina) I believe…
A good place to start. If I see a native being crowded out, it makes sense to free it up. Upon clearing the lantana away from this Bolwarra tree I found multiple other natives in the same spot. It’s hard to spot but the after photo shows bleeding hearts and sandpaper figs amongst others…
Bolwarra tree without lantana draped over it.
Unfortunately, the privet behind the Bolwarra tree was too big to deal with today. Those have been put on the to-do list.
With that done, I returned my attention to the edge of the clearing we made last week. It was not like I expected it. There was numerous natives hidden underneath the lantana. It was great to see but it did make progress a fair bit slower. Amongst the usual natives of bleeding heart and sandpaper figs was some poison peach, lilly pilly and also what I believe is murrogun, even though I have never had it definitely identified. It is well worth removing the lantana but it also makes it clear that this area needs more attention fairly urgently to ensure the natives survive.
Results from my efforts:
Lantana free
It doesn’t look like much but the rafts of lantana show I was doing something…
There is a lot more to do. I believe I will be doing similar work for at least a month or so…
A very productive working bee today. It felt like I got three times as much done than usual…. maybe because there were three times more people than usual?
Fred and Sandra Anderson joined the group on Sunday for a spot of lantana bashing. I had a clear idea of the area I wanted to work on but we had to get there first. So the direct track down to site A got a little work:
A track through the fishbone fern down to Site A.
There are some used railway ties near this location. If I can cut them down to size somewhat, I might be able to make decent stairs over the slippery parts.
We made our way down the cleared lane-way at the rear of the reserve to get to the large patch of lantana between the ol’ fallen fig tree and the creek. Before we reach this location, we need to penetrate the wall of privet that lines the lane-way.
A small hole in the privet wall to access the field of lantana
At this location, there is at least 100m2 of this:
Lantana living its life to its best
I had previously cleared most of this location but then left it alone for far too long. While it is once again dominating the scene, it still has not gotten to the point it was at before I first cleared it. It’s younger and easier to pull up. Still a job though…
Here and there were a few plants that had obviously taken root when the lantana was previously pushed back. For example, this tree fern:
Tree fern found underneath the lantana
Hopefully the shock of all the extra light won’t be too much for it.
Another interesting find was this bower bird nest:
Bower bird nest
I had only cleared this area a few weeks back so I know it is new but no obvious decorations yet. I hope we did not disturb it too much…
After a few hours, I believe we had cleared a solid third of the field of lantana.
Results of the day
We left it at that but with Saturday’s weather forecast looking good, I should be able to push on further at this location on the next working bee.
I was in the mood to tackle some lantana today but as always, priorities changed. As I walked past ‘site A’ I was disturbed by the density of privet. Lantana contributes but it is the privet that has taken hold at this location. I had previously cleared this area and for this reason, there is numerous young natives popping up. Sandpaper fig, bleeding heart, pittosporum and others are there but their life is hard when they are amongst this:
Privet taking over…
So I started removing the privet with the weed puller which I had luckily brought with me. While the privet is a big problem, I found it easier to deal with than in the past because most of it was still young and had not fully established itself. Another twelve months and it will be notably harder, I believe.
This is the first patch I cleared:
The raft grew quickly
After lunch I moved along the track and tackled any privet I noticed. I finally got to the bank on the south side of Second fall… it was mostly just small privet.
Most of the privet gone but there is still a large privet tree which requires some climbing to get to
Past ‘Site A’, I found some natives amongst the fishbone fern so it was worth while to deal with that directly.
Young elderberry panax and pittosporum now free from fishbone fern
I decided it would be more efficient to move downhill and clear the privet from underneath. However, I found the ol’ fallen sandpaper fig to still be being harassed by privet and lantana so I spent the rest of the day at that spot. There is three or four poison peach trees in that location as well so I did my best to help those out.
After clearing privet and lantana from the sandpaper fig and the peach trees.
One of the poison peach trees is a good five meters tall now.
There is still more to do for the ol’ fallen sandpaper tree. I think I will start here next week.
A quick session today as other commitments call. My focus is once again to make some more usable tracks. My intention is to get things to the point where I can walk to most areas throughout the reserve without have to hack or climb my way there.
Just like the last few weeks, my first step is to clear the track besides the monstera on the upper level. From the photo, it still looks unusable, but after personally walking this section, it is a great track with a relatively gentle walkable slope and handholds where necessary. I suspect it was previously used as a track until the monstera grew over it.
After this section is a bit of a track down to the Gahnia…
I hummed and hawed at this point though as I don’t want to encourage people to trample the Gahnia at the bottom. I have an alternative in mind so I have left this for now. It was interesting to find a swamp lilly and observe the native olive (I believe…) which the currawong has been loving so much.
