Vollie Day 04: My first guided tours

Yes that was a long break: there was a work project to wrap up and an overseas wedding to crash, and then I had to finish my guide training (kind of) but now, yes, it's done, and I'm allowed to start guiding, and that happened today.

I picked a roster with Lori, a lovely fellow guide with whom I'd completed training.  Lori is a walking Wikipedia entry on NAC: she took our first tour for the morning and I finally understood how grossly underprepared I was to take a guided group: but I instantly learned a lot about keeping the group entertained and having a basic structure prepared before just dragging a few strangers around the building.

Thoughtful design is entertaining, but...

I took the second tour and Lori came along to back me up, which was great.  My first tour group was just one gorgeous little family who were visiting NAC for the first time on their daughter's birthday, so everything I said was going to be new information.  I decided to keep things moving quickly to try to match the energy of their kids, and to focus on things that they could take the kids to that day, like the pod playground, and to encourage them to get out into a forest on their own where the kids could go bananas in a safe and shady spot.  They were a great audience as I gave them a very brief basic history of the establishment of NAC, the rationale behind the choice of the species that were planted, some basics about water, fire and soil management, and where to go today to have some fun with the kids.

There are people who know how to make these

Lori and I had a coffee and Lori took the third tour - once again comprehensively sharing her passion for NAC, and then I took my second group: all adults this time, some of whom had come from a wedding in the Margaret Whitlam pavilion where a drone had circled the site bearing a GoPro camera whose pictures I would LOVE to see.  We focussed mostly on landscaping ideas for a family who have just taken on a large property and came to NAC to get some inspiration on how they could develop it.

I've decided to stick to a basic outline and over the coming months fill it with different factoids most relevant to the tour group audience: but also to aim to keep it under twenty minutes (and be ready to keep it under fifteen if the group is a bit restless).  This blog will build as I treat it as my study notes for both the forests (whose earlier blog entries I will actually post as I collect photos and information about them), and also for background on the site and how it is and will be managed.

So here is my list of things to remember for my next few tours as I build my repertoire:

• From the starting point:
  A brief history: the fires and the centennial project,
  Some Village Centre architectural features.
• To the north deck via the interactive table map:
  Landscape Design: the species chosen, their layout, and fire prevention and management,
  Any two forests within view: start with the caged Dragons, the cherries and the Sequoia,
  The Wide Brown Land sculpture,
  Get out of the Village Centre and see it: How to walk or drive to the Himalayan Cedars and the Cork Oak (two mature forests),
  For people with kids: The Pod Playground
  For people interested in landscaping and planting locally: Forest 20 (STEP), and soil management.
• To the south deck through the Village Centre:
  Dairy Farmers Hill: the Nest II sculpture, and water management,
  Events at the auditorium and the Margaret Whitlam Pavilion,
  The Japanese Black Pine Niwaki,
  The National Bonsai and Penjing Collection of Australia
  The ACTEW Water Canberra Discovery Garden
  Still to come: gardens and covered plantings. 

Things I'll need to remember for next time:

• Manage the pace 
• Maintain eye contact
• Give clear directions between stops
• Know what's flowering this week

Vollie Day 03 - Planting in forests 88 and 61

Friends of NAC can join in on volunteer activities that have a lasting legacy: replacement planting.  Most of the planting is complete, but there are the occasional casualties, and trees that didn't make it are eventually replaced.  Today, Mr Naps and I joined the Friends for some planting in Forest 88 - Juglans regia (the Persian walnut) and Forest 61 - Pinus brutia (the Turkish pine).

One tree each?  Nice.

Planting is fun, easy, rewarding and it generally doesn't take very long. When we showed up to see half a dozen cars and what looked like only a couple of dozen trees on the tray, we knew it would be a short morning.

