'Penny' Paperbark Woodland Project Plan Summary - Dec 2019
Thanks to those of you who contributed to our round of planning meetings for the Paperbark Woodland ‘Penny’ project this past week.
Here is a summary for all, including those who weren’t here for our discussions.
Fence planning
Bill Walker and Wayne Flint from Waratah-Wynyard Council are meeting on site in the coming week to discuss the fence that will protect the repair site, and prevent any large material washing out into the park, when there is a tidal flow. With Bill’s agreement, I have put a line of wooden pegs in to indicate where we want the fence to go. In part, this is to make sure that the marked off area is not mown again before we get a chance to protect the new paperbark shoots coming up.
We hope to have the fence installed soon, possibly before Christmas, or early in the new year. In addition to protecting the site from trampling, the fence will be sturdy enough to prevent any brush or other wood materials that might come loose, from being carried by the incoming water into the rest of the park area.
Plants
We have ordered a range of plants from Olinda Nursery. It turns out they have several hundred Swamp Paperbark Melaleuca ericifoliaalready around 40 cm tall, that they can supply at a basic cost. We have asked them to put these aside for planting around March next year. We have also ordered a small number of other plant species, on advice from Jim McLeod, to test out how well they grow in the saline conditions at the Melaleuca Woodland site. They include:
Scented Paperbark Melaleuca squarrosa
Coastal Wattle Acacia (longifolia) sophorae
Australian Fuschia Correa backhouseana
Woolly Tea Tree Leptospermum lanigerum
Manuka Leptospermum scoparium
Silver Banksia Banksia marginata
Blackwood Acacia melanoxylon
Coastal Beard Heath Leucopogon parviflorus
Overall Plan
We will focus on the eastern half of the Woodland, where the major effects of inundation are, to test our protection methods. We will divide this into eight sections. In four of these we will put tree guards around existing plants to protect them, lay down brush to protect the soil, and later plant in new plants to add to the shoots already present. We will tag all or some of these shoots and new plants, to follow what happens to these when the area is washed with sea water. In the other four areas, we will also protect existing shoots and put in the same number of new plants, but not put down the protective brush. By doing this we should get some idea of how effective the brush layer is in protecting plants and soil.
Our next steps
Early in 2020, once the fence is installed, we will organize working parties at the site to:
1. Identify existing shoots, put tree guards around these, and then wipper-snipper the existing grass that is growing around these (leaving the grass in place so their roots can help hold the soil together).
2. Mark the plants with tags so that their fate can be followed over the next couple of years – and record the location and height of each of these.
3. Lay brush in between the tree guards, and secure these in place with jute chord, threaded through wooden pegs driven into the ground.
4. Around March, plant additional paperbarks and other types of plants in between the existing shoots, tag and record these.
Please invite anyone you think might be interested in the project, and invite them to join us. Pass on my email to them..
Please email Colin directly if you have any additional thoughts or information about our project.