On Sunday 12 October 9 people gathered for another mini- working bee at the Sutton Village reserve. A lovely sunny morning for an enjoyable time outside.
The group moved to the second part of the larger area of the Reserve and a lot of woody weeds were removed. We were once again impressed with the amount of work that can be done by a small group of people in one and half hours. To give you an idea: over the last 9 months we have removed 435 Sifton, 15 Cootamundra wattles, 140 escapee small grevilleas, 250 young pines, 70 briar roses, 41 hawthorns, 170 serrated tussocks, 150 St Johns wort’s, 2 cotoneasters, 1 privet, 25 thistles, 6 blackberries and six 50 L bags of litter. Aside from our own efforts, Yass Valley Council has sprayed large patches of blackberries and hundreds of serrated tussocks.
Sutton Landcare now has its own Facebook page as well as a dedicated site on the Canberra Naturemapr
>> NatureMapr | Sutton Reserve
where plants we find on the Reserve are posted.
All the work is done with support from Crown Lands and Yass Valley Council.
Over the next 12 months we will keep going and in addition to weed removal the environmental work may include (depending on Crown Lands collaboration and permission) removing some large pine trees that are throttling old eucalypts, healing (or cool) burns, St John’s wort removal by professionals etc. In December -January we will embark on rabbit eradication with help of Local Land Services.
The long-term plan is to provide information signs, create walking paths, yarning circles, improve the fencing to provide better access for the Sutton Community and have the Reserve as a proper community asset. If you would like to know more, or get involved, please contact us via [email protected].
Our next activity will be a twilight weed walk at the Reserve. Keep an eye on the Sutton Facebook pages for date and time.
Written by Arnold Dekker, Suttton Landcare