TRIP REPORT : Druce garden workbee

 Saturday :   23 February 2008

This was our annual opportunity to help with the maintenance of this nationally important garden.   It contains many threatened indigenous plant species established by Tony and Helen Druce over the last forty years.   It is protected in perpetuity by a QEII National Trust Open Space Covenant.   We each chose one or more of the tasks that Helen had listed beforehand.   We weeded gorse, broom, tradescantia, selaginella, veld grass, Spanish heath, old man’s beard, pine seedlings, montbretia, oxalis and dodder / Cassytha paniculata, a weedy, native, parasitic liane from the Far North.   It is parasitic on herbs and shrubs, forming tangled masses.   (See Flora 1, page 137).   Other work done included clearing the track network, and pruning some fruit trees.

Participants :   Jill Broome, Barbara Clark, Helen Druce (leader), Chris Horne (scribe), Archie & Lynsie Kerr, Sheelagh Leary, Rodney Lewington, Sue Millar, Darea Sherratt, Val Smith, Carol West.