THE January weather was warm and wet and weed growth compelled us to call out for an early start to the year’s land-caring.
We met at Beechmont Pioneer Reserve on Monday January 19 to attack Moth Vine, Passionfruit Vine, Cobbler’s Pegs, Privet and Camphor Laurel, all the periennial weeds.
As it was hot we worked under the canopy as shown in the attached photograph.
Once the most annoying weeds are removed the groundcover under the canopy is really quite beautiful.
Commelinas are a group of groundcover herbs with a blue flower and most people have them in their garden.
In the photo you may be able to make out the tiny dots of brilliant blue.
In our parts there are three species of Commelina, two native and one exotic.
You have to have a trained eye to work one from the others.
The exotic one can be a weed smothering native plants but in this space are they all serve such a useful purpose of keeping down less desirable weeds that we don’t make too much of an effort to distinguish one from the other.
Another prevalent ground cover in this area is Warrigal Greens.
Its botanical name is Tetragonia tetragonioides but it gets its common name from the fact that it is a bush tucker, considered a substitute for spinach.
Eventually we will plant shade tolerant trees under the canopy to reduce the weeding even more.
Natives are already self-seeding which is also helping.
