Lots of mothers of millions by the walkway across the gully.
Bagging the mothers
You say tomato, I say native tomato
We’re working from where the site is good outwards into weedier patches, and it’s a pleasure to see the thriving local vegetation. Even if they look a little forbidding.
Pleasing Geitonoplesium
James is keen on our implementing the Bradley Method more rigorously, starting from the good and working outwards.
Here’s a little treasure, in flower right now. Geitonoplesium Simosum.
Giving more susans a black eye
More black eyed susan flowers needing eradication. Tracing their tendrils to source, then scraping and painting.
Disclaimer: We do not condone, ignore or promote interpersonal violence, nor do we think it amusing. Our headline refers only to to the plants we were dealing with.
Blady Good Grass
Clearing asparagus fern to make way for blady grass.
Plumb good
The drainage works we did months ago under Ed’s expert tutelage are finally getting a good workout — and are performing beautifully. (Photo from Howard)
Climbing into Jasmine
Mostly cleared a big patch of Jasmine. Ed found a lot of garden escapees down in the creek bed.
Giving the Susans a black eye
The flowering of black-eyed susans has helped us see the extent to which they’ve infested part of the gully. We started clearing them today, around one of the stormwater drains, ready to build another retention basin and stop the plume of weeds.
Reeds against weeds
We’ve had several goes at stopping stormwater from carrying weed seeds into the bush. Someone from Council came once, with machinery, and created some beautiful stone lined retention basins, only to have someone else from Council come along a few months later and tear them up with a digger.
We built sandbags a little while back, placing them at the back of this basin. The bags have perished, though, so this time we built stone dams and planted reeds in front of them as a filter.
A few days later, Howard has photographed pooled runoff water in our main retention basin. So far so good.
Nathan harvesting reeds with eriostemon in foreground
A close-up of the eriostemon
Nathan and Howard consulting
Close-up of sedimentation pond with reeds planted with reeds
Howard took this ‘before’ shot of the work on Saturday
After some rain, water pooled in basin
This is Mulch Gulch, pardners!
We’ve managed to hail down a few passing tree lopping crews and corral their loads of mulch.
The mulch serves double purpose: to suppress roadside weeds, and to signal to Council mowers that the lomandras are plantings, not to be scythed down.
Spreading the mulch along the Grover Street roadside