Attractive damp loving trees?

lizzie

lizzie

Oh dear ... we are performing wholesale slaughter on the SheOaks taking over our new block and hoping to erradicate them. I know - they are natives - but they are also incrediably invasive, don't allow undergrowth and not very fauna friendly. And with seeds churning out 1-2m high new growth each year, they are rapidly spreading and getting out of control.

I will need to plant something behind each dam for soil support, and to help soak up seepage.

I had my heart set on Weeping Willows (salix) as I grew up with them in the damp area of my parents farm - and love them due to their romantic appearance - but apparently they are a noxious weed in Australia and cannot be purchased or planted.

So, I'm open to suggestions. I want something that is bird attracting (flowers or fruit) that has an attractive growing habit.
 
I've heard that willows are great until the roots hit the water -- then they die and the root holes cause the dam to leak.

If you want to attract bird the grevilias are pretty good.
 
Good luck getting rid of sheoaks, the only way is to take all the rootstock
as well, Even if you think you have beaten them they will still shoot up from
old roots years later.

I believe there is a native willow and the invasive imported type.
I read somewhere they were cutting out the invasive and replanting the
native around the Murrumbidgee river.

I also read somewhere they had a hybrid willow so it will not spread.
 
I would suggest Melaelucas but they will probably drink your dam water :) See if your council has any kind of list of the species that are indigenous to your suburb as these are often the best ones for your soil & conditions.

How tall do you want the new trees to grow?

Some attractive, bird-attracting and less than 6m trees that I've grown and really liked include
- Grevillea 'honey gem'
- Grevillea 'coastal impressive'- in fact any of the pink loopy ones are awesome
- Grevillea 'firesprite'
- Banksia 'spinulosa'
- Syzygium (lillypilly) 'cascade'- often sold as a hedge but is a beautiful small tree if you let it grow.
- Banksia 'robur'- this is more shrub sized (~2m) but is a wetland plant and has amazing leaves and seed cones!
I grow these trees in silt/clay soil in SEQ and they are all flourishing.

Also many bottlebrush/callistemon species are riparian (grow alongside creeks & rivers) and don't mind swampy feet- they also come in a beautiful range of colours these days. You can prune the underbranches to encourage a nice upright habit.

You could also underplant your trees with wetland grasses.
 
Before I read down to "weeping willow" that's pretty much exactly what I had in mind.

However, if you want Australian natives that love water, you can't go past paperbarks and bottle brushes (which also have stacks of flowers).

Paperbarks: Melaleuca linariifolia (known as 'snow in summer'). These small trees are covered so thickly with white perfumed flowers every December they appear from adistance to be covered with a thick blanket of snow.
Bottlebrushes: Callistemon viminalis - a weeping form with deep red brushes.
and Callistemon pallidus, a 3m-tall shrub that has soft yellow brushes.
 
nww said:
Good luck getting rid of sheoaks, the only way is to take all the rootstock
as well, Even if you think you have beaten them they will still shoot up from
old roots years later.
Click to expand...

yep - roots are getting ripped out, and I resign myself to poisoning for years to come ... problem is there are hundreds of the *******s. Be glad to see them gone.

Not a fan of bottlebrushes - but do like grevillas. Thinking the native Blueberry Ash might be the go - or the Lilly Pilly - both are good in damp areas according to Burkes Backyard. Will talk to the native plant nursery tomorrow too
 
Just be careful with Lilly Pilly as they get a leaf pimpling / curling disease caused by some insect that likes attacking them.
Blueberry Ash sounds loverley :)
 
In the Grevillea range I would throw in Moonlight, lemon coloured that has a neat large shrub/small tree habit. It is a neater growing species that Honey Gem which from my experience likes to take off at an angle :confused: (but nice flower)
 
You're in the hills? It gets cold in winter?

Damp clay soil?

What about an apple / nectarine / peach / plum / apricot etc (you get the idea!) orchard? If it gets a bit dry in summer then set up some drip irrigation using the dam water...

Get the right varieties for your area and you're set - if you don't mind some pruning etc.
 
Propertunity said:
Just be careful with Lilly Pilly as they get a leaf pimpling / curling disease caused by some insect that likes attacking them.
Blueberry Ash sounds loverley :)
Click to expand...

Yes - mine caught this bug and after months of spraying just about everything I could get my hands on and throwing $$$'s at it I removed 38 of them !
 
lizzie said:
I had my heart set on Weeping Willows (salix) as I grew up with them in the damp area of my parents farm - and love them due to their romantic appearance - but apparently they are a noxious weed in Australia and cannot be purchased or planted.

.
Click to expand...


Hey lizzie. If I were you I'd plant weeping willows. I can't find anywhere that says they are noxious?

This..???


http://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedident.cgi?tpl=plant.tpl&ibra=all&card=T27

Previously often planted along watercourses and irrigation channels. Plants are damaged by willow leaf rust, Melampsora coleosporioides. Not classed as a Weed of National Significance (WONS) and sale not restricted in Australia..
Click to expand...

Plus other websites I found.



I believe they are not liked in some dryer parts. Like the 400 to 600 mills rainfall zone of the Murray Darling basin, as they dry water ways out too much. But that's exactly what you want.

I seriously think that since thay are simply an introduced species, weeping willows are the victims of environmentalism gone a bit silly. If someone comes onto my place and wants to clear them from my creek I'll tell em to get stuffed.

As far as I'm concerned, they are attractive. They'd love a 800 to 1000 mill rainfall zone like what your farm would get. Cattle eat them. They have no spikes or other undesirable traits. They'd be easy to get rid of at a later date if you wanted.


In town, they had this silly government funded scheme to clear some willows from the creek. It includes this massive glossy sign 'Before' picture of the creek, who funded it, how it was funded. The flippen sign probably cost 10 grand. It was just beautiful. Dark, grassy, cool, lush, somewhere that you'd want to sit and have a picnic. Then the bulldozers came in and cleared it all and it's now a hot barren dusty looking spot that you wouldn't want to go near. Ridiculous! And of course, to rub salt into the wound, The great big glossy 'Before' picture is still there to remind us of what it used to be like.



Other than that, What about bottle brushes? They are native and like it wet.

See ya's.
 
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lizzie said:
yep - roots are getting ripped out, and I resign myself to poisoning for years to come ... problem is there are hundreds of the *******s. Be glad to see them gone.
Click to expand...

I have a small block of land in nth nsw several areas where there are large amounts of free standing sheoaks,what a lot of people don't know is the red tailed black cockatoos-Calyptorhynchus-banksii-fly in and feed of the seeds off the sheoaks they spend all day in the trees breaking open the seeds,and breed up in the higher old ringbarked 100 year old cedars that the logers left behind 100 years ago,, if you were ever to see it happen you would never touch the sheoaks..imho..
 
If they're water loving they may well be river oaks - Casuarina cunninghamiana. She oaks are C. torrulosa and grow in more forested areas rather than creek beds.
 
Whatever they are - they are breeding faster than the rabbits and quickly becoming a weed.

Doesn't help that they grow up to 2m a year - so the suckers and seedlings are literally popping up overnight with all the rain we've had recently.
 
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