Shovelers are highly valued at NAC

It's a team effort

We started in Forest 88 for the replacement of about a dozen Persian walnut.  Our TAMS staffies placed some potted baby walnuts by the stakes that had marked the passing of their older siblings for replacement, and gave us a brief demo.  Mr Naps was pleased to learn that the technique that his mother had passed on a generation ago was legit (dig the hole square so that the roots are less likely to take the path of least resistance and choke themselves into a tight circle as they grow).  We picked a tree or two each and had at them.

Within thirty minutes we were all looking close to finished, and when the wind picked up and a young man was nearly kited down to the parliamentary triangle on a tree guard, our next activity was diverted to the sheltered side of Dairy Farmers Hill: replanting one Turkish pine each in Forest 61.

Cue to "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" by Tomoyasu Hotei at 0:19 

Forest 61 is at the top of Dairy Farmers Hill, which has a picturesque view across Lake Burley Griffin and is on the sheltered side: so, unlike anybody who had ventured up to the lookout, we had a cosy spot.  We waited in the weeds for the delivery of a crowbar as the soil was unbreakable with shovels.

Worth it:

Forest 61 has a fantastic view

The team eventually each fought their own way through the topsoil in spite of the hurricane that was picking up, and another dozen lone pines were seated in the arboretum.

These two little dudes will grow up together

Forest 88 - Juglans regia - Persian Walnut

Other common names:
Common walnut, English walnut

Date Planted:  August 2010: and the site of a replanting on a October 2013 volunteering day I attended.

You can do that

Origin of the species name:
Juglans is Latin for the species,
regia from Latin meaning regal or of kings.

Family:  Juglandaceae

Nut much to them just yet though

Height 20m Spread 20m

Natural Distribution:
The species is native to a region stretching from the Balkans eastward to the Himalayas and southwest China.

Natural Habitat:
It usually grows at higher altitudes in deciduous forests and tends to occur either in higher rainfall areas or in moister sites in lower rainfall areas.

Also here

General Description: 

A snugly-seated babe

It is a medium-sized deciduous tree that commonly has a short trunk and has a crown that is as broad as it is high.  The bark is light, ashy grey, with flattened ridges, developing a striking diamond shaped pattern. The leaves are pinnate and the male flowers are catkins.  The fruit is a green, semi-fleshy husk and a brown corrugated nut.

Conservation Status: 
It is a species that is considered rare.  Because of its scattered natural distribution and the limited extension of the individual populations (in many situations only a few trees) it has been included in the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme.

Uses:
It is a very valuable orchard tree for the commercial production of nuts.  The nuts are consumed fresh, roasted, or salted and are used in confectioneries, pastries and for flavouring.  The leaves have also been used as an insect repellent and a tea.  Young fruits have been used as pickles and for fish poison.  Walnuts have also been used in an extremely wide range of traditional medicines, from the treating of cancer to worms.

Future medic tent site

http://www.nationalarboretum.act.gov.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0009/394479/Tree_Descriptions_November_2012.doc

Forest 61 - Pinus brutia - Turkish Pine

Other common names:
Calabrian pine, East Mediterranean pine
Turkish: kizilcam

Date Planted: November 2010, and the site of a replanting day, October 2013

Origin of the species name:
Pinus is the classical Latin for pine.
brutia is probably derived from Brutium, now Calabria, in southern Italy.

Family: Pinaceae

Natural Distribution:
The species is primarily native to Turkey and far East Greece and to the Crimea, Caucasus coast, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Crete and Cyprus.

Natural Habitat:
It forms pure stands or is part of coniferous and deciduous drought tolerant forests.  They grow from sea level up to 1500m, with mild, moist winters and hot dry summers.

General Description:
It is a medium-size evergreen tree.  The bark is orange-red, thick and deeply fissured at the base of the trunk, and thin and flaky up higher. The needles are up to 18 cm long, bright to dark green.  The cones are stout, heavy and hard.

Height 25m Spread 15m

Conservation Status:
It has been classified as being not threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (1998) but it is now felt that this needs a reappraisal.

