PLANT MONITORING

 GO AHEAD FARM 2030 REVEGETATION PLANTING / Stream Care

Ephemeral stream site that was planted on 26/7/20 

Date of visit. 9/9/2020

Maintenance of site and plants,

weed releasing

plant guards, Fencing

Cheeked all the plants. Nice to see that most are doing really well and coir mats seem to be helping and keeping weeds out.

Plant health and modifications undertaken 

Had to re fit and put more than 100  guards on again as they may not have been put in properly in the first place?

In future would be good to drive them in a bit deeper.

Example of guard not put on properly 

Lucky not many casualties so far only four plants that where washed away during heavy rain in the second to last week of August with some flooding.

Signs of flooding, silt washing down hill.

Carex secta visible without cover this could be hard to find in future.

Otherwise most of the plants so far look healthy no signs of disease, pest or frost damage.

 Gully Planting that was done 9/8/ 2020.  

Pest control

I did see three hares while I was there but lucky the guards seem to be doing their job and none of the new plants have been nibbled at.

Reflection:

Was nice to be out there on a sunny day see all the hard work that has been done so far.

That gully looks fantastic all planted up.

Great to see so many plants doing well no guards blowen away by wind and hardly any flood damage all the  grasses close to stream survived

The new guards where used on old plantings, leaving a lot of planted grasses with no guards or sticks so in future could be tricky to find those Carex grasses we planted once normal grass and weeds get growing.  

Did notice that there are no fences in place yet ?  and some signs of something walking over plantings at the bottom of gully??

Some of that gully is planted up with some huge gaps, so would definitely be good to close those up next winter so that nursery plants can shelter each other and grow better.

 

 According to what I saw the releasing of plants will need to be done sometime in early November, this will probably need to be spread over two days again.

This will involve removing the guards of the plants and the mats, weeding a 50 cm area around plants replacing mats and guards for each plant.

place mats and sticks around plants that do not have any.

Possibly controlling some other weeds in the area with scrub cutter.

Do another plant  count see what is growing well and what is not.

And Looking at future sites that will be planted here an example of dry river beds mentioned in last revegetation blog.

There are a many *Tomo, Wetland and springs sites  on this farm that are all part of the future planting plan.

*Tomo are formed when ground water dissolves underlying limestone rock. The dissolved hole enlarges to a point where it can't support the ground above it.

Fresh water spring, future planting site.