Veolia Planting Day

On Friday 1 November we were privileged to have 20 staff from Veolia Australia and New Zealand come from Sydney to participate in one of their Bushcare days. Bethany King, a Gully Traditional Owner and the daughter of David King, organised this event. She combined her deep connection with country and her role as Human Resources Coordinator at Veolia.

Upper Kedumba Planting Day with Veolia staff.

In a tremendous effort on a very hot day the staff planted 400 native seedlings in an area previously cleared with the help of the BMCC urban weeds program. These seedlings were provided by Wildplant Rescue and include ferns and shrub layer plants. They continued then to rehabilitate a soak area further on the site.

The Gully Traditional Owners, the Upper Kedumba Bushcare Group and Bushcare are very grateful for this help to accelerate the restoration of the natural environment at Upper Kedumba.

Impromptu Planting Day

On Saturday 4 May, David arrived with a collection of native plants recovered from his property in Narrow Neck Rd – all with local provenance. Being a cool sunny day good for planting, the plants were very suitable to go into the area recently setup with gully control structures. The planting area which was very heavily grassed needed to be slashed with a grass trimmer before planting. With Jane, Karen & Kate working hard we managed to get all the plants in by knock-off time.

Plants: Hakea dactyloides, Eucalyptus oreades, Dianella tasmanica, Leptospermum polygalifolium, Knobbly Club Rush

Grass trimming with the trusty Bosch prior to planting

Gully Combined Day 2018

Welcome to country by David King

Upper Kedumba Bushcare Group hosted 35 volunteers from Garguree Swampcare and Friends of Katoomba Falls Groups and the broader Bushcare community in our annual Kedumba Catchment Gully get-together.

It was a great success, with a wonderful community feeling and a great boost to the Upper Kedumba Bushcare site. There were so many enthusiastic and committed helping hands and we also had five new volunteers join in.

We were working on four different site components, giving a variety of work options to the volunteers so they could join in with tasks to challenge them and also tasks where they would feel familiar and relaxed.

After a full work morning we indulged in a wonderful shared feast and heard from Eric Mahoney about works in the catchment and how our workdays positively impact on it. Jane spoke about our Bushcare native bee metropolis and who we would likely see using the bee hotels.

Our workday consisted of :

1 – Continuing to create a wetland soak in the low lying section of UK to change the environmental conditions currently present. Trying to create a wetter area, hoping to diminish annual grasses and create . a more suitable habitat for aquatic creatures. Trying to slow the flow of the water in big rain events, capturing it on site and stripping nutrients from it.

Coir log installation with the Bush Doctors and volunteers in action

David King with the Bush Doctors

The Bush Doctors supervising work in progress

In February/March we hope to plant this area out with Juncus and other sedges.

2 – Continuing on with a creation of a mulch path through the site – the long term vision is to create a site where local community will feel inclined to walk through it, stop to find out about local native bees and pollinators, fauna and habitat creation, why these things are needed and how important they are for our local environment.

3 – Removal of small and large privets in bands across the slope. This work will be supported by a day of contracting works in the next 3 months and with continued planting of endemic species.

4 – Removal of Monbretia from a drainage line.

Thank you to all who came along and helped with our ongoing Bushcare works.

Good Things Happening at Upper Kedumba

Drainage Works

It was pleasing to see after being away from bushcare for most of the year the progress that has been made. In particular very impressive new drainage works are under way which should be very beneficial for the site. With the combined day happening on 2nd December, a lot more progress should be made with these works and the site in general.

October Bushcare

A partly cloudy rather cool day greeted Jane, Phil, Claire and David and it was decided that the best course of action was to weed around the plantings. The effects of the very dry winter and spring were very noticeable. A freshly hatched cicada got very attached to Jane at morning tea!

After inspection of the various nest boxes and other facilities on site it was clear that there had been plenty of pollinator action since our pollinator day last year.

David reveals his latest pollinator home – no prizes for seeing the little face!

Pollinator Day Review

At our first bushcare day in 2017, Jane, Phil, Paul and David were very pleased to see that the local insect population have started to take up lodgings in the new establishments. A native bee was observed arranging the furniture in its new apartment in Bee Hilton!

: Native bee action

: Nest box 1

: Nest box 2

: Nest box 3

: Nest box 4

: Nest log 1

As well as seeing natives bees, we also enjoyed a brief visit by two Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos.

Yellow-tailed Blacks @ UK

Jane & Phil

Pollinator Day at Upper Kedumba

A fine, sunny day greeted the many enthusiastic people who arrived at Upper Kedumba bushcare site on our native bee pollinator day. A very busy and productive time saw a number of different native bee habitats installed which will be observed with interest over time. Many thanks to all those that attended who made it such a great morning.