The rain came pouring down as I topped the mullock heap. Drenched, I must admit to descending gloomily to Footrot Flats, a soggy site south of the dam, where I thought our planting had totally failed. Not so – after record spring and summer rains and the warmth that comes with climate change, the hybrid eucs and Turkey oaks were rising from the dead. Many were becoming entangled in their plastic sleeves, so I removed the worst cases. Will now have to check whether or not they're more vulnerable to bouncing roos and ravaging wallabies.

Thinning of swamp gum along the west boundary of ImLal South has successfully prevented them overwhelming the shrub layer. Five months after thinning, the cassinia, hop plants and tree violets are thriving.  Within this minimal intervention area, the plan is to alternate thickets of swamp gum with clumps of shrubs.

It's been a very wet early spring. The 'footy field' has reverted to a swamp. What few plants survived from last October planting day are now underwater (see bottom right). We'd better stick to reeds.

Imerys has put a  gate in the fence from ImLalSouth to the hilltop. This allows us to more easily traverse the bird survey transect, as well as connecting to the biolink, central dam and ImLal North. 

Also you can see that Imerys has got Jensans to cut and paste the gorse on the hilltop and its surroundings.  Thanks Brad! 

Ballarat Region Treegrower members with pruning experience will teach and supervise at the field day, which will start at 11am on Friday 17 October.  We’ll stick to forestry trees and practice on invading trees along the 5ha biorich plantation’s edges. Pruning is not just about form pruning for timber values – although if you want to get a sawlog some time in the future, you’ll need to prune. Pruning is also a way of reducing dense canopy trees that are outcompeting shrubs in an environmental planting.  And pruning makes it possible to walk and see through what could otherwise become impenetrable scrub. There’s some who argue you can overprune   – so come along, learn another skill and be part of the discussion.

Please RSVP to Gib Wettenhall on Contact us so we have an idea how many are coming along. We're meeting at the ImLal display board, 100m past the Ironmine Rd intersection on Lal Lal Falls Rd. BYO lunch and secateurs. $10 for non-AFG members; free to AFG members.  

Phil and I have reguarded the redwoods with 1m high roo proof wraps. We managed to discover 15 survivors of the original 67.

We saw a large mob of roos on ImLal North.

From a trial of 67 redwood clones, we have only 12 left. The others have succumbed to frost, grass competition and trampling by a large mob of kangaroos that frequents the more isolated ImLal North site. 

Wade Cornell from Diversified Forest Ltd in Queensland supplied the clones almost three years ago. He reports that some of the other trial sites  have fared much better, with trees up to three metres, compared to our puny 30cm.

"The exception is [a site] where they planted (against instructions) in a 
 fresh cut-over where there were no (appropriate) mycorrhizae available 
 to the trees," Wade says.  " Your site would have definitely had appropriate mycorrhizae as they are shared by the grasses that looked abundant on your site.

"Out of season frost can kill young redwoods, but they are usually OK 
 with -6 degrees and some can take up to -12 degrees in winter.   When 
 heavily frosted they will 'bronze' with the leaves turning a 
 reddish-brown and take a while to start growing in spring.   It's a 
 little hard to tell from the photo exactly what's going on, but they 
 didn't look 'bronzed' and more like they are just struggling with other 
 site/environmental factors."

Phil and I plan to reguard the survivors to protect them from roos.  There's still a big enough clump of the sequoia to make an impressive entrance to the ImLal North site.  

Phil and I spent a day among the forestry clumps taking out branches to 4m, double leaders and forks in trees. Still plenty to do when we get round to a pruning day.

Greatly improves accessibility and
line of sight through plantation, as well as form.