Taking Up Road Plantings – 2nd March 2018

Work is still ongoing along large parts of Lamington National Park Rd, and the DTMR and their contractors are about to start repairs on a number of sites close to our property.

Unfortunately this means we will have to pull-up some of our road plantings that are in the repair areas.

When we planted sections of the road above our property, it was to secure edges, prevent landslips and to control water flow down the mountain.  In some areas we planted, we knew that the DTMR(Department of Transport and Main Roads) would be along at some time to do repairs to the road, and that some of our plantings would have to be moved or lost.

We had planned well, so that not many of our planting areas would be impacted, but things change, and a change to what repairs were being done has meant we have had to pull-up one of our most successful planting areas.

At the head of “Shionagh’s Gully”, on the north side of the property, we had planted extensively along the roadside and across the ‘bridge’ over the gully.  We had planted a mass of Dianella brevipedunculata(Tall Flax Lily) across the road bridge and these had been doing extremely well. You can see the plants partly removed in the image above.

To the North of the ‘bridge’ we had mass planted Rhodosphaera rhodanthema(Deep Yellowwood) and these had also been doing very well.  These were planted to replace some of the many Rhodosphaera rhodanthema trees we had lost due to damage from ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie. When the big washout occurred just south of our driveway we lost around 10-15 almost fully grown trees.

You can see the extent of the damage in the photo below.

We did manage to save essentially every plant from this area.

8 x Rhodosphaera rhodanthema
14 x Dianella brevipedunculata
20+ x Lomandra hystrix/longifolia

So all are back in pots and being maintained so that we can re-plant them when the repairs are done.

Now we wait and see exactly how the repairs to the road will go.

As the DTMR and Scenic Rim Regional Council do not prioritise vegetaion protection and re-vegetation we will be ready to plant again when the work is done.