Thursday 28 August 2008

Still a few Watsonia

Vicki has organised a contractor to spray bulbous weeds (especially black flag) in the bushland. The pale yellow patch in this photo is one of the areas sprayed. There are lots of them - will need to monitor them to see what effect the spraying has. I came across a few rather large Geraldton Carnation Weeds in this area also.

Once I moved into the Watsonia area I noticed that the spraying contractor had been active there also. There was some collateral damage where Watsonias were sprayed that are growing in the middle of something else - might be better to wipe these.
I found more Watsonias than expected - will need to come back next Sunday to finish this patch off.


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Monday 18 August 2008

Towards a better management plan

Spent the first two hours this morning pulling out Geraldton Carnation Weeds and Watsonias. Got a bit of a surprise at the number of Watsonia bulbs - but then decided it wasn't too bad - should be able to clear them up by next weekend.
Vicki, Jean-Paul, and Dorothy arrived at 10 to talk about funding that Vicki has obtained through the Perth Biodiversity Project to update our management plan. Jean-Paul has been contracted by the City to do the work.
Dorothy, Jean-Paul and I then walked around the bushland discussing some issues to raise in the plan. For example:

  • fumitory is becoming very wide-spread - is is something we need to look at?

  • blue lechanaultia in the Prisoner of War camp site - do we retain it as part of the bushland's cultural heritage?

  • dealing with 'the barrens' - a former rubbish dump - now quite polluted and degraded - what should we do with it? Should we seek corporate sponsorship?


My message in general was: we want feedback on how we are doing in our management of the bushland - what have we done well? What could we be doing better? What should we stop doing?
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Saturday 16 August 2008

Feels like spring!

What a change in the weather - after weeks of cold and wet Sunday mornings in the bushland it was still cold - but the air is dry - and the feel is quite different. There are lots of plants in flower - orchids, hardenbergia, wattles ... it is all happening!
John is off on a visit to the UK, so it was just me today - mainly pulling out geraldton carnation weeds. Unfortunately the battery on the GPS went flat early - so the map doesn't show all of the areas I worked on.

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Monday 4 August 2008

More GCW

It always amazes me how we can go over the same spot many times, and always find more of the geraldton carnation weeds popping up - even 5 minutes later!
John and I continued to work in the Grevillea thicket. A security guard in the neighbouring Karrakatta Barracks peered at us suspiciously - I can see why - two blokes crawling around on hands and knees near the security fence must arouse some concerns!

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CVA does GCW

Vicki organised a Conservation Volunteers team (CVA) team to tackle the Geraldton Carnation Weeds (GCS) in shenton bushland on Friday - here is where they worked.

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Click here to download the GPX data for this map. Note, this data is an XML file - change the name to .GPX to upload to your GPS.