Diverted to Bonnie Doon

The Narrow Neck road remained off-limits (there was a second landslide in recent weeks and the gravel road remained closed to pedestrians and cars) so on the advice of our council Bushcare officer, we decided to control weeds in a large patch of bush where Narrow Neck Rd meets Bathurst Rd and the Great Western Highway.

The area in the map below shows our site for Saturday 6 August 2022. Access is from the truck rest area and turning bay on the left as you leave Katoomba on the way to Lithgow.

This month’s weeding site (area marked red) was a plume of holly adjacent to the Great Western Highway in the upper catchment of Magalong Creek, above Bonnie Doon Falls. Map: Google Maps.

This site is in the upper reaches of Megalong Creek. Just south side of the highway there was a large plume of mature holly trees that had been partially treated over a year ago. Our job was to remove the remaining holly.

Keith amongst the holly copse. The wavy stem in the centre is a banksia that would have been overgrown by the holly if they were left untreated.

There were some small stems of holly about a finger thickness that could be cut and painted with glyphosate, or scraped and painted (depending on which bush regeneration expert you wished to follow). However there were at least 20 larger stems that were too big to be cut and instead needed to be drilled.

A hole is drilled into the stem close to the ground, ringing the stem at intervals of about 1.5 cm.
Applying the glyphosate into the hole, shortly after drilling to maximise the effect (within about 10 seconds is ideal).

Drilling is highly effective at killing large exotic weed trees like holly and privet. There is no need to cut down the tree and it will die with a few months.

We saw evidence of previous drilling of the holly stands a year or more ago. All holly treated using this method were well and truly dead!

The drill holes in the base of the now dead holly where glyphosate was applied.
The dead copse of holly from the previous drilling operation.

We managed to treat almost all the holly before our time was over. There was one small untreated stand of holly on the south side of the site that we can treat when we return in a few month’s time to monitor the work we had done.

We also removed many small privet and holly seedlings. We will have to scour the site next time for those we missed.

It was a fulfilling morning, eliminating almost all of the holly on the site. But we were told there is a much large area of holly further downstream towards Stuart Road. We will review where we go next month as the group was keen to look for woody weeds closer to our home base at Narrow Neck.

Don’t forget, you are welcome to join our group. We meet at 9am on the first Saturday of each month (except if its raining).