Edie’s Glen is the name given to a small gully formed by a stream that comes off Transit Hill behind Pinetrees Lodge. At some point in the distant past, Castor oil plant Ricinus communis and Rice paper plant Tetrapanax papyrifer had been planted there, and had grown to a height of some 3 to 4 metres. From the beginning of the weeding ecotours in 1995, groups would walk past this each morning on the trek to the weeding site above the stile at the top of the Pinetrees grazing paddock. On one trip in 2004 Rymill Abell and Ian Hutton decided to make an exploratory attempt at removing some of the mature plants. So in we went with secateurs, knives, a saw and Roundup. We cut the stems of a few dozen plants, but the leaves have loose hairs on the underside that easily dislodge when handled, and about half an hour was all that we could do because inhaling these hairs became uncomfortable. We consulted the LHI Board staff, and some months later they returned with a spray unit mounted on a vehicle, and spayed herbicide on all the foliage. The plants went brown – apparently dead.

However they subsequently recovered the following year, and looked the same as before treatment. Once the FLHI started working on the Climbing asparagus area on the north flank of Transit Hill, the groups walked through this Tetrapanax forest to access the asparagus site. So gradually, with each group we started to remove some Tetrapanax plants from the edges, using a handkerchief mask or spray-painting mask to minimize impact of the hairs. In 2007, with work from members of each of four groups, the bulk of the Tetrapanax plants had been removed. Hooray victory !

However, the next year when we returned to walk up the site, the gully was filled with a green canopy – and once we were close we could see that another noxious weed had been sitting as a seed bank under the Tetrapanax plants – and once exposed to the sun, the seeds of Castor oil bush sprouted and plants were now 2 metres tall and in flower. So groups that year (2008) tackled these plants with gusto – all removed. Great! However the next year another crop of Castor oil seeds had emerged and this process was repeated. The next year only a few Castor oil plants were present. Now smaller weeds had crept in – Solanum nigrum, Fleabane, Cape gooseberry, Farmer’s friend or Cobblers peg, Purple top, Scotch thistle. So members of the groups cleared these weeds; and while doing this, noticed many small seedlings of native plants just ten centimetres tall emerging. So a plan was made to have each subsequent group do very careful weed clearing around these native seedlings to allow them light, water and nutrients. Also from time to time, pockets of seeds from native tree species from around the settlement were scattered across the area.

This repeated attention to nurturing the emerging natives by hand removal of weedy species has proven successful. Now some of these natives that grew from seeds are 4 and 5 metres tall, starting to merge into a forest and so shade out weedy species. The gully floor with deeper soil has made the best recovery.

Each year since, one of the Friends of LHI weeding groups visit and continue to remove the weeds, and expand the area of native regrowth out from the core area. By 2010 the canopy of the remnant saplings and newly emerged seedling had grown to 4 metres tall, and shaded out any weeds that tried to establish beneath them. Today the canopy is metres tall.

While this regrowth is dominated by Blackbutt trees (Cryptocarya triplinervis) there is a large list of native plants now recorded growing in the area;

Trees: Baloghia inophylla, Drypetes deplanchei, Olea paniculata, Omalanthus populifolius, Sophora howinsula, Ficus macrophylla, Polyscias cissodendron, Xylosma maidenni, Lagunaria Patersonia, Howea forsteriana, Rapanea platystigma, Cryptocarya triplinervis

Shrubs: Alyxia ruscifolia, Dodonaea viscosa, Cassinia tenuifolia, Myoporum insulare

Creepers: Parsonsia howeanum, Jasminum simplicifolium, Commelina cyana, Stephania japonica, Tylophora biglandulosa, Smilax australis

Ferns: Nephrolepis cordifolia, Asplenium milnei and Pteris microptera.

The moral – persistence pays. Well done to all of the Friends who contributed to this success