News and Updates

10 MAY 2020

A momentous occasion today - the removal of the first of the tree guards from last year’s planting! Some of the saplings have grown so well that they are well and truly bursting out of their tree guards. What a great feeling to remove the corflutes - it felt like watching a hatchling take flight for the first time. Over the next few weeks we anticipate removing corflutes from about half of last year’s plantings.

7 MAY 2020

ROO CHALLENGES

Six species planted in the new planting area beyond the existing roo fence: melaleucas, golden wattles, prickly moses and kangaroo thorns all established successfully; blue gums and pink gums a bit of a controlled experiment to test the theory that kangaroos don’t care for eucalyptus leaves. Lesson learned: tasty and tender new shoots clearly are a different matter.

The good news is that only a few dozen saplings were lost. However, while the fencing extension around the new planting area is being completed, the rest of the eucalypt saplings need protecting. Sometimes simple is best: a cross of duct tape across the top of the corflute seems to have done the trick.

In the words of Sir Ernest Shackleton, “Difficulties are just things to be overcome, after all.”

3 MAY 2020

STAKE REMAKE - BRINGING PLANTING AND RECYCLING TOGETHER

Here’s a wonderful recycling story: our new batch of tree guard stakes for this season’s saplings are made from recycled plastic.

Made of recycled soft plastic by South Australian firm Integrated Recycling, these stakes are long lasting, strong, don’t require the felling of any trees (a skewed logic, let’s face it), and contribute towards a solution for society’s ever-growing waste problem. Brilliant!

A huge thanks to CHU Insurance for funding these incredible new tree guard stakes for the Forktree Project. We love a good environmental story and are very excited about this one.

27 APRIL 2020

GRAND DESIGNS

One of our aims at the Forktree Project is to create habitat for native animals and birds.

We are fortunate to see a number of Adelaide rosellas, crimson rosellas and galahs on the property already, while wedge-tailed eagles and a pair of yellow-tailed black cockatoos make occasional guest appearances. We hope there will be many more of these and other species once the trees and shrubs grow, but it will be a hundred years or so before any of our saplings are able to provide the hollow branches that some of these species need to build their nests in.

So to give the birds a head start, Tim has turned his hand to making nesting boxes out of fallen hollow logs otherwise destined for a bonfire - many thanks to one of the neighbouring farmers for donating them. The nesting logs will be fitted into the few existing mature trees on the property. We’re pretty pleased with them, and hope the birds are too.

20 APRIL 2020

Go!

What an exciting feeling to get the first saplings of 2020 into the ground. First cabs off the rank/saplings out of their tubes: a mix of Eucalyptus fasciculosa (pink gums) and Acacia pycnanthus (golden wattle).

The rain hasn’t quite arrived yet, so we have watered in our first batch of approximately 100 saplings by hand with hoses and watering cans. Crossing our fingers now for some serious rain so we don’t have to keep dragging hoses and watering cans for too many more.

100 down, 3,900 to go…

13 APRIL 2020

Get set…

Preparing the first section of 2020 Forktree Project planting:

1. clear the area of out-of-control phalaris (non-native, tough-as-boots fodder grass). This requires a mattock, muscle and gusto. And the tireless assistance of one cheery, hard-working, self-isolating volunteer - thank you, Jake!

2. wheelbarrow mountains of phalaris clumps to a growing compost heap.

3. use stakes to mark planting positions. We’re ready to go.

6 APRIL 2020

On your marks…

The weather is cooling down, the soil is still warm, and imminent rain will soften the ground. Time soon to start planting!

We are hugely grateful for Trees for Life volunteers Graham, Paul, Anna, Mike and Amanda who have nurtured a wonderfully healthy selection of natives for this year’s planting. Your contribution to the success of this project is greatly appreciated.

Saplings will be collected from the growers over the next few weeks. Let the planting commence!

30 MARCH 2020

Purge on Plastics

“On average, Australians use 130 kg of plastic per person each year. Only 12% of that's recycled.” [WWF]

The rest ends up in landfills, as litter on roadsides and in parks, and floating in our oceans for hundreds of years before breaking down into microplastics.

We want no part in that at Forktree! Every scrap of plastic that we find in the land clean-up process is collected, washed and taken to a soft plastic recycling collection point.

We can all do this with any soft plastic wrapping we collect at home - check out your local supermarket to see if they have a soft plastic collection point.

23 MARCH 2020

Rubble Sort

Work continues on the rubble sort and clearance so that we can reuse it and not send any away to landfill. It might take a while…

19 MARCH 2020

Forktree Fridays

Ambitious projects like Forktree are given a massive boost by volunteers. Volunteers at Forktree have embraced planting, rubble clearance and wall building with gusto and good cheer. It’s particularly encouraging to have engagement from the University of Adelaide’s Ecoversity program - their first week of volunteering at Forktree last month was so successful that the program has now set up “Forktree Fridays” which will see students from the university visit Forktree on a regular basis and get stuck in to the various tasks on site. Fantastic to see such enthusiasm for the project and its goals from the younger generation - thank you, and bring it on!

