Happy weeders after 3 hours horehound blitzing.
A small group of ANU Intrepid Landcare students joined forces with a handful of Friends of Mount Majura volunteers on Sunday 18 November at the old stock camp on the ridge between Mount Majura and Mount Ainslie to clear approximately 1200 square meters of horehound and to spread wood chip mulch over a smaller sized area that has been hand weeded at a previous working party.
Weeders in action.
Mulchers in action.
The weather was pleasant – not too hot and not too cold – and after 3 hours of hard work and lots of chatting the group was happy and satisfied with the result of weeding up to the end of the top part of the stock camp before it slopes down towards the water reservoir in the east.
This was the second time the ANU Intrepid crew lend a hand removing horehound at this stock camp and the crew plans to come back to tackle more.
Play time after work
Why mulching?
Approximately half of the ca. 5ha stock camp has been almost exclusively covered by weeds; see some photographs taken before weeding started here. Removing the weeds leaves bare soil behind that is prone to erosion. The natural recruitment of local ground cover plants such as native daisies and grasses is a very slow process due to heavy grazing and assisted revegetation is close to impossible because of the lack of seeds that could be collected and direct seeded. Thus the only option is covering the soil and hoping for overgrazing management in the near future.
Can you help?
Horehound weeding doesn’t require special skills as long as you are able to identify the plant.
So why not pulling a couple of horehounds when you walk in the area and add them to one of the piles?
Horehound with burrs
