Friday, June 10, 2011

Barry continued cutting Dog-Strangling Vine (DSV) which is now under its best growing conditions, reaching over a metre high and twining, mostly around itself. 

DSV is getting harder to cut for several reasons, including thicker, woodier stems, difficulty seeing ground level owing to twining, and its growth into trees, which is aided in places where last year's vines had not been removed. Comfrey is now also very tall (some plants almost 2 metres) and flowering. No DSV grows in comfrey patches, but areas of the New Woods are being taken over by it. Pick our poison!

Barry also checked the area nearby that Geoff had been cutting and walked around the New Woods to see how it looked after all our work there. Geoff's area is shaded, so regrowth is slower (although still as much as 1/2 a metre), so more readily observable. Cut plants tend to put up one or two more shoots at leaf nodes, depending in part on the height of the cut.  At the same time, new vines are appearing, but it is difficult to tell whether these are new plants or vines from crowns of cut plants - probably both. The area on the other side of the trail to Green Heron Road that Barry cut several weeks ago is now almost indistinguishable from the uncut field; the main difference is less twining. The south side of the pond is marginally better; the triangle formed by trails south of the bridge, cut early on, has some DSV but is showing plenty of other growth; the cut sections east of it toward the Butterfly Meadow are regrowing but still readily distinguishable from the uncut parts.

The New Woods presents a discouraging scene; it is difficult to see any lasting results of our efforts throughout May. Much regrowth, coming up through the newspaper / leaf mulch (both through the mulch and at the edges, including right at the tree trunks) and vigorous enough to push up the tarp. It seems that this vigour is enough to displace the tarps, so we will need to revisit our approach to how to use both large tarps and the mulch.