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This month we did our half yearly wayleave maintenance under the power lines. Removing woody weeds and young tree saplings. The Sunday walk & talk with Phil Bell looking for Chaostola Skipper butterflies was cancelled due to a bad weather forecast. Butterflies need a period of warm weather and very little wind to flourish, and none of that happened in …

This month saw the end of our spring weeding of forget-me-nots and thistles in Providence Valley Rivulet. Some people fell we should just learn to live with these introduced weeds. However, we are trying to control it for a few years to give the endemic vegetation a chance to be established in the areas cleared of gorse. The plant-give-away went …

September’s first two activities were in Providence Valley Rivulet area. We talked about the ‘Paraclete’ estate and looked at the remnants of old road formations, stone fences, formed terraces and surviving introduced flowers. All signs of the early European settlement in Hobart. Then it was into hand pulling of forget-me-nots and thistles and more of the same for the third …

This month we did the yearly sweep over either side of the Glover Track, looking for weeds. There were a few gorse and broom, and next to one of the neighbouring house quite a few foxglove. Then we did the plant maintenance of the grasses, we planted above the Weerona Trail two years ago. At that time, the area that …

The first activity of the month was in the area below the Bandicoot Corridor, that was cleared by  Rodney and Greg a few years ago. There was some small gorse and thistles to remove.  It is good to see how the land is recovering on its own once the old-growth gorse has been removed. The second Thursday was spent hand-pulling …

The weather was really windy and cold early in the month as far as I have been told, but Rodney reported a good turn-up for the first Thursday activity, checking up on the work we did on 133 Forest Rd. last year. They picked up six big bags of rubbish and glass from the area below the Mt. Stuart Lookout, …

Vale Melva Truchanas. Tasmanian conservationist.Melva was also one of a group of West Hobart people that formed FoKL. The earliest dated paper I can find in our archives is from 7/3/1993. Melve  (secretary?) sent a list of 32 people to Tony Ault (convenor?) from a meeting. The group is already called Friends of Knocklofty. Their aim is to ‘rehabilitate and …

This month we started on the southern side of the Trig Hill, hand pulling or cutting and pasting re-growth  gorse. It is a few years since we swept through that area, and it was needed. The third area to be worked was high up on the eastern side of Knocklofty. KR 18. We walked uphill for 30 min. worked for …

The first Thursday activity this month was maintaining the open area above the Weerona Trail that we planted with grasses in august 2020. The plants are doing well, and if we can keep the re-growth gorse, thistles and other weeds off for another couple of years, the area will be open grass land, an asset for the reserve. The second …

Gorse seeds can lay dormant in the soil for at least 25 years, and areas in the reserve that was cleared 35 years ago and have not had flowering gorse since then are still producing seedlings. So with a wet winter and spring we were busy pulling up or cutting and pasting regrowth gorse during two activities. The third area …