Okay the strawberry clover just.... kind of works

Uses:
The Turkish Pine has special significance.  It was a prominent landmark tree at the ANZAC battle site at Gallipoli, Turkey.  Cones from this and the closely related species, Pinus halepensis, were brought back to Australia, and plants grown from the seeds have been planted at numerous memorials.  It is also the most valued forest tree in the north-eastern Mediterranean area. It was planted at the NAC for its historical and iconic status in Australia and New Zealand.

The ABC wrote it up well here.

Forest 44 - Betula pendula sp. pendula & Betula pendula sp. fontqueri - Silver Birch & Spanish Birch

Forest 44 is right on the cutting made for the parkway (bottom left)

The Friends of the National Arboretum Canberra run training for potential NAC guides.  During the training each guide prepares two short presentations.  Forest 44 was one of mine, as it is planted right at the parkway, and I'd been driving past it every day for long enough to become curious about it.

Forest 44 demonstrates particular methods of forest management and preservation: it is a mixed forest, planted with Silver Birch (Betula pendula subspecies pendula) and Spanish Birch (Betula pendula subspecies fontqueri).

Date Planted:  August 2008

Origin of the species name: 
Betula is the Latin name for the genus and is derived from the ancient Gaul word for ‘pitch’ which refers to the bituminous content of the bark,
pendula is Latin for hanging and refers to the drooping growth habit,
fontqueri is named after the Spanish botanist Puis Font i Quer.

Family:  Betulaceae

Height 25m Spread 10m

Natural Occurrence:
Silver Birch (the subspecies pendula) occurs naturally in almost all countries of Europe from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia (it is the national tree of Finland).  Spanish Birch (subspecies fontqueri) is rare and is native to three mountain systems in Spain and the Rif Mountains in Morocco.

Natural Habitat:
Silver Birch is most abundant in northern Europe, in almost continuous mixed forests and in fairly large pure stands.  In the western and southern parts of the range it is patchy and in the south silver birch is found mostly at higher altitudes.  Spanish Birch is found in small populations in dry woodlands in three mountain systems in Spain and the Rif Mountains in Morocco.

Spanish Birch: Young, and in focus

Silver Birch: Green and kind of blurry

General Description:  

Spring 2013

Both are a medium sized deciduous tree.  The bark of the young trees is grey, smooth and shiny and then goes white.  The serrated triangular leaves give a bright yellow autumn display.  The flowers are wind-pollinated catkins which come out before the leaves in early spring and produce small winged seeds.  The subspecies have different seed characteristics.

Conservation Status:
Silver Birch (subspecies pendula) is not classified as a threatened species.  Spanish Birch (subspecies fontqueri) is classified as endangered.  The subpopulations are small and dispersed and the spread of housing developments, as well as decline in water availability, fires, cutting and tourism, pose serious threats. A reintroduction program is being developed at Cordoba Botanic Garden, Spain.

Forest 44:

The Silver Birch is planted around the outside of the forest.  The seeds used for the Spanish Birch specimens grown here were collected from around Granada.  They are planted in the middle of forest 44, surrounded by the Silver Birch for protection.

The original cluster of Spanish Birch

Hola

They are wind pollinated, so the host forest of Silver Birch on the outside contaminates the seed of the Spanish Birch, but in time, after all the Silver Birch have been replaced, the Spanish Birch seeds produced will have the correct genetic make-up.  In the meantime, new Spanish Birch can be grown from cuttings from the original population planted here.  They will eventually replace all of the Silver Birch - you can already see where alternate trees in the northern rows of the Silver Birch have been removed and replaced with Spanish Birch.

Uses:
Silver Birch is grown for timber and pulp in Europe, and is a popular landscaping tree in southern Australia. They are suitable as a canopy tree or a secondary in the garden, doing well in acid soils.  The sap can be tapped (4 – 7 litres in a day) – it makes a pleasant drink and it can be fermented into a beer. The bark was used to make baskets and shoes and as an alternative to paper, and the inner bark was used as a ‘famine food’ where other forms of starch were unavailable.  The leaves can be used to make a tea that has a diuretic effect.

