First Working Bee

Wet and windy with enthusiasm

Thanks to Maria, Jenny, Ken, Steve and Tony for braving the dodgy weather on Sunday to kick off working at our Wendon Way bushcare site. Also to Gayle and Phil who dropped by to show their support.

It was a great couple of hours working, getting to know each other, discussing ideas and making plans.

Activities

Our plan is to selectively weed to allow the native plants the opportunity to bounce back and regenerate. We have purposely chosen a project site that is not too heavily weed infested and on Sunday decided to target the removal of three weeds - Ochna serrulata (mickey mouse plant), Hypoestes phyllostachya (polka dot plant) and Ageratina riparia (mist flower).

As a mostly inexperienced group we are using iNaturalist , the Brisbane City Council Weed ID webpage and books to help us identify friend from foe. We are learning together!

L-R Ochna, Polka dot plant, Mistflower

We are fortunate to have been supplied with one of the key Bushcare tools, the tree popper, which is an ideal weapon to attack Ochna without poisoning. Ochna is one of the most difficult woody weeds to remove as these bushes commonly have extraordinarily deep tap roots out of proportion to the size of the bush and if any of the tap root is left behind it will regrow.

Certain weeds and seeds were removed and dumped offsite due to their ability to easily reproduce. Other weeds have been left on the ground to eventually decompose and we may ‘solarise’ weeds in the future. Solarisation involves covering a pile of pulled weeds with black plastic to block light and generate heat. The combined effects of the lack of light and added heat over a four week period will kill most. We need to be mindful using plastic near the creek in the coming rainy season though.

Next up - initial planting

We are looking to source some suitable plants for the open area of the project site for our next working bee scheduled for Sunday 10 November. We are so grateful for the support of ACF Community Brisbane Northside which has offered to fund this purchase along with the gift of a tube stock plant for volunteers’ home gardens.

Our BCC Creek Catchment Officer, Wes, has provided a list and suggests four canopy trees for shade and around 10 sub canopy plants to start. We need to get these in before summer hits so hope you can join us next time (reminders will go out closer to the date).

Cheers for now

Jane