The balmy burst of spring weather certainly played its part and we had a good turn-out for our Sunday morning working bee in Creasys Road to celebrate Landcare Open Day. We managed to remove several hundred of our re-usable tree guards and join together for an amiable morning tea in the sun.
Below you will find the information leaflet about the project prepared by Sue Slaytor and made available to the participants. It has been an impressively successful project and well worth visiting if you are in the vicinity.
In the meantime, we encourage all landcarers to enjoy the other events this week, the details for which are available at the Connecting Country website.
And we recommend that you pencil our next event in your diary. On Wednesday, October 10, well-known author Don Watson will give a talk about his forthcoming book on the Australian bush. Not to be missed.
Creasys Road Corridor Project
Purpose: To link roadside vegetation in Turners Lane to Chinaman Creek by planting over 35 native species along a treeless section of Creasys Road.
Area: Approx. 2.1 hectares (3 private properties and south side of Creasys Road)
Support: 4 landholders, NCCMA (2nd Gen. funding), Mt Alexander Shire Council, CFA
Density: Average of 2,860 plants / hectare in a corridor 18 to 35 metres wide.
Site Prep: Spray Blackberry, St John’s Wort and Phalaris in January 2009, burn dead weeds in June, fumigate and collapse rabbit warrens. Prepare site with Yeoman’s plough/rotary hoe combination to open subsoil without inverting soil profile, cultivate topsoil and provide mechanical grass/weed control. The east site was netted to prevent rabbit entry.
Planting: Stock grown in Hiko trays was planted by two people using Pottiputki planters. Planting occurred intermittently. Planting Turners Lane commenced in late August 2009 and project planting was completed at the east site by early November.
The plants were not watered-in either at planting or afterwards. When planting within the last area the roots were dunked in wetted water absorbing crystals (temperatures had reached 30oC by then). The drought did not break until January 2010. Limited rainfall had managed to get deep into the soil profile because of the site preparation.
Plants survived and thrived on the residual soil moisture.
Messages: Installing guards was the most time-consuming aspect of the project. These guards have been used on a number of projects and have proved cost-effective. But if adequate rabbit control is undertaken then guards do little more than identify plant locations. Is the time/effort of guarding worthwhile??? Get a machine to prepare the site- it will suppress weed (no chemicals) and makes planting easy. Plant in spring – plants establish quickly and can compete with annual grasses. Watering is not necessary – because of soil preparation plant mortality has been minimal, in fact a number of plant species suffered from receiving excess water several months after planting.
Muckleford Landcare 