Been out at Scotties for the last week and a half helping with some clearing.
Here's the main infestation on a photo taken last summer.
On the whole we were using the Lever & Mulch method, the gist of which is:
Take one typical rhodie(if such a thing exists).
Cut the main stems just below where they crown out into multiple branches, tidy off then haul about on the remaining metre or two of trunk until the roots give up letting you rip out the rootball.
You're left with a dismantled rhodie.....
...and whatever roots may have broken off and been left behind. Individually they were pulling out quite easily.
Then you lay the leafy parts of the plant as a mulch layer where it once stood...
...and weigh it down with the rootball and trunks. Theoretically with last years seeds covered and the roots high and dry the jobs's a good 'un.
OK, now do it again - a thousand times.
(this's day one, the bottom of the low patch)
It's not a bad life though really.
A few days later, looking down to the now massacred low patch.
We had two dry days in the time we were there. The first was spent drying gear and relaxing, we worked the other and I got the camera out and took a wander around the high patch.
Don't have any photos of the heart of the high patch. Scott was making the most of the dry and going at that area with a chainsaw and poison. There were thirty-odd year(and more) whole trees rolling down the hillside so we left him to it and steered well clear.
Home sweet home.
A soggy snap from the paddle out yesterday.
Job's not done but to be honest we were beat. The constant wet and lack of evening light made it hard to relax from the work which got tougher(and farther up the hill) every day. The high patch hides slabs and bluffs and each day clambering around became dodgier and slippier and we were getting tired...
....so a week or so r&r then back to it.
All rhodies must die after all.
It's funny how strong the feeling grows. At first it's howking the odd yearling in passing on the path, after a week it was detouring across 50m of heather to do the same, by the end of the trip we were spotting them in neighbours gardens that we'd passed a hundred times before and not even noticed.
Josh
Here's the main infestation on a photo taken last summer.
On the whole we were using the Lever & Mulch method, the gist of which is:
Take one typical rhodie(if such a thing exists).
Cut the main stems just below where they crown out into multiple branches, tidy off then haul about on the remaining metre or two of trunk until the roots give up letting you rip out the rootball.
You're left with a dismantled rhodie.....
...and whatever roots may have broken off and been left behind. Individually they were pulling out quite easily.
Then you lay the leafy parts of the plant as a mulch layer where it once stood...
...and weigh it down with the rootball and trunks. Theoretically with last years seeds covered and the roots high and dry the jobs's a good 'un.
OK, now do it again - a thousand times.
(this's day one, the bottom of the low patch)
It's not a bad life though really.
A few days later, looking down to the now massacred low patch.
We had two dry days in the time we were there. The first was spent drying gear and relaxing, we worked the other and I got the camera out and took a wander around the high patch.
Don't have any photos of the heart of the high patch. Scott was making the most of the dry and going at that area with a chainsaw and poison. There were thirty-odd year(and more) whole trees rolling down the hillside so we left him to it and steered well clear.
Home sweet home.
A soggy snap from the paddle out yesterday.
Job's not done but to be honest we were beat. The constant wet and lack of evening light made it hard to relax from the work which got tougher(and farther up the hill) every day. The high patch hides slabs and bluffs and each day clambering around became dodgier and slippier and we were getting tired...
....so a week or so r&r then back to it.
All rhodies must die after all.
It's funny how strong the feeling grows. At first it's howking the odd yearling in passing on the path, after a week it was detouring across 50m of heather to do the same, by the end of the trip we were spotting them in neighbours gardens that we'd passed a hundred times before and not even noticed.
Josh
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