Further reading:

http://www.nationalarboretum.act.gov.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0009/394479/Tree_Descriptions_November_2012.doc
http://www.nationalarboretum.act.gov.au/trees/tree-of-the-month/tree-of-the-month-july-2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betula_pendula
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/37497/0 
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2748818.htm 
http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/act/content/2006/s2651171.htm
http://www.aussiegardening.com.au/findplants/plant/Betula_pendula

Rushforth, K. (1999). Trees of Britain and Europe. Collins.

Forest 33 - Sequoiadendron giganteum - Giant Sequioa

The Giant Sequoia is the world’s most massive tree, so this will become a very impressive forest.
It was named after Sequoya, a Cherokee chief.

It is native to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California – from Lake Tahoe in the north (near San Francisco) to Yosemite National Park and the Sequoia National Park in the south (near Los Angeles).  They grow in very well-defined groves in mixed forests.  They are almost all protected, but they have been logged so extensively that they’re still considered a vulnerable species in the wild.  There are 68 groves of sequoia trees remaining that total an area of only 144 km2.

A young army, training to march.  To Woden.

The tallest sequoia in the world is named ‘General Sherman’.  The General is 83.8m tall (that’s the height of a 26-storey building: only a few metres shorter than the Lovett Tower that you can see over in Woden) and has a diameter of 10 m.

The fattest sequoia is named the Waterfall Tree, with a girth of 47 m.

The oldest sequoia known was greater than 3,200 years old.

Their wood is fibrous and brittle, which makes it unsuitable for many uses.  They would often shatter when they hit the ground and as little as half of the felled timber would make it to the mill.

These trees were planted in 2008.  For all of our lifetimes they will be considered the infants of the sequoias in the world – it takes them a long time to reach middle age.  They will look like upside-down ice-cream cones for a few hundred years, but eventually some of them might grow to 90 m tall with a round top and thick trunks for much of their height so that they retain their balance.  Their trunk, at ground level, will have a diameter of over 17 metres (that’s the size of two buses end-to-end).  We’ll have to come back in 500 or 750 years to see one that tall here, though.

A more mature planting of Sequoiadendron giganteum can be visited in and even picnicked at in Canberra, at the Redwood Grove Park near the Canberra airport (north-east corner of Pialligo Ave and Glenora Drive, Fairbairn).

Look for the very, very tall trees

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequoia_groves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_giant_sequoias

http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr151/psw_gtr151_28_willard.pdf

http://giantsequoia.tripod.com/lcycle.html

http://www.nps.gov/yose/naturescience/sequoia-research.htm

Forest 15 - Dracaena draco - Dragon tree

Here be dragons: okay, just some trees whose actual species name is Draco... but let's agree on that being an awesome name for a tree.

Origin of the species name: 
• Dracaena is derived from Greek for a female dragon.
• draco from Latin and Greek words for a dragon.

Actual dragon scales

Date Planted:  October 2008 & December 2009

Family:  Asparagaceae

Height 12m Spread 10m Wingspan 45m

Natural Distribution:
The species is native to the Canary Islands, Cape Verde and Madeira.

Natural Habitat:
It occurs in areas known as thermophile (heat loving) forests which have moderate temperature and rainfall conditions and contain several of the island’s endemic species.

General Description:
It is a slow-growing evergreen tree related to the cordylines.  It is characterised by a single or multiple trunk, with a dense umbrella-shaped canopy of thick leaves with sharp tips.  It has lily-like flowers, multicoloured scales, a long leathery neck and cannot be destroyed with fire.

