Eleven Murchison locals turned out to control weeds in the Riverview Reserve Kahikatea Walk on a showery Saturday (30 Oct, 2004). The workday was organised as part of the Murchison Environmental Care Group (MECG) commitment to improving the health of their local environment.

This patch of forest was chosen as a weed busters project because it is the only easily-accessed remnant podocarp stand remaining on the Murchison flats. It is an important resource as a seed-source for plants to support a major riparian restoration community project, and a valuable living reminder of how the Murchison flats were before settlement, not to mention its essential role as home and food source for Murchison’s native birds and (probably…but yet to be surveyed…) bats.

The priority work for the day was to rid the interior of the forest of invasive weeds. We tidied the site where some large sycamores had earlier been felled, pulled thousands of sycamore seedlings and dug out some patches of montbretia and artillery plant at one of the track entrances. Two search-and-destroy teams combed the interior of the stand, felling and stump-swabbing boxthorn, hawthorn, cherry laurel, wild cherry, and sycamore trees that had gained a foothold inside the forest. Most weed species were at an early stage of invasion, although there were some mighty chainsaw-befitting barberry felled with handsaws. The sycamore patch will require ongoing control of seedlings and perhaps some planting, but we are hoping that the weed control achieved on this workday will provide long-term benefits for this beautiful stand.

Still to be controlled inside the forest stand are several large patches of blackberry and Himalayan honeysuckle which have grown up in light gaps, excluding native trees and shrubs from prime establishment sites. Depending on the time pressures on the MECG, we may hopefully get one more day’s weeding work into the stand this summer.

Look out for future events advertised on the Weedbusters website.