Welcome to the June 2015 edition of the FoMM newsletter. We have been busy over the past month maintaining the native plants at the Fair, spreading mulch and woody debris around the seedlings as well as treating the Paterson’s Curse in preparation for the two planting days we having coming up very soon. Winter is a great time for planting and we would love to see you there! Also, if you’ve always wondered what the difference is between a red box and a yellow box, come along to our Tree Walk on National Tree Day.
See you on the mountain.
Jo Lynch
FoMM Secretary
FoMM activities and news
Winter Solstice Planting – Sunday 21 June, 1pm – 3pm
Come along and get your hands dirty planting Spiny-headed Mat-rush (Lomandra longifolia), followed by afternoon tea. We will be planting on the west slope and continue the great work done by volunteers including the Majura Mountain Scouts over many years. Please come early for an introduction; planting on the steep slope requires special attention. In the event of bad weather the planting will be postponed to the following Sunday. Please check the website or call 0435 357 172 close to the start time.
Where: Meet at the ParkCare notice board opposite the Hackett water tank off Rivett / French Sts intersections
Please bring: Hat, sunscreen, long sleeves, long pants, and sturdy boots
Enquiries: Ph. 62477515 or reply to this email
Click here for further information.
Spiny-headed Mat-rush plantings (W.Pix)
Mt Majura Planting @ The Fair – Sunday 19 July, 1pm – 3.30pm
Come to our planting party in the Mt Majura nature park. Volunteer registration opens at 12.45pm. Join in for a demonstration on How to plant at 1pm and then get your hands dirty and plant local trees, shrubs and flowers. This year’s event will be the fourth stage of a community re-vegetation project that started in Winter 2012 in the nature park behind The Fair in North Watson. We aim to replace weeds with local native plants, provide habitat for little woodland birds and improve the overall condition of the degraded endangered grassy woodland in the area.
Where: Mount Majura nature park behind (east of) The Fair in North Watson. Access intersection Tay and Ian Nicol Sts, The Fair or via nature park entrance Antill Street opposite Carotel for a 5-minutes walk to the planting site
What to wear: Garden gloves, appropriate clothing and foot wear. Wrap up warmly.
What to bring: Bucket, trowel or small mattock if you have one. Please label items with your phone number so that we can reunite any left-behinds with the owner.
Enquiries: Ph. 62477517 or reply to this email.
Click here for more information.
Bring your mum and dad and friends and make the event a real community planting party (W. Pix)
Trees of Mount Majura. Expert guided walk – Sunday 26 July, 2pm – 4pm
Celebrate National Tree Day 2015 with a gentle and informative tree walk on the slopes of Mount Majura with local ecologist Michael Doherty. Learn how to identify local woodland and forest trees, see where they occur and hear how they survive fire and drought.
Where: Nature park entrance, Helms Place close to Rivett and Richards Sts intersection, Hackett
Wear and bring: Sturdy shoes, sun protection, and drinking water.
Tree guides are available for a gold coin donation.
Enquiries: phone 6248 8955
Bundy (Eucalyptus goniocalyx) flowers and buds (W. Pix)
Green Army to give us a hand
A big thank you to the Molonglo Catchment Group, who will be providing a Green Army team to assist FoMM at The Fair during July, spreading mulch and woody debris, and digging holes for our July planting working bee. This will save us alot of work!
Can you help?
Do you have skills in using MS Excel and can volunteer your time for about 1 hour per month? FoMM is looking for someone to digitally enter the data collected on our sign-on sheets for all our activities, into prepared Excel files and then email them to the ParkCare Coordinator. This would help our coordinators concentrate on the on-ground activities. Please reply to this email if you can help!
Other items of interest
Are you interested in helping monitor frogs?
Frogwatch ACT and Region is about to start weekly monitoring for their Climate Change Project at five designated sites across the ACT from mid-July until October. The aim of the project is to monitor any behavioural shifts in frogs related to climate change, such as the earlier onset of breeding. And Mt Majura has been chosen as one of the sites! This reflects well on the many years of volunteer on-ground work and monitoring, that Mt Majura is a key site to judge the health of our slippery friends and their environmental / habitat condition. Frogs are cool….literally! If you are interested in volunteering for this project, please contact Frogwatch Coordinator Anke Maria Hoefer on 62783308, 0429066046 or via Email
Click here for more information
