Three months have passed since we were fortunate to have Greening Australia plant our bottom paddock with seed for thousands of trees. I thought we would take a wander around our paddock and check out the progress.
The planting was a relatively simple process (see here: https://rockfarming.com/2016/11/03/how-to-plant-trees-lots-and-lots-of-trees/). After preparing the site, seed was directly planted into small furrows, planted along contours. We then herded the sheep out of the paddock and closed the gate.
This summer has been hot – at times extremely so, but we have managed to get the odd storm or two. A couple of weeks ago we also enjoyed one day of steady rain that filled our rain gauge a wonderful 24mm.
Whilst initial glances over the paddock don’t show much progress, a close up inspection reveals plenty of young wattles and eucalyptus starting to strike.
The kids enjoyed checking out the plants – and so did Kruz – the most wonderful new addition to our family – but I’ll write more about him later.
I’m no expert on identifying the seedlings, but the seed planted had a good mix of Blakey’s Red Gum (eucalyptus blakelyi), Red Box (eucalyptus polyanthemos) and Yellow Box (eucalyptus melliodora).
It also had plenty of wattle seed too, such as Silver Wattle (acacia dealbata).
The tree I have been really looking forward to finding is the Drooping Sheaoak (Allocasuarina Verticillata). This tree is habitat and food for the Glossy Black Cockatoo. I found another young tree in our top paddock, bringing the total number on our place to 6, but sadly haven’t found any seedlings in our furrows yet.
That said, the trees seem to be going well. The weeds are also starting to compete, and I know that I will eventually have to slash between the rows of trees to give them a fighting chance… best I get me a tractor!
rockfarming 