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