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RE-VEGETATION NOTES

These notes refer to a 45 acre re-vegetation project on a 75 acre farm in the Strzeleckis, Victoria.

Re-vegetation of parts of this farm commenced in 1978, major plantings have been made since 1999. It has been funded by Greening Australia, Landcare and Melbourne Water with substantial contributions by ourselves.

Plants have been grown by ourselves and also purchased from Blue Gum Forest Nursery, Korumburra, Grand Ridge Propagation, Seaview and Strzelecki Plant Farm, Allambie Reserve. We collected seed from remnant vegetation on our property where possible and the rest was sourced from local roadsides and as a last resort from local seed banks. Greening Australia, assisted greatly with choice of plants for our original plantings. We selected species listed in the Ecological Vegetation Classes for our property.

Our farm is very steep and difficult to walk over in many places. It consists of a deep valley with an almost permanent creek and associated gullies draining into the Mountain View Creek which eventually feeds into the Lang Lang River. The steep hillsides, the creek and the contributory gullies have all been fenced off and re-vegetated. Paddock trees have been planted where water was obvious to control potential land slips. (See Aerial photograph from MapShareVic)

The steep hill was bisected with a track and a track and crossing were made across the gully. This work has been essential for access to steep areas and weed control would be almost impossible without it. When fencing we put in many strategic gates. These make access easier for weed control and chasing out stock if ever they inadvertently get access to the re-vegetation areas.

Just over 40 years ago this farm was one of the weediest in the district. The steep far hill was a mass of ragwort and Californian thistles, there were blackberries around 6 metres high in the gully and thistles of all types everywhere. With concerted efforts and a systematic approach these weeds were, for all practical purposes, eliminated until a neighbouring property was neglected. This has meant that we still need to make a concerted effort to get rid of weeds in our re-vegetation areas and this means walking over all of them three times each year with knapsacks, to eliminate weeds which appear.

This is a considerable expenditure in time and money but successful re-vegetation is not possible without regular weed control. It is also an obligation under the Catchment and Land Protection Act to not degrade neighbouring properties and if weeds are not controlled this will certainly occur and this will cost neighbours time and money.

Altogether we have planted over 70,000 plants, of about 50 species, ranging from grasses such as poas and microlaena to large gums such as strzeleckii and blue gums. In recent years we have been concentrating on under-storey particularly grasses. We are planting around 3000 plants yearly and have moved to mostly Hiko tubes and a Pottiputki planter. This uses less potting mix but it is a bit trickier to grow the plants and have them ready at the right time for planting.

The following are some of our observations:

GOOD NEWS

Many of the under-storey plants are germinating from seed. These include bedfordia, coprosma, pomaderris, oliarias, cassinias, ozothamnus. In some areas the olearias are so thick they cause difficulties with weeding.

Sword Grasses (Lepidosperma)
Our areas of sword grass have increased and there are some patches appearing in new areas probably from 100 year old seed. Looks like ‘real’ bush. In many areas pasture grasses have completely disappeared and the plantings looks quite natural. This gives us a great deal of pleasure.

Land Slips
The areas which were previously slips have not moved any more. In the pasture areas we have attempted to control water by planting individual trees. This seems to have been successful as (touch wood!) we have had no more land slips.

Giant Gippsland Earth Worm
The areas occupied by the GGE have moved up the gully and are now larger than before. Had we known the latest research at the time we would not have planted near these GGE colonies.

Paddock Trees
We have planted about 100 individual trees in surrounds in pasture areas in order to provide shade and for water control above potential slip areas. Surprisingly we now have large hillside areas in the re-vegetation areas with native grasses, principally microlaena, thriving.

Other Plants
Other remnant plants such as fire weed, wallaby grass, wire grass (which comes and goes), forest hounds tongue, forest star wort, ferns, clematis, native bramble etc are thriving. Indeed the fire weed is almost a pest as it makes weeding difficult in spots.

After cutting out and pulling up pittosporum undulatum for many years we are allowing some to grow as they are listed in ‘Land of the Lyrebird’ as a component of ‘the scrub’. We may consider removing seed bearing plants if they become a pest. At least they are making up for understorey lost through silver wattles.

We have been able to supply seed to others especially the West Gippsland Seed Bank. Luckily we have several large gums on steep slopes with seed close to the ground so seed is readily available. We also have several very large Eucalyptus globulus subsp. bicostata which provide a great deal of seed. Microlaena seed is easily collected (some without bending down!) so is collected each year.

Wallabies
Wallabies are now permanent residents and are always make a pleasing sight.

Kangaroos
We now have itinerant kangaroos on our property regularly. Plants are not affected significantly as the kangaroos seem to stick to established tracks and open areas and do not browse shrubs etc.

Koalas
Over the last few years, we have had one dead small koala in a paddock and one in the trees near our house. We hear what we think are koalas however our area is remote from other vegetated areas so more koalas are unlikely.