Dumping ground for the school?

A few weeks ago Shenton College had contractors removing dead acacia and banksia plants from the bushland area on the corner of Lemnos and Selby st.

In the bushland on Sunday I came across some piles of cuttings of acacia and banksia ... hmmm ... has someone decided to cut costs and dump the cuttings in the bushland???

I also distributed smoked seeds we had collected form Dryandra sessilis and Xanthorrhoea in the regeneration site on the barrens.

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Looking for Jarrahs

While removing veldgrass on top of the ridge I couldn't help noticing the lack of Jarrah coming up to replace the mature trees - this is not a good sign for the future. There are lots of banksia and casuarina, but very few jarrah to be found.
I went off in search of Jarrah seeds to spread around the bushland - very few trees had seeds on them - possibly due to timing, possibly due to the hailstorm last march which had a massive impact on the bushland.
I did find a few trees near Lemnos St where the storm was not as severe - and there were some seed pods close to the ground - so I have collected them and will smoke them to distribute next weekend (hopefully we will have rain soon).

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Planting in 'The Barrens'

At our latest committee meeting we decided to begin distributing seeds in areas of 'the barrens' - in particular a spot with lots of asbestos - to keep people out and to provide food and habitat for Carnaby's (and other birds).

We have pegged out a spot (where there was lots of asbestos visible), and have collected seed which we will soak in smoked water to help with germination. Will distribute as soon as rain appears on the horizon.

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SAD time of year

At this time of year we get lots of SAD (Sudden Autumn Death) amongst our banksias ...

Following on from last week's meeting we decided to collect some Dryandra sessilis seeds to distribute over the asbestos-laden barrens to keep people out of that area and provide food for Carnaby's.

We used the seed collecting technique taught to us by Tony Scalzo from Kings Park - spreading plastic onto the ground and shaking the tree.

Amongst the seeds we found a few beetles ... and other fauna!

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End of summer committee meeting

This was (fingers crossed) the last of our summer weeding sessions - so we continued with removing veldgrass that has survived the spraying (and is just waiting for rain to spring back to life).

At 9am we stopped weeding to have our committee meeting - present John, Dorothy, Vicki, Roz, and myself. Kerri brought around some muffins at 10.

The main issues discussed were weed control strategies and what to do with 'The Barrens' - a degraded area that used to be a rubbish dump (see map below):

The problem with the barrens that it has a lot of asbestos particles in the soil from the time it was a rubbish dump - so we should not really be doing anything that disturbs the soil - or spend many thousands of dollars removing the asbestos.

We came up with the idea of spreading Dryandra Sessilis seeds - to form a dense prickly thicket that will keep people out and provide food for Carnaby's (and other birds).

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More pit traps

We keep coming across pit traps that ECU students have installed as part of their research projects in Shenton Bushland. Whilst it is good to contribute to the education of future ecologists, we do worry about the disturbance the traps may cause. We will need to monitor the sites and check that they recover once the students have finished.

John and I continued with our veldgrass removal process - working systematically through the bushland to take out any veldgrass that has survived the spraying from last winter. It is also a great way to visit parts of the bushland that we would not usually visit at other times of the year.
Despite the long dry summer, the bushland is not looking too bad at present - the damage from last year's hailstorm is no longer evident, and there does appear to be quite a bit of recruitment of sedgy plants such as alexgeorgia and desmocladus.

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Thanks to anonymous Cleanup Australia volunteers!

It was nice to see that some community-minded volunteers had come along Lemnos street to clean up along the street verge last weekend - thanks!

The week before, it was very hot, so I didn't stay in the bushland long - just pulled out some Veldgrass along the path.

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We came across a bee hive that may need to be removed. Rainbow lorrikeets were inspecting the hollow as well as a nesting site.

Click here to view live map 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.