Swamp lilly was struggling against the fishbone fern so is quite deformed
This native olive is slowly getting bigger over the years
My intention is to let the track cross the creek before the Gahnia stretch and then go along the south bank to second fall before crossing back over to the north side.
I still had some privet left to clear to allow this to happen.
I was happy to see the regrowth going well on the south side at Second fall. There is quite a few small native trees that I am happy to see. Elderberry panax, Blueberry ash, Sweet laurel, Hairy clerodendrum, Cheese tree and native olive off the top of my head. You can see a few of these in this photo:
Some young blueberry ash and Elderberry Panax have popped up
On the northern side of second fall, things are also going well. It looks messy but most of the competing species are meant to be there with the exception of the fishbone fern. I have previously pruned back the fishbone fern rather than fully remove it as it is a precarious location and I have concerns about erosion. I believe it was the way to go but of course, it will always be there until I treat it more fully. That is hard as the location is quite tricky to access.
It looks messy but it is going in the right direction
Looking up from Second fall to First fall, the scenery is quite delightful. I have a personal goal that I will one day be able to take this photo without thinking about the weeds that need to be removed.
At present, the swedish ivy, fishbone fern and palm grass stop me from fully appreciating this scene.
In previous years I had cleared a track from Site A to Second fall. Even though it has largely been reclaimed, I can still see the results from the progress that was made as trees, ferns and some grasses popped up wherever I cleared and are still going strong.
It’s as clear as mud but in this photo I can see numerous native species that have also started growing since it was previously cleared.
Numerous native species in this shot have only appeared in the last few years
I got to work with the time I had left and achieved what I was hoping for. A clear track upto the turn going to Site A. This will be a good starting place to work from.
Next Saturday, weather permitting, I will continue to push on with the tracks so I can access all areas that need to be worked on.
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.
Young pittosporum at the front of the reserve
This stand of soft water ferns on the cliff behind fern wall is going strong…
A new healthy stand of soft water ferns
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.
Dianella sp. standing their ground against a sea of fishbone fern
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…
Bleeding heart forest is no more
In conclusion, a productive working bee with some pleasant discoveries.
Between first and second falls, across from fern wall is a section covered in saw sedge (Gahnia sp. ).
Stand of saw sedge on north bank between first and second falls
I have been very happy with this section as I had previously thinned out the fishbone fern in the past and the sedge has gone strong since. Still, even from a distance I noticed the fishbone fern making a comeback and on closer inspection it was worse than I thought. The mature sedge is doing well but the fishbone fern was clearly dense enough to hinder new growth.
Fishbone fern is easy to remove but in this case I had to move relatively slowly as to not damage the sedge in the process. It ended up taking a few hours but I feel the result was worth it.
I was also able to maneuver the weed puller between the sedge to allow removal of a small privet tree which was growing from a stump.
Same area minus a bunch of fishbone fern
It is going to be interesting to watch this area over the next few months. Hopefully the sedge will beat the fishbone fern into those spots that are now free.
Another working bee completed last Saturday. I had mist flower going strong on the South bank after first falls. It is very easy to spot when it is flowering and unfortunately, it has been prolific.
Disappointingly, by the time I got to the area, I could see a lot of the flowers had gone to seed. Basically it means I will be faced with the same issue next year. Because mist flower tends to break off easily, it can be difficult to get enough of the plant to ensure it won’t grow back. I believe I got most of it at ground level but I have the problem of accessibility with the plants at the top of the cliff. The edge of the cliff is sloped at the top so it becomes risky trying to reach it from the top but the cliff is a bit too high to easily reach from the bottom. I have left the plants on the cliff for a time when I have some equipment to help reach that section.
In the same area I also removed the croften weed, fishbone fern, palm grass and any other unwanted species in the area. I also tried to poison the privet tree that is growing strong at that spot. I am writing this a week after the working bee and I don’t see any effects on the tree so I am beginning to think I went to easy on it.
It was disappointing to leave so much mist flower behind but it won’t be forgotten. It’s time is limited.
As a whole, this area is not doing too badly. Most of the ground is covered in native ferns and a number of trees have sprung up naturally and are going strong. There Bleeding hearts, sandpaper figs, and a red cedar all going strong.
Another positive note, the plants growing on the cliff face to the side of first falls is currently looking great.
Cliff face at first fall
There are a few sandpaper figs growing from the cliff face as well as a tree fern on an abundance of maiden hair fern. It all looks quite healthy at present.
