tree fern – Dick's Creek Bush Regeneration

A solid morning of bush regeneration today.

I have multiple locations which require attention but I decided to try and stay focused on the areas where the lantana has sprung back. It requires some discipline to walk past areas that are in dire need but all in good time…

At the rear planting site, it looks good in general but it is surrounded by privet and lantana. You can see in the photo below, quite a few natives with only a few offending species that need to be removed (ie passionfruit in the foreground). I can see pittosporum, bleeding heart, poison peach and some of the natives we planted. So mostly good. I will try to move the mound at some point.

Just in front of this site though, was an infestation of privet and lantana. Actually, this is true in all directions but one step at a time…

I cleared the space upto the big fallen tree:

Cleared site between planting site and big fallen tree

This photo still looks chaotic but it is a big improvement. It takes a a while for the remaining plants to shine through and the uprooted plants to die off.

I think I will be focused on the area on the other side of the big fallen tree. I am yet to finish the map showing these landmarks I use.

I should be able to do most of this area:

Overgrown area between old fallen tree and the ‘pit’

I never really fully removed all lantana from this location and now it has come back to bite me. On the plus side, now there is natives growing in the area while in the past, there was nearly no native lower canopy and mid canopy species.

The mound made from today:

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:

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:

Hopefully the shock of all the extra light won’t be too much for it.

Another interesting find was this 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.

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.

Tag: tree fern

Working Bee – 22.02.2026

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