It goes without saying, we’d be delighted to hear from any volunteers - from any generation.

10 MARCH 2020

Waste not, want not

Taking on Forktree has not just been about planting trees but also about cleaning up land that had previously been used as a dumping ground. With the alarming statistic that 40% of Australia’s landfill consists of building waste ringing in our ears, we were determined to reuse as much of the waste material that we found on the property as possible.

We are hugely proud that, to date, none of the building waste material on the property has gone to landfill. Instead, the rubble and broken bricks have been used to create gabian retaining walls for the tanks and to support tracks crossing gullies.

5 MARCH 2020

Mobile Watering

“And what about the saplings you can’t reach with hoses from the standpipes?”

That’s where four wheels and a trailer come in. We created a water truck by strapping a 1000-litre water bowser onto a trailer, attaching hoses, filling the bowser from the water tanks we installed to collect the winder rain from the shed roof, and driving it to the harder-to-reach parts of the property. It also feels good to know that we’ve now got our own fire truck on the property ready to go.

28 FEBRUARY 2020

Water Ways

“How will you keep the saplings alive throughout the summer?” This is the question that has been asked over and over again. The answer is with careful, step-by-step planning:

1. Dig and line a water storage trench at the highest point of the property;

2. Pump water from the dam (with a newly installed solar pump) up the hill to the trench;

3. Gravity-feed the water from the trench to stand pipes;

4. Attach 50m hoses (or longer) to the stand pipes and give each individual plant a long, 10 litre drink once a month;

5. Mark the corflute of each watered plant with a red clothes peg;

6. Feel good about doing your bit.

5 january 2020

The sea view at Forktree obscured by smoke from the disastrous fires on Kangaroo Island. Getting my first 3,700 trees through this summer is nothing compared to what has been lost on Kangaroo Island but it’s important to control what you can.

Each of us must think the same way: whether it’s donating to fire fighting efforts or reducing our contribution to climate change. Better still both. 

2 december 2019

Human-induced climate change often has us wishing for a single cure. Perhaps we have Marvel to blame for our need for a hero in this story, but the reality is that it takes all of us and all of our ideas combined to bring that needle back from the red…. read my full article over on the Kathmandu website: https://www.kathmandu.com.au/summit-journal/your-stories/exploring-the-potential-of-tree-planting

29 October 2019

A solar pump takes water from my dam up to a tank at a high point on Forktree. Storing it in a tank means it won’t evaporate. Gravity then does the rest! We will need this water to keep the trees alive this summer until their roots are well enough more established.

19 August 2019

CHU, Australia’s leading strata insurance specialist, has signed a three-year agreement for the Forktree Project. CHU has agreed to offset its carbon footprint by planting thousands of trees. CHU CEO, Bobby Lehane, urges other businesses to follow suit.

13 August 2019

So that’s the western windbreak done and now we can move onto planting within the gulley. We are up to 1,800 trees and there will be no more straight lines.

17 JULY 2019

150 trees planted today. A mixture of blackwoods, tea trees, sheoaks, gums and smaller native shrubs. These two lines are a windbreak to stop the north-westerly winds that blow across the property (the rest have been planted in a more natural arrangement).

11 JUly 2019

12 down, 3988 to go. Heavy going planting these saplings thanks to the compacted construction waste laid down here by the previous owner.

Each sapling requires protection from the local kangaroo population.

9 July 2019

The first 1,800 saplings are ready to go! All South Australian natives including wattles, sheoaks and melaleucas. Next thing is planting them. First 500 will go along the eastern boundary of my property to act as a windbreak. Very excited.

27 June 2019

Recent rain here in Adelaide has helped replenish one of the old stock dams. Now it’s is a case of planting trees to help stabilise the gullies and watercourses.

24 June 2019

Now that I have cleared large sections of construction waste in this portion of the property, construction has begun on the installation of fences to keep kangaroos at bay.

Saplings will be planted here in the next few weeks.

22 June 2019

This portion of the property is very exposed. A vegetation strip will be planted between these two fences to act as a windbreak along the eastern boundary.

20 June 2019

Though labour intensive, the newly liberated aggregates are the perfect addition to the poorly consolidated material that surrounds the shed.

28 April 2019

Taking a breather from cleaning bricks left on the property by the former owner. Every brick I clean is one less that ends up in landfill. The half bricks and rubble I’m crushing to make aggregate as a base for my shed, tracks and rainwater tanks.

Australia generates 20 million tonnes of building waste each year. Almost half ends up in landfill.