By: Susan Jones

After the fun of last week’s National Tree Day planting of 140 natives to attract birds, bees, butterflies and koalas, it was time to start watering.   Council do not supply water for smaller plantings and we are not permitted to use mains water.   Consequently we have to depend on water from our own garden tanks, which we bottle in recycled 3 litre milk containers and carry to site.  Sheamus shared the load and added a dash of worm juice to his bottles, which will give the plants a good start.  We will continue to water weekly for a month, unless it starts to rain again.

Mirandha and her Griffith Uni volunteer team of Lin, Lyn, Moeko, Thomas and Rashed joined our regular group members and quickly dispersed to water and put mulch around the base of our plantings.   Next, it was back to the tedious task of removing Creeping Lantana Lantana montevidensis and Guinea Grass Megathyrsus maximus.  Rashed tried his hand at using our Tree Popper, a very handy device that grips and easily pulls deep-rooted weeds from the ground. His target was Mickey Mouse Plant Ochna serrulata, an extremely deep rooted weed that is now showing the first signs of flowering.    With the arrival of Spring, the plants will fruit and birds will disperse the seeds all around the mountain and into our gardens.   If we do not get all the plants out before fruiting time, we remove fruiting branches and return later to remove the rest of the plant.

A lot of work was achieved at this regular Wednesday afternoon working bee.   It’s so beautiful in the bush on a sunny winter’s afternoon – why not come out and join us, and meet delightful young people from all around the globe.