Life and Wildlife on the Banks of the Murrumbidgee
Amazingly, we're done with our main project for 2018! After the bitter weather on our big planting a few weeks ago, I was worried we'd never get our whole Glossy Black Cockatoo project finished. Thankfully, Darren Menachemson and a wonderful crew from ThinkPlace plus a Greening Australia "Adopt a Plot" team came to our rescue.... Continue Reading →
After months of flu last year, I was very excited when Ben Hanrahan from Greening Australia offered help with planting our new Glossy Black Cockatoo area on the steep gully behind the house. It's been a dry year so far, with only scattered amounts of rain making the soil just moist enough for planting. Mostly... Continue Reading →
It's an embarrassment that when I see litter in our paddocks. That's because it's usually my own: one of my tree guards that has blown off and landed in the creek, or among the ti-tree, or strung up against a barbed-wire fence. But collecting them again is the easy part. The problem is what to... Continue Reading →
They look so innocent. But my, they have big teeth. And lots of them. I'm currently not feeling very friendly towards kangaroos. Since we finished this year's main tree planting early I had a chance to go and check on our WOPR planting, a ten hectare plot near the river We started with direct seeding... Continue Reading →
Ever since I went to the Friends of Grasslands workshop in 2014 I've been itching to try my hand at revegetating native grasses, rather than only trees and shrubs. Of course, that's not all that easy to do. Sue McIntyre has some good suggestions, but we are mostly forced to deal with weeds where we can,... Continue Reading →
There's nothing better than a beautiful day out on the hillside, unless it's a beautiful day out with lots of lovely people planting trees. This year we had the wonderful team from Justin Borevitz's lab at ANU, along with another hundred yellow box (eucalyptus melliodora) that they raised from seed, genotyped and either pampered or subjected... Continue Reading →
It's that time of year again, when we happily send some young trees out naked into the winter. The ones that seem large enough have their wildlife and frost resistant covers removed, so that we can recycle them for this year's plantings. That's hundreds of covers to be jerked up, flattened and carried back... Continue Reading →
Seed collecting is a new art for me. It requires timing, observation and knowledge of what you're looking for. Mostly I'm nervous that I'll just take the seeds off a plant and waste them by not planting them in time. In 2011 we planted a lot of mixed trees and shrubs as tubestock on a... Continue Reading →
Tree planting doesn't always go as planned. In 2011, before we actually moved back to Australia, I spoke to Graham Fifield at Greening Australia about being part of their WOPR (Whole Paddock Rehabilitation) program. That program is designed to revegetate an area of 10 hectares or more, using bands of trees and shrubs directly seeded on the contours.... Continue Reading →
I was quite cautious when the idea of a "Green Army" was proposed. It seemed like a political stunt. And the cost of the payslips was going to be subtracted from Landcare, a community organization I admire a great deal. Who was this Army going to attack? The trees? Us? Who was going to join... Continue Reading →
Topsoil is that thin band of living matter that lies across the landscape. Except when it is undermined or dissolved by rain and carried downhill into first the gullies, then the waterways, leaving the water silty and the landscape denuded. As a child I loved to play among the eroding soil spires where you could imagine... Continue Reading →
There's a saying about fences. And it's true. I have an extra one: "If you want to plant trees on a grazing property, you'd better have good fences." Not as catchy. Only a couple of years ago I was naive enough to think that a few star pickets could prop up a fence with sagging... Continue Reading →
