Weeds – Page 3 – Friends of Tarra-Bulga National Park

Are you up for the challenge?

by Tarra Bulga15/07/201226/03/20132 Comments

Friends of Tarra Bulga have a big new project and we are looking for some enthusiastic helpers to get things off to a great start. A couple of years back a huge infestation of Sycamore Maple trees, which can grow up to 30m tall, was discovered in the park. These trees produce winged seeds which can spread in the wind, so the plant has the potential to invade further into the surrounding Mountain Ash forests.

Contractors were used to cut down the Maples and poison the stumps, and the result so far has been a big success. The canopy has opened up and native understorey plants are taking advantage of the light and space and popping up everywhere. To be a complete success however and to help prevent re-growth of the Maple, canopy species such as Mountain Ash need to be re-established. The friends group has secured funding from the Victorian Government’s, Communities for Nature Grants to do this and are holding a planting day on Saturday August the 11th.

The friends are keen for as many helpers are possible on the day but please note the task is a bit of a challenge. Access to the site is 2.5km along a walking track from the nearest road. The planting site itself is covered in logs and branches of what remains of the dead Sycamore Maple trees. While these branches are an obstacle we also plan to use them to our advantage, by planting amongst them we hope they will act as natural tree guards, keeping the new seedlings out of reach of hungry Swamp Wallabies that are notorious for eating newly planted trees. So if you are ready willing and able please come along. The meeting spot will be at the Tarra Bulga Visitors Centre Carpark at 9am on Saturday August the 11th. Please RSVP to Friends of Tarra Bulga – Activities Co-ordinator David Akers at dakers@activ8.net.au or by phoning 5189 1330. (BYO lunch)

Wet Forest — This is what we hope the planting site will eventually look like.

Communities For Nature Grant

by Tarra Bulga02/07/201224/03/2013Leave a comment

The friends of Tarra Bulga are happy to announce that they have been successful in obtaining a grant from the Victorian Government’s Communities for Nature Grants for a major restoration project in the park. The project site is one that is tucked away in a remote section of the park and was only discovered by chance when some contractors were doing some minor control of what was thought to be only a minor incursion of Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) on the edge of Diaper Track.

Communities for Nature - Project Site — Communities for Nature – Project Site in Tarra Bulga National Park

Once they began it became clear that the task was much bigger than first thought and in the end it was found that this plant was dominating the canopy in a large thicket about 2ha in area. Much expense was spent destroying these invasive trees but the site has now been left with no overstorey species and the potential for the weedy Maple to return.

Thankfully securing this grant will enable the friends group in partnership with Parks Victoria to work to restore this area, by establishing a wet forest overstorey with species including Eucalyptus regnans (Mountain Ash) and also allowing the understorey to recover while destroying re-germinating weed species.

Maple Resprout — Sycamore Maple – Re-shooting from the base after the initially felling and poisoning of the stump.

The friends group are planning a tree planting working bee on Saturday August the 11th. For further details or to register your interest in attending please contact David Akers at dakers@activ8.net.au

Annual Maple Pull

by Tarra Bulga03/04/201226/03/2013Leave a comment

On Saturday March the 31st the friends held their annual Sycamore Maple pull. It was very encouraging to see that although there were still quite a number of large seedlings (up to 2.5m tall) and a bit of re-sprouting from previous weeding efforts. There was only a handful of new seedling sprouting (despite the wet seasons we have had) compared to the hundreds that we were pulling out when we first started working on this site back in 2006.

The source of the infestation was from some large established trees planted on the other side of the Tarra Valley Road. The large trees for many years had blown their light papery seeds into the surrounding native forest. Thanks to our efforts in starting the work in the park and with co-operation with the WGCMA and Parks Victoria, work was done to remove these large established trees, The photo above shows a large tree maple that was ringbarked and poisoned. Now all that should be required to stop the maple from spreading into the the magnificent forests of Tarra Bulga is a quick bit of regular follow up to eliminate any seedlings that pop up from viable seed still stored in the soil or regrowth of plants that we have already pulled out.

Sycamore Maple Removal

Fortunately we did not find to many plants that had re-grown but it was apparent that the ones that did resprout were generally not cut off very close to the ground. So the lesson learnt “cutting the stems as close to the ground as possible is vital”.

While we have had some great success with the maples here we have some more significant tasks ahead. This includes efforts to re-habilitate the site (only recently discovered) of a huge infestation of around 2ha of established maples in the park. In this area of the park there are also large infestations of Tutsan and Blackberries that are of great concern.

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