What's Happening?

Dear Readers,

Please do not assume that the lack of blog posts here lately is in any way a sign of a paucity of progress. The opposite in fact is the case and any evidence of slackness only comes from yours truly and not our very active committee.

So, what indeed has been happening?

Our Drouin Tree Walks Booklet

The information for ten walks has been prepared and checked. The walks have been trialed by several members. Helen Timbury Design, (Helen on Facebook), has started the design work and gratefully, Drouin Bendigo Bank and the Baw Baw Shire have contributed funds toward the production. Further funding to complete this project is imminent and work on fine tuning some of the data is underway.

Gardivalia Tree Walks

As part of the Gardivalia Festival that is currently in progress, The Friends of Drouin’s Trees has conducted one walk to date. Twelve passionate souls braved some fairly miserable weather but we enjoyed some of Drouin’s magnificent trees, parks and wetlands. Poetry was read, trees were measured, history was related, policy explained, wildlife spotted, etc.

Two further walks are planned – Town Centre, Thursday 20^th October, meet at the Drouin Railway Station car park at 11am, and McNeilly Wetlands, Friday 27^th October, meet at McNeilly Wetlands at 9am. If you would like join in the fun, meet some of these passionate, (tragic?), tree people, or simply find out more, please email Judy, (thegablesatdcsidotnetdotau) or Peter, (heyfieldwaresatwidebanddotnetdotau).

Working Bees

Our group has the support of the Baw Baw Shire to conduct some ‘low level’ working bees around the town. Presently we are concentrating on simply tidying up some areas by picking up rubbish and pulling a few obvious weeds. Our list of sites continues to grow – just like some of the weeds!

On-Site Meetings

On several occasions we have met with gardens/environmental staff from Baw Baw Shire and tree removal contractors to discuss the treatment of some vulnerable trees. These discussions have given us the opportunity to provide an alternative view to the complete removal of some of our wonderful specimens. As a result, some diseased trees or ‘high-risk’ trees have been converted to habitat trees rather than be cut down. This involves pruning or trimming to remove dangerous branches and to stabilize the tree. In some cases the tree is girdled with a chainsaw to stop further growth and the process of chain sawing extra hollows into the remaining trunk is being conducted.

Recently, three large giants in Binbeal Rd were treated in this way. Though now no longer alive, these three giants are still contributing to the environment and at least one possum and one duck family are grateful for that! (Photos by Gippy Tree Services)

Asset Mapping

The many hundreds of trees that The Friends of Drouin’s Trees have suggested as being significant have been identified, measured and GPS located in order to be placed on a Baw Baw Shire list of assets. Being listed in this way will hopefully provide some level of protection and preservation in the future - single trees, lines of trees and ‘polygons’ of trees have been identified.

Many other tasks, large and small are in hand, being attended to or waiting time for completion. Hopefully this summary gives some idea of the work being done. I’m reminded of the Michael Caine quote, “Be like a duck, all serene on the surface, paddling like h… underneath”.

Drouin’s Oaks #1

In early times, much of western Europe was covered with dense oak forests.

Many old oak trees took on characteristics that were often the origins of myths and folklore and many splendid specimens were given anthropomorphic names in recognition of famous people or events.

Little wonder that early European arrivals to West Gippsland were keen to continue their long-held connections to this iconic tree species. In the streets and parks of Drouin to this day we reap the benefits of plantings of some magnificent oaks by early settlers to the district.

Oak Street in Drouin is named in honour of the old oak trees along the south west side of Oak Street Kindergarten. The trees are thought to have been planted early in the 1900s to provide shelter for the livestock in the sale yards which were located in this triangle of land. In the 1936 aerial photographs of Drouin these oaks look like they could have been about 20+ years old. These saleyards were the central yards for farmers around the district and livestock were walked into town by farmers from places like Drouin West. The close proximity to the train station meant that livestock could be freighted easily by rail.

Oak Street Kinder was established in 1964.  In Keith Pretty’s book, Buln Buln to Baw Baw, he says: “This Kindergarten has an almost unique ‘oldworld’ setting with its beautiful old oak trees which provide valuable learning experiences for the children. They learn from the acorns, the birds and the animals (possums) which are there because of the trees”. 

