Adventures in Weeding

Not two weeks after arriving in Oz, I am finding myself without a garden, an outdoor space in which to play with my Gnome friends, a place were I can find my inner peace, as I have always done in my garden back in England. When suddenly, out of the blue, Megan hands me this article from the newspaper saying 'Bushcare Volunteers Needed' for a community project at the local park ' Wiseman's Park'. So I figured I'd give it a go...

I turned up, slathered from head to foot in Suncream (it was about 25C that day), looking like a gormless tourist, but I found the group and introduced myself, telling them that I was new to the area (the accent did rather give me away) and wanted to learn more about the local flora, and what this project was all about.

So I was given gloves (which I immediately discarded, I love to feel the earth in my fingers) and a trowel and shown to a patch of cleared ground where some native plant were starting to push their way to the surface once more as the weeds had been cleared from this spot... she pointed to a patch at the edge of this area and told me I'd be working here... Before you now it I was clearing weeds like Lantana (lantana camara) from the South America's (although DNA testing has been done and they can't trace which variety of lantana the Aussie weed comes from, it must have morphed) a difficult one to pull up; Panic Veldt Grass, very easy to remove; Asparagus, not the edible type though some of the Italians in the area do come and pick the tops to put in their pasta dishes because it tastes remarkably like asparagus, this one is a bugger to pull up so it is tied in a knot and sprayed bu special bushcare crews.

I won't bore you too much with all the names, I am still learning them myself if I'm honest, though the fact that Honeysuckle and Verbena are weeds here is a real shame but they are not part of the native habitat so, I guess...

Well I had a wonderful time getting my hands dirty (reminds me of making mud pies as a kid) and then we were shown down to the local creek that runs through the park... and guess what... when we crossed it I fell in... trainers are now very muddy but hey:)

Over the last 3 weeks we have planted more native species into the area, weeded more non-native species out of the area and I have started to get to know the people too, which is a great bonus.

And there my friends is my first foray into the native Aussie bush... great fun :)