Drowning in Butterfly Vines

Websters Creek Landcare has achieved its objective of planting 600 trees across two sites, in fact we exceeded that number with lots of Lomandra hystrix planted along the creek banks.

Fortunately, we dodged another flood in our area and our newly planted trees didn’t get washed away. However, when we had a third flood warning for the year and it got upgraded to “major” this land manager panicked because we had just finished planting the creek bank a few days before. So we held our breath and watched the water rise and rise and rise and as it tipped just below the tree line…… the sun came out, the warnings got downgraded and I opened a beer!

So many sites have lost trees in 2022 and there is nothing more boring than having to replant the same site.

A premise of our project was to plant habitat (Pararistolochia praevenosa) for the Richmond Birdwing-butterfly which lost a lot of habitat in the 2019-2020 bushfire in Nightcap National Park. Some time ago, I approached our local nurseryman to propagate a few of these for us and I rang him today to see if they were ready for planting and he said, ”Only one or two, the other 300 will be ready in a few weeks”….”300!” I exclaimed! Websters Landcare will have their work cut out for them in the coming weeks however we are looking forward to it.