Many children, now adults, who attended the Kindergarten remember taking home pockets full of acorns! At least one family even has an oak tree grown from one of these acorns and it is most likely that the oak tree on the southeast side of the railway bridge could also be an offspring!

Today there are four remaining English oaks, Quercus robur, three in the Kindergarten grounds and one just to the west of the kinder boundary. They are 18-20m high with 20m wide canopies, providing wonderful shade cover for preschool children, the birds and the cars parked in the street in summer, and more than ample mulch for the kinder and JC Wells park in autumn. They are truly splendid specimens.

Perhaps in the future, some of Drouin’s magnificent oaks will be ‘honoured’ in the same way many of the European ancient trees are today.

(Thanks to Judy for this post)

PS: Whilst the Pedunculate Oak is not considered highly as a habitat tree, some Little Ravens, (I think), and some Pied Currawongs were busy feeding on lichen on the branches in the canopy.

‘Gum Trees’ - Did You Know?

All gum trees are eucalypts but not all eucalypts are gum trees.

The gum tree is one of Australia’s most recognised icons.

Gum trees are very adaptable to a range of climates and conditions – snow, drought, floods, fires, poor soil, etc.

There are over 850 species of eucalypts and they evolved about 70 million years ago.

‘Eucalyptus’ is Greek for ‘well covered’, referring to the cap of the bud.

The typical closed-capped buds of an eucalypt

Eucalypts are grown in over 100 countries worldwide – USA, Spain, Italy, Israel, India, China, etc.

The River Red Gum is thought to be the most widely distributed species – anywhere there is an old creek bed and some occasional flooding.

Many large eucalypts are ‘high-rise’ habitats – from root bacteria in the ‘basement’, reptiles and invertebrates under the bark of the ‘middle floors’, up to the birds and mammals in the hollows and the canopy of the ‘roof gardens’.

One of the giant Mountain Grey Gums in Hearn Park

Eucalyptus oil is contained within glands in the leaves. (Australia imports more than 80% of its eucalyptus oil from countries like China and Brazil!)

Blue coloured mountain ranges are due to eucalyptus oil vapour in the atmosphere.

An old 4 tank eucalyptus still at Wyalong, NSW - (courtesy of the Wattle Brand Eucalyptus Oil Co.)

The Mountain Ash, Eucalyptus regnans, is the world’s tallest flowering plant yet its seed is barely 2mm long.

The world’s tallest tree in 1884 was a Mountain Ash at Thorpdale – the Cornthwaite brothers proved the fact by cutting it down and measuring it, (114.3m)!

Young regrowth Mountain Ash in Mt Worth State Park

Eucalypt plantations are being used around the world to sequester carbon.

Many eucalypts over 100 years old form numerous hollows that are readily used by a variety of birds, mammals and reptiles for roosting and nesting.

Victoria has about 30 endemic eucalypts, (found naturally occurring nowhere else). Even Drouin and district has an endemic eucalypt, the Strzelecki Gum.

Eucalyptus Strzeleckii, endemic to West Gippsland area - McNeilly Wetlands

It is thought that gum leaves hang down to allow as much sun as possible to reach the ground below and to allow rain droplets to fall directly to the root zone.

In drought conditions some eucalypts can turn their leaves edge on to the sun light to minimize evaporation.

A gum leaf can be made into a useful ‘band-aid’ in an emergency.

The evocative nature of eucalypts has been described by singers, songwriters, artists, photographers and poets ever since settlement. Soldiers returning home by ship from the two world wars were said to be able to smell eucalyptus before land was sighted.

The gum tree is Australian as Aussie as can be
And there's no more Australian than the eucalyptus tree
They have been in Australia perhaps since life began
Thousands and thousands of years before coming of man.

        Francis Duggan – a very prolific poet from Victoria (rhymeonly blog –worth a look)

PS: The dulcet tones of Judy and Peter can be heard here, when they were interviewed a while back by Lyn Wells of 3BBR FM - includes a brief musical interlude.

And, you can listen directly online to 3BBR FM our wonderful local radio station via SHOUTcast.