Our working bees do great work cleaning up and rehabilitating the local coastal reserves. You can see some of our current and past working bees listed below. Everyone is welcome to join in, with no experience necessary. Usually we ask you to bring your own hat and gloves, sunblock and water, and we occasionally have lunches or morning teas afterwards. Come and meet the locals and make Cape a cleaner and greener place too!
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Pete Muskens
We had a comparitively small turn out for the day but we did manage to clear a big patch of tacoma.
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Pete Muskens
Today we again cleared a rubbish from the streets and coastal reserve of Cape Paterson. As with previous years, the amount of rubbish collected was less than the year before. It's heartening to see that, as a community, we are doing better all the time.
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Pete Muskens
On February 8th our working bee volunteers split into three groups; one to pull gazania off the nature strips before they start infesting the coastal reserve, the second group pulled a heavy infestation of English Ivy (Header helix) in the Alan Birt Reserve, and the other group were clearing weeds engulfing last year’s plantings on the boat ramp slope. With some Bass Coast Shire Council work crew support we may be able to get the kikuyu on the hill slope and the Ivy regrowth sprayed in the near future. Below is a before and after shot of a mature gum in danger of being strangled by the ivy. As you can see, it is now a climbable object for adventurous kids!
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Pete Muskens
We made further inroads into the boneseed infestation with some minor hiccups during the working bee. As is common after woody weed clearing there was some thistle emerging - this will need monitoring and spraying. Planting from earlier this year appear to be thriving. Sadly there is still more to do next year but with some council help we may be able to finish off this infestation.
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Pete Muskens
We had eight volunteers to lend a hand in eradicating some pittosporum, polygala and boneseed (and a rogue pine tree) in the reserve adjacent to Surf Beach Road. With so few numbers there was no chance re-visit the area west of the 1st surf beach car park but we were able to clear some patches that had been left for some years. One of the photos show a freshly lopped boneseed stump with growth rings indication that it had been growing undisturbed for at least the past six years.
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Pete Muskens
Contractors have carried out spraying of spurge at the worst infested spots west of harmers Haven, Inverloch and the bays along the Cape Paterson Inverloch Road. Follow up weeding has been done by the various groups involved. As expected, around Cape Paterson, we were mostly involved in removing and bagging immature seedlings from seed load from the foreshore. On the last day, we weeded a badly infested dune slope (see photos) well inland from Hooded Plover habitat but figured that this would remain a source of wind blown seed load for the main Hooded Plover nesting site in the big blow out west of the cape so this was tackled with gusto. There was too much spoil to take out so we mounded the spoil and will return to remove seedlings as they emerge.
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Pete Muskens
We had a VERY blustery time planting 400+ ground covers and shrubs on the steep slopes of the boat ramp embankment. Fortunately the rain held off until we finished our lunch. Planting conditions were tough with compacted ground and a tangle of kikuyu runners under the dead kikuyu foliage.
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Pete Muskens
We had a great turn out for the working bee at the Cassia Street Reserve. The rain held off (just!), paths were re-established and residual seed looad weeds were pulled. It was gratifying to see that this area is no longer used as a rubbish dump and that our planting over many yers is reaching maturity. There are some prolific viniferous weeds on the verge of Cassia Street and we'll request the responsible authority to engage contractors to spray these.
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Pete Muskens
In drizzly weather, eight volunteers planted 100 indigenous plants. The area was not cleared by council contractors as expected. More work may need to be done on this area.
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Pete Muskens
This morning we had nine volunteers to help suppress the boneseed and pittosporum infestation. Great inroads were made again and we expect to be able to plant out this area in the winter months. We finally had a delicious BBQ lunch after our working bee thanks to our esteemed caterer Leonie Thiele. It was wonderful to see some familiar faces returning to our working bee.
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