Category Archives: Weeds

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.

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)

Water running down catchment ponds

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.

Some yellow-orange black eyed Susan flowers

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.

Eriostemon in flower with Nathan harvesting reeds

Nathan harvesting reeds with eriostemon in foreground

eriostemon star-shaped flowers

A close-up of the eriostemon

Bushcare Officer Nathan talking with volunteer Howard by sedimentation pond

Nathan and Howard consulting

Rock dam at back of sedimentation hollow planted with reeds

Close-up of sedimentation pond with reeds planted with reeds

Freshly planted reeds in sedimentation ponds with rock dams freshly built

Howard took this ‘before’ shot of the work on Saturday

Rainwater pooled in basin

After some rain, water pooled in basin

Load ’er up

Bags of Mothers of Millions being loaded onto Pete’s truck at the end of the morning’s work. But are we winning?

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Let’s get those mothers

Mothers of millions

Mothers of millions were in flower down near the footbridge, and we filled quite a few bags of them. Lots remaining, though.