Reefcare Day Report: Helping nature by the sea on a long weekend

reefcare

6 Oct

Des admiring the first flower on one of the Melaleuca armillaris seedlings, planted in the last couple of years ~ the Bracelet Honey Myrtle.

This weekend was a long weekend in Sydney with Labour Day on Monday 7 October, so most of our crew took the advantage of the extra day to go away – that left our Supervisor Kathy with the retirees who would never think to venture out of Sydney on a long weekend!

Julie spent her time in her usual area just west of the gully concentrating on the removal of asparagus fern.

Asparagus stems cut back to 20cm then painted with glyphosate..jpeg

Asparagus stems cut back to 20cm then painted with glyphosate - one month later.jpeg

The two photos above show some of Julie’s work included cutting back asparagus stems to 20cm and then painting with glyphosate. The photo on the left is just after painting. The photo on the right shows the effect, one month later.

Des spent the first part of the morning working on an area of Burr medic he found on the western slope, as well as the oat grass which is now coming up all over our site (source was the public track) and starting to seed, as well as his nemesis – the asparagus fern. Des also did some work on the bitou working east to west throwing cuttings in any exposed areas to try and get some mulch happening on any exposed sand area, and then he went back to target more asparagus fern along the western slope; which literally has 100’s of these little ones popping up all the time, probably due to the amount of huge advanced asparagus fern plants which surround our site. It was not that long ago Des and I spent 3 hours each just on those small asparagus ferns on the western slope and barely made a dint – Merrilyn complains about how many there are every month!

Des removng burr-medic with an ocean view — Des removing burr-medic with an ocean view

Lisa and Kathy worked in the western gully with our main focus being on removing the non-native pig’s face which was starting to smother our earlier plantings which are doing so well in this area – in doing so, we also removed quite a lot of oat grass and ehrharta erecta which fortunately a lot were not yet in seed so did not need to be bagged; and of course – a few small asparagus ferns.

Kathy working on Pigs face removal in the gully. It was hot work, but there was a welcome cooling breeze further down the gully.

The photos taken in the gully in this month’s report show the progress that Kathy and Lisa made down the gully of the non-native pigs face. We were stoked with how much we got done with just the two of us.

This is the start of the clearing of the pigs face in the gully today – we started up the end; so all that bare ground was the non-native pigs face and you can see the pile up for this small area.

Clearing non-native pigs face in the eastern section of the gully.

Julie was not able to meet up for coffee afterward, but Des, Kath and Lisa gathered at a local coffee shop to discuss todays work and then talk went into dancing venues and bands around the Northern Beaches.