Reeds planted and mounds around orchard

We have now finished the transplanting of the reeds into our new reed bed. Normally the reeds used for such reed beds are so called common reeds, or in Latin: Phragmites Australis. However, we are in a particular situation in that we have Rushy Lagoon to the west of the property and on a lower level than the reed bed. In Rushy Lagoon there are lots of reeds, non of which are the Phragmites Australis.

The problem with Phragmites Australis is that it has a very good capacity to spread, and should it end up in the lagoon, it might very well take over the whole place. As such, we will be using reeds occurring naturally in the lagoon already, to ensure that we do not introduce a species that might cause problems in the future.

We've had to options, namely the Articulated Twig Rush (in Latin: Baumea arthophylla) and the Common Spike Rush (in Latin: Elocharis acuta). The former is the main inhabitant of Rushy Lagoon, and the one we managed to identify using pictures found on the Internet, thus it is the one we have transplanted into our reed bed. We are also quite happy that we have this supply of reeds on our own property, as we found that they cost around AUD 9 each, and so far we have transplanted around 100 pieces. It is also good in that if some were not to survive, we can easily get new supplies and transplant more.

The end result of reed bed number one - after transplanting - looks like this:

We still have to arrange the sides of the reed bed, but at least the main part is done.

Following all the excavations we had a lot of soil to use, and we have followed our previous idea of making mounds on the property. These mounds will be planted with bushes growing up to about 2 meters height, thus helping to give us some good wind breaks around the place. The latest mound we have created ended up being about 87 meters long and is around what will eventually be the orchard. The area is around 400-500 square meters and we are likely to put in about 25 fruit trees to start with. Berry bushes will hopefully come a bit later, and we also taught we could put a little chook shed in there.

For the moment it looks like this:

As seen from north west, looking south east

As seen from north east, looking south west.

Any problems, please email webmaster. This page was last updated 24/07/2008