Sep 24, 2009

September working bees

The Scrub was looking good at this morning's working bee (or what we could see of it through the dust storm!).

There were quite a lot of scrambling caper plants (Capparis sarmentosa) flowering beautifully, and with lots of buds. They should look even better next week. The scrambling lily (Geitonoplesium cymosum) was also in flower.
Jamie Pukallus and his team got a lot of the bigger asparagus vines out of the upper end of the scrub, and the rest of us (there were only three) got more, as well as a lot of smaller plants. It looks so different from the scrub of a few years ago, with all those enormous plants up in the canopy, so we are making progress!
We need to keep our collective eye out for any larger plants that have still escaped us, as those are the ones that keep producing seed - but we can now start working on eliminating the next generation of plants, some of which are starting to climb.
We inspected the cats claw corner and got down the few bits that had escaped up into the trees again. I'm hoping that Steve will be able to have another go at poisoning the roots before too long. His last effort was very successful, knocking it back considerably, so it's not nearly as extensive as it once was. However, I did find another small plant in the centre of the scrub. Although I got most of the tubers out, I think I missed a few - so that's something we'll also have to watch out for. It would be a disaster of the cats claw spread through the scrub.
WORKING BEE NEXT WEEK.
We'll have another, unofficial one, next Wednesday (30 September). No representatives from the council will be there, but some of our members will be spending the morning working. Will you join us?
Trish

1 comment:

Sally said...

Last Wednesday may have been the big dust storm, but it was quite nice down below the canopy in Franke Scrub. There is still plenty of work to be done removing asparagus vine. We still found quite a few large ones lurking among the trunks of trees and other vines, and they continue to germinate and grow, so you can choose the size you wish to tackle.
The birds were active and it is a pleasant place to spend time.