We are at BlueGumsFree a lot less frequently these days. The only upside is that every moment here is savoured. After three weeks absence, including a weekend in the magnificent Kogelberg, we came home again on Friday.
The Splendid Kogelberg
Part of the Kogelberg Across the Bay – as Seen from Blue Gums’ Deck.
It is now six weeks since the fire. The heavy rainfall has produced a green carpet of new growth as the seed-bed, stimulated by fire, has exploded into life. On the upper slopes where near-moribund protea and leucondendron stands, over twenty years old, were thinned out by the fast burning flames, a carpet of indigenous seedlings is beginning to adorn the slopes. The thin strips of vegetation along the watercourses are already flecked with fast growing ferns.
New Life at BlueGumsFree
An Arum Lily Rises from the Ashes
But as you head down the slopes to the sections dominated by calcerous sandstone, where infestations of port jackson, hakea, spider gum and black wattle formerly strangled the mountainside, there is a potpourri of seedlings. The vast majority, though, are invasive. They pre-determine our working weekends for months to come. As soon as the rains have passed and the banks are a little more stable we will undertake the back-breaking task of rooting them out.
A Mixed Bag of the Good and the Bad, the Old and the New
Whenever we tire of this burdensome chore, we can look around us, to areas where we have already eliminated almost all specimens of invasive plants, to see what regnerated beauty awaits in merely a season or three.
One Year Ago the Slopes in the Foreground were almost as Bare as those in the Background.
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