Conservation Status:

Notoriously difficult to breed in captivity

It is a threatened species in the wild.  The wild subpopulations of the dragon tree have been in decline for a long time.  The species is present in five of the seven islands in the Canaries and the total population is reduced to a few hundred trees.  In the more arid areas of Madeira and Porto Santo, it was once an important component of the vegetation but is now reduced to two individuals in the wild.  Although threatened in the wild it has been cultivated in many countries around the world, with modern populations thought to descend from three ancient eggs discovered in an abandoned Celtic museum.

Uses:
When the bark or leaves are cut they secrete a reddish resin, one of the sources of the substance known as dragon's blood, used to stain wood, such as for violins.  Dragon's blood had a wide range of uses as a medicine, for staining violins, for embalming the dead and for casting spells with which to incite a government rebellion.

It is only a matter of time

Forest 15 is one of NACs smaller forests. Bannermen on NAC staff have caged the trees to protect them from the frosts of Winter and the birds of Summer.

When the dragons reach full maturity they will form a thick canopy under which they will be able to plot to melt the steel, flesh and stone of the seven cities of Australia in privacy.  NAC volunteer training includes the use of dragon horns to manage the trees in the event of an escape.

Reference:
http://www.nationalarboretum.act.gov.au/visit/trees/tree-descriptions
http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Dragons

Further Reading:
Bramwell D. and Z. Bramwell (2001) Wild Flowers of the Canary Islands (2nd Ed). City: Rueda,Spain.
http://www.bookdepository.com/Clash-Kings-George-R-R-Martin/9780006479895
http://www.dragons.com.au/

Forest 01 - Quercus suber - Cork Oak

The locals love Forest 1

Date Planted:
1913 & 1920

Origin of the species name:
Quercus is Latin for oak,
suber is Latin for cork.

Other common names:
Portuguese = Sobreiro
Spanish =  Alcornoque


Family: Fagaceae

Height 15m Spread 10m

Surprisingly peaceful for a freeway interchange

Natural Distribution:  The species is native to southwestern Europe and northwestern North Africa.

Natural Habitat: It occurs in open woodlands in areas with cold, moist winters and hot summers, on hills and their lower slopes, generally on acidic soils.

A location favoured by pixies

General Description:  It is a medium-sized evergreen tree with a broad spreading canopy.  It has thick, deeply fissured grey bark.  Its leaves are dark green above and much paler beneath. The acorns are in deep cups that are fringed with scales.  It belongs to the intermediate section of the genus.

The softness of the forest floor is occasionally interrupted

Conservation Status: Although not currently recorded as threatened, cork oak woodlands face an uncertain future. They are subject to land use changes driven by local conditions throughout their natural habitat in North Africa and Europe.  The international importance of the species is highlighted by it being an important target of the gene conservation network of the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme.

Uses: The bark is the world’s major source of cork and has been long used for heat and sound insulation, flooring, floats and bottle corks.  Portugal currently accounts for about 50% of the world cork harvest.

Galls produced on the tree are strongly astringent and can be used in the treatment of haemorrhages, chronic diarrhoea, and dysentery.  The acorns can be dried, ground into a powder and used as a thickening in stews and the like or mixed with cereals for making bread.

Listen very closely and you can hear the ghosts of merlots future

Forest 1: Established in 1918-1920 with over 2000 trees on 9 hectares to see if the Canberra area was suitable for commercial cork cropping.  The first trees were grown from acorns collected from the Botanic Gardens Melbourne.  A large shipment of young specimens from Spain was lost when the ship carrying them was attacked and sunk.

The first harvest was taken 1947.  The most recent harvest was in 2006 by some contrated Portugese cork oak strippers (yes that's on their resume), and the resultant cork was used in horticulture.  It is estimated that there will probably need to be two or three more harvests before the cork will be dense enough to be used in wine bottles.

Reference: NAC tree descriptions
Further Reading: Rushforth, K. (1999). Trees of Britain and Europe. Collins.

