Päiväkirja-arkisto kohteelle heinäkuu 2018

heinäkuu 3, 2018

No survey yet of extent of Flame Tree invasion

The lower trees are extending their reach with new foliage reaching Gahnia Grove, the adjacent volunteer-managed zone, under canopy of Manuka and Kanuka. However no action has been taken as yet and the lower border of the invasion is not yet accessible to the volunteer due to uncertain contours making exploration difficult until more weeds have been removed. Through the Parks Community Ranger, a request for survey and containment is being made to the Council arborist for the area.
Fallen wood remains on the road site pedestrian grass access path to the Reserve.

Julkaistu heinäkuu 3, 2018 12:35 IP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

Cut Japanese honeysuckle re-shooting in trees!

Sections of thick vine (eg 1cmDiam) cut at both ends to a variety of lengths, as short as 40cm, and left in trees to dry, are observed budding at nodes at least a week after cutting.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/13975620

It will be useful to learn how much these unrooted sections can grow before dying. Could they produce runners that grow enough to reach the ground and re-root?

Julkaistu heinäkuu 3, 2018 09:02 IP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

Karamu responds quickly to release from Japanese honeysuckle

Karamu long-suppressed by Japanese honeysuckle, deformed and almost leafless, is responding immediately to light, with the few surviving terminal branches and leaves straightening up and leaves growing vigorously.

Julkaistu heinäkuu 3, 2018 09:06 IP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

Stinking iris - correction: Blue corn-lily, ie Aristea ecklonii

UPDATE-these turned out to be Aristea ecklonii

Six weeks ago the presence of dozens of Stinking Iris plants, in clay soil under dense mature manuka, seemed to present the challenge of reducing their above-ground material to limit growth until shade increased beyond their tolerance. (How much shade does Stinking Iris tolerate? Any experience of this appreciated.)

However, after a few weeks of wet, cold weather they have been found to be easily pulled out by selecting a "division" at one end of a clump, and pulling the divisions out one by one from there.

Larger clumps were thus pulled out within a total of 5-10 minutes, and the material is being used to mulch smaller clumps.

Julkaistu heinäkuu 3, 2018 09:13 IP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

Agapanthus

About a dozen small Agapanthus plants to .5mH under margin's canopy.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/14035194
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/13855287
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/13975621

How long will these tolerate shade? Present plan is to cut leaves and smother tubers as much as possible, and reassess after seeing regrowth.

Digging is labour intensive, conducive to erosion on this bank, and may disturb tree roots.

Julkaistu heinäkuu 3, 2018 09:16 IP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 1 kommentti | Jätä kommentti

heinäkuu 4, 2018

Turning "Maintenance" edging into Restoration ... now is the time!

"Maintenance" edging becomes Restoration with a simple well-timed action accompanied by ongoing monitoring and hand-removal of invasives in the treated area.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/14049940

Showing the surface soil cleared for regeneration of natives, by removing potentially live roots from a sprayed kikuyu edge.

Similar action along the length of the heavily sprayed edges would be likely to produce regeneration of native vegetation throughout, after a period adequate for the poison to breakdown sufficiently to allow life. The half-life of glyphosate is understood to be 18 months (from studies relating to the human health effects of handling the contaminated soil). However many plants can germinate and grow in it before then (kikuyu, for one!).

Carrying out the process illustrated (with appropriate safety clothing and processes) would result in reinvasion of kikuyu by stoloniferous growth from the edge of the mown area. However, if this regrowth were to be uplifted and pulled back on itself towards the mown area, it would not invade the cleared edge. If the pulled-back kikuyu is placed in a pile along the length of the edge of the mown area, the leaves rot, then the roots weaken. At the appropriate time, ie when it is found that the roots uplift easily, the entire pile can then be rolled back further, leaving a wider margin for native revegetation.

The revegetation will include any viable seed in the seedbank or newly arriving by air, so seedlings need to be monitored and identified as they develop.

By retaining non-harmful exotics (including many horticultural weeds) as well as any native seedlings, while removing invasive seedlings, stolons and rhizomes, the site curator can observe and support the spontaneous conversion, over time, of an area of kikuyu to a diverse native plant community.

Julkaistu heinäkuu 4, 2018 08:50 IP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

heinäkuu 5, 2018

Flame Tree meets Gahnia Grove

Having worked through the Japanese honeysuckle to the interior of the young forest margins below the "Arena", and working to the right to assess and begin to reduce the Agapanthus, a number of new finds were made.

