We have been working at protecting our habitat trees over summer - clearing litter from around the bases of the larger Jarrah and Tuart trees, especially those with nesting hollows. There are a lot of them! (see our maps at http://home.it.net.au/~bojel/shenton/activities/.

Our focus is now shifting to dealing with remnants of veldgrass that survived the spraying last year. Despite our concerns that the spraying occurred late (due to the very dry winter, followed by rain just when the spraying should have occurred), the veldgrass spraying has proved to be very effective - not much veldgrass evident in the bushland at present.

This year we are aiming to continue the work we began with the SALP grant last year - removing invasive plants from the Health Department and Education Department land adjoining the bushland. We hope that this will reduce our workload in the future, especially in relation to the number of flinders ranges wattles that keep appearing in the bushland.

We had a visit from a JAIN community group (from the Middle East) who are keen to do voluntary work in our bushland. They collected seeds with us, and are planning to germinate the seeds to plant out into the Health Department land car parks to replace the current plantings that contain invasive weeds such as flinders ranges wattles. We will organise a planting day when their seedlings are ready.

Once the rain comes in Autumn (fingers crossed!) we will begin our regular weed control activities - looking out for the bulbous weeds such as lachenalias, freesias, and watsonias.

Nedlands Council put in a very big effort in weed control last year (thanks Steve!), especially for veldgrass control, so we would like to take advantage of that to keep reducing the veldgrass infestation in the bushland.

In late winter we might supplement the Nedlands Council weed control effort by spraying for veldgrass in the areas of light infestation. Doing this spraying will save our veldgrass contractor Phil O'Neil from having to drag his hoses through the good areas in search of the odd veldgrass plant.

Apart from Black Flag and Lachenalia, the bulbous weeds appear to be under control - especially Watsonia and Freesia. We hope to be able to eradicate Watsonia meriana completely from the bushland in a few years. Another species of Watsonia (bulbillifera) is more difficult to eradicate, because it is so ephemeral and pops up in odd places around the bushland - so we will need to be vigilant for it for a fair while yet. Lachenalia is a bit of a concern in the barren area across the middle of the bushland - it is very widespread, so that will be an area of focus this winter.

Black Flag is also a concern because we don't yet know how to control it. Kate Brown (Urban Nature, Department of Conservation) is doing trails to see how to best control it, so we hope to develop a control strategy soon. We are noticing Black Flag popping up in degraded areas around the bushland, so we hope to be able to get onto it before it becomes a major problem.

Does that sound overwhelming? We just do what we can - and welcome you to come and join us!

Coming events

We will be holding our annual bush to beach walk this year - still being planned (date to be announced soon).

I hope we can organise another day of looking for fungi in the bushland (lets hope for more rain this year!).

Next Meeting

We are trying out a new way of holding our committee meetings because it has been hard to find evenings when everyone can meet. The plan is to meet on Sunday mornings at 10 am after our bushland activities. These are scheduled for:

Sunday, 25th March
Sunday 20th May
Sunday 17th June
Sunday 19th August
Sunday 21st October

Our next scheduled meeting is Sunday 25th of March beginning at 10am at the bushland. I will bring muffins, tea, coffee, a thermos of hot water and misk. BRING YOUR OWN CHAIRS! If it is raining we will adjourn to a café (any suggestions?)

Contact Dani (9381 3470 or bojel@it.net.au) for details.

Created by Daniel Boase-Jelinek August 2004

All photographs are copyright of Daniel Boase-Jelinek unless otherwise indicated.

The logo of the Friends of Shenton Bushland is copyright of June L. Weller

Last updated November 2006