The Friends of
Shenton Bushland
Inc.
How will we find our wild hearts inside this city;
How will we find the deep peace?
A. Stevens
Bushland Activities page (blog)
Bushland Management Strategies
Newsletter archive:
Newsletter #55 May 2005
Autumn flowers begin to appear
Lomandra preisii
While working in the bushland last Sunday we were pleasantly rewarded with the delicate displays of Lomandra preisii in flower throughout the bushland.
Activities in the bushland
Bushland management
Our summer and autumn activities have involved cutting perennial veldgrass clumps that survived last yearıs spraying, and pulling out pelargonium.
Now that the first rains have arrived, the bulbs are beginning to emerge especially freesia and black flag and we are turning our attention to pulling these out.
Our Community Conservation Grant funding for this year involves removing mounds of soil from good bushland areas. Steve McCabe is organising workdays for people on community service orders to do this manual labour, and we plan to supplement this work with a few community activity days in the coming months.
Nyoongah liaison on Bush to Beach Walk Trails
We are planning to meet with representatives of the Nyoongah Circle of Elders to discuss ways to respect indigenous heritage issues associated with the bush-to-beach trail, and to enrich the trail in the process.
The proposed route of the trail is displayed on our bush-to-beach website
We may continue exploring and mapping out the route of the trail during winter, so if you are interested in exploring new bushland places in the Western Suburbs, call Dani on 9381 3470, or email.
Proposed Collaboration with Health Department and Education Department
We are delighted to announce a collaboration with the Health Department and the Education Department of WA to manage the bushland areas scattered around Grace Vaughan House, Selby Lodge, and Shenton College along the eastern edge of Shenton Bushland.
Over the past year we have had discussions with both the Health Department and the Education Department to find a way to work together to manage weeds and fire hazards in the bushland.
As a result of our discussions, we have developed a $21,000 project to control weeds in the entire bushland area (including Shenton Bushland), and have applied for $12,000 from the Swan Alcoa Landcare Project funding round for next year which will involve:
- removing invasive woody weeds (especially flinders ranges wattles) from the Health Department bushland, gardens, and carparks,
- replacing the woody weeds with local species from seed collected in Shenton Bushland and germinated by students at Shenton College. Students will be encouraged to be involved in the planting days,
- using herbicides to control veldgrass and bulbous weeds in the Health Department, Education Department, and Shenton bushlands, and
- implementing an integrated fire hazard management plan in liaison with FESA.
This involves control of grassy weeds, and fuel management in areas close to sensitive areas such as Shenton College, Selby Lodge, and Grace Vaughan House.
We thank staff from Shenton College and the Health Department for their constructive and collaborative approach to developing this project, and also Kate Brown at Urban Nature for providing technical advice.
Next Meeting: our AGM
Our next meeting (an AGM) is scheduled for Thursday, 19th May (7.30 pm, 117 Derby Road, Shenton Park). We need more people to join our committee to plan, manage, and evaluate our bushland activities for the coming year. If you are thinking about developing your skills in working with volunteers why not join our committee? We need people to help us, especially in the following areas:
- liaison with members to keep people informed and involved,
- liaison with schools to facilitate student involvement in the bushland,
- liaising with the wider community newsletters, guided walks, noticeboards etc
Contact Dani (9381 3470 for details.
This newsletter is produced by the Friends of Shenton Bushland Inc. Contributions by Daniel Boase-Jelinek Edited by Daniel Boase-Jelinek, 117 Derby Road, Shenton Park WA 6008.