August activities as usual

August is always a time of keeping up with the weeds - this weekend I was mainly following up on Geraldton Carnation Weed and a few freesias.

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This is the best time of the year!

The bushland is stirring back to life after a long dry autumn and brief wet winter ... suddenly wave after wave of plants comes into flower to greet us as we arrive in the bushland. This week hoveas and hardenbergia were in flower. Also a few weeds such as Lachenalia ...
John, Vicki, and I did an hour or so of weeding Geraldton Carnation Weed before our committee meeting.
The main substantive issues addressed in the committee meeting were:
* recommencing negotiations with the Health Department on managing their bushland
* doing separate spraying for Freesias and Lachenalias
* getting a botanist to help us do a monitoring survey
* removing mounds

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Another day at the bushland

John and I continued working on the Geraldton Carnation Weeds - as usual for winter. Hard to tell whether we are having an effect - maybe it is just a bad year for them - but we will need to monitor this and maybe change the way we work - the number and distribution of plants does not seem to change much.

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Cold Start

I had to wear gloves just riding to the bushland this morning - it was quite chilly - as it often is with sunny winter mornings in Perth.
John and I worked in the Geraldton Carnation Weeds near the defence department boundary. There were depressingly large numbers of plants coming up ... are we having any effect?

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Working in the rain

I didn't do a post last week because there was a problem in my GPS settings - it collected hardly any data.

I mainly worked along the path and then down towards the Defence Department land near the POW camp site.

This is the data I did collect. Found a cluster of Fountain Grass plants that I removed.

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There were occasional showers to day as John and I continued removing Geraldton Carnation Weeds. There are lots of weeds - not sure whether we are having much impact on the Geraldton Carnation Weed - may need to reconsider our strategy.

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Great weather for mosses

Rain and sunshine have brought the mosses to life - the bushland is thriving with the current weather.

 The weeds are also thriving - pulled Lachenalias, Freesias, and Geraldton Carnation Weeds.

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Getting a bit of exercise

I felt in need of exercise today, so rather than pulling Freesias I went searching for Flinders Ranges Wattles which are highly visible at present with their bright yellow flowers. There was a whole bunch of them near the Grace Vaughan House entrance, and more near Selby Lodge. Most were less than a year old, and easy to pull out of the ground. The older ones were over 2m high - so I took advantage of the soft wet soil and pushed them over onto their side and cut off the roots.

I heard a strange bird call whilst working, and noticed a duck high up on a branch of a dead tree, inspecting nesting hollows. The Rainbow Lorrikeets were not impressed, and were screeching at it. It decided to move elsewhere.

 The orchids are already beginning to appear. This one is the scented sun orchid.

The weed sprayers also appear to be out. I have no idea what they are spraying. Looks like they are mistaking lomandras as weeds and spraying them - and they don't look happy.

On the way back to the shed I bumped into Dorothy and we went in search of flowering lomandras. Lomandra nigricans, which has white flowers appears to be out at present.

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.