Hangehange, Ponga, a native rush, karamu and an unusually twisted manuka or kanuka some way off, were all a welcome change from honeysuckle and Watsonia, which have been predominant throughout.

A Chinese privet several metres high leans out from the canopy towards the Flame Tree Zone.

And the end of a long branch of Flame Tree comes very close to it.

It is not yet clear where the base of this branch is. Is it close to the other dense stands, and reaching across horizontally?

Since the seed is infertile in NZ, and it is unlikely more than one tree was planted, it must be in some way a vegetative propagation of the first.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/14035069

More honeysuckle removal required to get to the bottom of this.

Julkaistu heinäkuu 5, 2018 12:11 IP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

heinäkuu 6, 2018

Minimising weed reinvasion of planting edge by establishing Microlaena stipoides?

Has anyone had experience of sowing or planting Microlaena stipoides in a temporarily weed-free border with mown kikuyu? With the aim of reducing weed invasion in the border, and perhaps gradually extending the native border to replace the kikuyu.

Julkaistu heinäkuu 6, 2018 12:04 AP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

heinäkuu 7, 2018

Bindweed (Calystegia sp.) to be next?

On uprooting Japanese honeysuckle in the "Arena", this was found.

It appears to be a piece of underground runner of bindweed. Quite fat for C. sepium...maybe another Calystegia? [UPDATE in 2020 - I don't know what thinner species I was referring to, I suspect it was just young vines of the pale pink-and-white flowered Calystegia silvatica x sepium, the commonest local invasive, which I have since learned is a hybrid of the native C. sepium supsp roseata with the invasive C. silvatica (subsp distichum). This is in fact the species present wild here along the upper margin of Eskdale Forest Reserve. While the vines emerging in Gahnia Grove were uprooted before they could flower, it is unlikely they were anything else, although the native C. sepium subsp roseata was later identified in the raingarden in the Domain Rd margin of the forest, and collected for planting here.] then another here and then another, under manuka canopy, here.

Anyway, since finding the first we have been mulling the best way to control it when it emerges. The vines are just as capable of killing trees by occlusion of light as the heavier-weight honeysuckle or jasmine, but the slender stems are much easier to cut. If it sprawls across bare ground before native seedlings appear, it might be useful in the short-term in preventing dessication and other weed invasion (eg kikuyu, if it is not yet eradicated in that area).

Julkaistu heinäkuu 7, 2018 07:58 AP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 2 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

heinäkuu 8, 2018

Japanese honeysuckle responds to screefing/pullback

In the "Arena", the kikuyu running down the bank hid numerous honeysuckle runners as well as thick, deep roots. So when the kikuyu was pulled up the bank for pullback to rot the roots, it necessarily included stems of honeysuckle, both broken and unbroken. These had to be cut in many places to allow the kikuyu to be pulled up (though still incompletely due to rooted honeysuckle holding it in many places).

Since separating kikuyu from honeysuckle would have been extremely time-consuming, if possible, it was decided to trial screefing, or pullback, of both species as one mass.

Much of the honeysuckle being woody, the mass of material for use as self-mulch was not as dense as occurs with pure kikuyu pullback. Thus rotting of the kikuyu has not yet been complete.

However, it has been successful as a strategy in this situation, as many of the honeysuckle roots were found to be loosened and easily uprooted, after c1-4 weeks of cold, sometimes wet weather.

Much of the kikuyu in the Arena has also loosened and been uprooted. The remainder will be targeted for complete pullback and rotting as the remaining honeysuckle can be uprooted and separated.

A dry spell in the last week slowed the rotting and made the honeysuckle wood too dry and light to function well as mulch, so some piles of pulled vines were removed from the site's outer barriers and replaced at the top of the Arena, where roots of either kikuyu or honeysuckle remain to be rotted.

Lower down the Arena, where honeysuckle did not begin until more recently, some honeysuckle roots have loosened, been partially uplifted and piled on themselves, to replicate this loosening on the remaining roots.

It seems this strategy, of gradual pullback, piling and rotting, has increased the efficiency of complete root removal of Japanese honeysuckle on this site. NB It is not yet complete.

Julkaistu heinäkuu 8, 2018 06:56 IP. käyttäjältä kaipatiki_naturewatch kaipatiki_naturewatch | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti