Sweet Briar in flower (W.Pix).
Please give a hand and help remove Sweet Briar Rose and Hawthorn at the northwest corner of the Mt Majura nature reserve.
When: Sunday, 17 November, 9am – 12noon, give as much of your time as you want.
Where: Nature park east of The Fair, North Watson; access nature park entrance Tay / Ian Nicol Streets; click on this map to view the work area near the gully that runs along Valour Park.
What: Control of Sweet Briar roses, Hawthorn and any other woody weed that we find.
Bring: Drinking water, sunscreen and garden gloves if you have them. We provide tools and gloves and a delicious home made cake for morning tea. Wear clothes which cover your limbs and sturdy shoes.
No experience necessary – all welcome. There will be a short demo and briefing at the start.
Inquiries: secretary@majura.org
We will continue work to remove Briar Rose and Hawthorn east of The Fair. The work involves cutting stems of woody plants and dabbing the cut surface with the herbicide glyphosate. We will work in pairs; if you don’t want to handle herbicide you may choose to be the “cutter”.
Foxes and the spread of Sweet Briar
Fox scats of Sweet Briar fruits and seeds, photo taken in nature reserve east of The Fair (W.Pix).
Foxes are highly adaptable opportunistic omnivores. They hunt and scavenge, and take a wide variety of vertebrate and invertebrate prey, both native and introduced and they eat plant material such as rose hips, blackberries and fruits of other introduced plants. The seeds take several hours to pass through a fox’s digestive system, allowing time for seeds to be dispersed over large areas.
Friends of Mt Majura volunteers began tackling Sweet Briars in the nature reserve east of The Fair in 2012; some of the shrubs were a couple of meters tall and wide such as the fruiting Sweet Briar shown below.
