Another big shout out to the amazing SIHS students and parents who came to our Term 2 Bushcare morning last weekend. It was cold and started with rain and even hail. But thankfully that soon cleared and our growing group of 13 wonderful volunteers did the most amazing job.
First, a big thank you to the NSW Environmental Trust whose grant has allowed us to continue our work and last weekend we planted 26 new plants in the Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest. It's wonderful to see our forest burst with new life, including acacias and kangaroo grass.
We then moved into a new section of the forest, down towards the corner of Yarrabung and Hunter Streets, where we started the massive job of tackling the vines that are smothering and killing our trees.
It was a very sad sight for all of us to see so many magnificent trees dragged down under the weight of the vines. But we soon learnt how to 'skirt' the trees - cut the vines away from around the base of the trees and pull them back to give the trees some breathing room (we didn't pull the vines themselves down as that could damage the trees or ourselves - the vines will die and drop from the trees now that they've been cut).
Everyone, especially the kids from Years 7 to 12 (thanks Ella H, Sherry S, Chloe B and Cadan and Rhian SP) worked so hard and found it incredibly rewarding - we knew we were literally saving these trees' lives.
It is ongoing work to keep the vines from climbing back up the trees and clearing the vines and weeds in general so we can return the forest to a more healthy condition.
Please keep an eye out for our Bushcare mornings which occur once per term, and come along and help - even an hour helps us so much.
Sandie
