The greening of Carwoola

In several of my posts I have included images of parts of the landscape of Carwoola being bonsaied (or in other words, severely pruned). However we are also attempting to reduce our carbon footprint somewhat by planting a fair bit of stuff.



An initial aim of this was to have an olive grove, which is now up to 9 trees. This included 3 trees already in existence when we arrived although they had been well munched by the kangaroos. They were also on a rocky hill and not enjoying it (even though it resembled the envoironment along the coast of the Mediterranean) so were very small and sorry looking. We increased the number of trees by 6 on a visit to Adelaide where we acquired 6 trees at $5 each from 45 Wright St, Renown Park (sorry, they don't seem to have a website at the moment).



I then noticed a truck from Greening Australia driving around Carwoola and on following up with an acquaintance there found that they could, and would, give us lots of stuff. Here is a link to their site http://live.greeningaustralia.org.au/GA/ACT/.




The first part of the project was 200 tubes of trees and shrubs which we got in two lots of 100.

As usual with plants (except possibly bromeliads) the first thing to do was create a hole for them to live in. This was made easier by using a hand auger, although after digging 50 holes in a day (in soil fairly well supplied with shale and lumps of quartz) my shoulders were rather second-hand.

Then Francie swung into gear planting the trees and watering them in. Tree guards (cardboard boxes, held up with wee bamboo stakes) were then put in place and a couple of litres of water added for each tree. Finally I swung back into gear putting a layer of compost around each tree guard since the soil seemed a tad deficient in organic matter and cracked as soon as the water dried up.

Being caring and sharing type people we also gave the trees a second drink about 4 days after planting. This is mainly because the weather has not done what was required.






The other component of the process/project was a plan to direct seed another area that looks like the steppe of Kazakhstan, but without Borat (for which we are eternally grateful). This started off by spraying the area with glyophosphate to give the trees the least competition when they germinated. The first time I did this (pictured - note adherence to safety standards) it rained straight afterwards and I thought the spray was washed off so repeated the deal. Needless to say both efforts appeared to work so most of the paddock was sprayed.

The final step of this stage was for a small truck from Greening Australia to come and tow the seeder around the paddock, cutting a furrown and putting in some eucalpt, wattle and other seeds. All we need now is for it to rain - and a bit better than the paltry 1mm we got two days later

I will try to keep this page updated to show how the plants grow. Probably that will be at best a couple of photos every 6 months or so.

Our component of the project is to put in some labour (and a few chemicals). My estimate is that Frances and I have put in about 40 hours to digging the holesplanting watering and mulching the tubestock trees and shrubs. I just hope we get about 50% germination rate as a payoff.