Below is a list of scheduled working bee dates coming up for Mt Rogers Landcare Group in 2021.
You all make contributions to the Mt Rogers Community and have done for years. If you are able to spare a couple of hours every so often, please donate another 3–4 minutes by adding these dates to your 2021 diaries or calendars.
SUNDAYS:
28th February, 28th March, 25th April (Anzac Day), 23rd May, 27th June, 25th July, 22nd August, 26th September, 24th
October, 28th November, 26th December (Boxing Day).
MONDAYS:
1st March, 5th
April (Easter Monday), 3rd May, 7th June, 5th July, 2nd August (ACT Bank
Holiday), 6th September, 4th October (ACT Labour Day), 1st November, 6th
December.
We normally meet in the mornings, but both meeting venues and gathering times vary according to the anticipated activity and location. For 2–3 hours each session we focus on protecting the reserve and its native species from invading weed species.
Simultaneous to these working bees, individual volunteers additionally
contribute through:
- targeting and treating species that are an urgent problem,
- targeting isolated invasive species specimens deeper into the reserve’s cross country areas,
- maintaining the network of run-offs that take rainwater across the landscape, preventing erosion of the paths that hundreds of other people use each week,
- observing and reporting on wildlife diversity and species' presence,
- sending photographs of these species to Canberra Nature Map (CNM); that action makes a significant contribution to collective information about the ACT region’s natural estate. (You don’t need to know the species’ name because volunteer moderators attached to CNM identify the species – and your location – from the photographs.) The website explains what to do, at: https://canberra.naturemapr.org/
- collecting rubbish during their daily walks, including broken glass,
- welcoming newcomers with a smile.
In the coming weeks we can expect contractors employed by TCCS to be spraying for African Lovegrass (ALG) around the reserve. This highly invasive grass has spread throughout the ACT region and the suburbs. It will be invaluable to have this broader-scale assistance with ALG from TCCS (Transport Canberra and City Services), who are the Land Managers for Mt Rogers and other Urban Open Spaces beyond Canberra Nature Park. If you’re not sure what this grass looks like, have a look (soon) around the Wickens Place, Fraser, carpark where there is a large infestation of it.
We have asked for alert notices to be installed at Mt Rogers. Similar weed treatment may first be carried out along Ginninderra Creek at Latham before the contractors reach Mt Rogers.
The connecting factor is rainwater feeding into the creek through the water catchments in Gungahlin, Belconnen, Hall, and Wallaroo (in NSW). In water catchments, the water drains towards the creek, flowing above
ground during rain and below the surface otherwise. Ginninderra Creek’s meandering course continues beyond the ACT border out to the west of Parkwood where its waters plunge
40 m over Ginninderra Falls to reach the confluence of Ginninderra Creek with
the Murrumbidgee River.
There are several sections of the gravel path around Mt Rogers that show, by their nearly permanent long grass, and green-ness, how water from the reserve’s ridgeline moved through the landscape before bulldozers moulded the reserve and the suburbs in the late sixties, early seventies.
Water recently flowed and then oozed through our mid-Flynn blocks to
reach the stormwater drains prescribed by engineers. When it reaches the drains, rainwater moves rapidly, taking fertilisers, leaf-litter, silt, chemicals and
detritus to Ginninderra Creek, then to the Murrumbidgee and then to the
Murrumbidgee’s downstream towns and farms.
In urban open spaces, as on Mt Rogers and in gardens being redesigned,
bare soil is readily washed away unless there are plants’ deep roots and ‘leaky
weirs’ to slow the rainwater and send the flow across the landscape. In natural
areas, nutrients from decaying organisms and eroded silt is carried across
country to fertilise and revitalise soils.
The Mt Rogers Landcare community contributes to clean water reaching Ginninderra Creek by:
- studying the drainage patterns on Mt Rogers,
- creating and maintaining effective run-offs on the cross-country paths and tracks above the main gravel path,
- planning and implementing the restoration of one of the steep, direct paths down from the summit in partnership with TCCS and Ginninderra Catchment Group,
- creating and maintaining an alternative and zig-zagging route to and from the summit in that eastern area,
- collecting, daily, detritus left on the reserve’s tracks. TCCS collects rubbish from the main carpark at least once a week, and bags of dog poo are regularly collected from the specific bin by TCCS staff.
Rosemary
Convenor, Mt Rogers Landcare Group
ph 6258 4724
