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.

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.