Vollie Day 02: The Reptile Room

Although not all the staff agreed

Today was my second gig, and the last one I opted in to over the school holidays.  It was a LOT quieter than Saturday: the camel-riding, kitemaking and crafts had wrapped up but there were a few groups through for storytelling in the Buchan Blue Wattle forest (Forest 13 in the north-west corner: now tall enough to keep a bunch of kids in the shade).  A holiday care program also trooped a large group of kids through today on an excursion - they were a terrific little bunch of kids (60 kids seem to be easier to manage on a tour than 8 adults...).  In the morning I roamed the playground and the entry, and in the afternoon I took the door at the Margaret Whitlam pavilion, where Reptiles Inc. were showing off some of their awesome critters. I find them all adorable.


Sometime after the school holidays, NAC may publish their school holiday program on their Whats On page... http://www.nationalarboretum.act.gov.au/whats_on .

Vollie Day 01: Camels, Kites and Cameras

I have lived in Canberra for more years than the National Arboretum Canberra has been in the making: I had been driving past it twice every work day for a year, and I still hadn't heard of it until a dude mentioned that the opening day would be a good gig.  This clearly wasn't a good enough idea at the time, as I ignored the plans until it was too late to work out how to get a bus up the hill (there wasn't much carparking on opening day).  And that was that, I missed the first live day.

For Canberra, it's a pretty good view.

I finally found my way up a few weeks later, and had what is apparently a typical first reaction, after winding the car up the little hill, puzzling over the shapes of the buildings, driving over the back to park in the dust, paying for my carpark ticket, schlepping through the blustering breeze in the corridor that herds visitors to the front door: "How have I not heard about this place? The, the building... the view... that roof... the design... the way those plantings are laid out... the VIEW."


A few coffees and chats and maps and walks and visits later, I'd become a Friend and been invited to volunteer, to be a part of it.  It drew me - I just had to help make something great of this place, albeit years after kickoff.  A few months of life and work and training later, and I was mostly trained to guide people around the site.  When the call was sent regarding helping with activities during school holidays, of course I was interested.  I signed up, got my roster sorted, and showed up for the first time as a volunteer today.  I had a GREAT day.

Don't turn your back, lady

Some nifty school holiday activities have been put together to keep schoolkids as entertained as they're ever likely to be without a console in their hands.  Some vollies were needed to help with camel rides, craft activities, kite making, reptile displays, storytelling... and my role in 'general hosting' today was to just schlep around the site looking out for problems: lost kids, injuries, people in need of a shorter coffee queue, etc. Easy As.  Toilets are just through the door there...  Actually there is another exit from the playground... The wait for a camel ride is about thirty minutes at the moment... There are BBQs up in the Himalayan Cedars... The best place for a picnic today would probably be through the building here and through to the outdoor auditorium.  Etc.

Volunteers get to do mostly what they feel like doing: I chose to wander around outside rather than to stay indoors catching people as they walked through the door: and when I felt like a break, I just wandered off to take some photos or to chat with people who seemed affable.

They had a dragon to train

I was very happy when some friends from work came by during the day: I don't usually have much to talk about when people at work ask what I'll be doing on the weekend, but this week I was able to manipulate them into coming on up to fly a kite, or bring the kids they have to look after this weekend, or just drop by for something different to do.  I even got to dog-sit for them!



Lessons learned:

• This hat sucks.  Get a bigger hat.
• The big rainbow sun umbrella I thought might be good for keeping my pasty skin pasty won't even come close to managing a very light wind making its way across the playground.
• Learn more stuff: be able to adapt a few possibly interesting factoids to a range of audiences.  

So, I'll be using this blog to describe the NAC volunteer experience, and hopefully it will encourage somebody to give it a try.  I also want to store some useful info and keep a record of how things change on the site: in particular, the forests as they grow.  You see what has happened here: I've written this whole entry without actually mentioning the trees.  There are trees at the arboretum.  I want to watch how the 100 forests get along, and keep track, so I'll be plagiarising the material that has been produced about the plantings into the notes I'll be using to try to make my tours more interesting: and if it works out, I'll slowly build a little library of tour material - about the trees.