RitchiesReserve

Dear Friends of Ritchie Reserve,

On Sunday the 1st of November we had another successful working bee. Over one hundred native seedlings were planted in the Reserve. We also removed most of the Spanish Heath that was growing near the Vic Roads dump site by cutting and painting with herbicide. 

We are having our next working bee on Sunday the 6th of December from10am to 12pm. Our next effort is to tackle the wild Privet and Tutsan growing along on the main entrance ridge site by cutting and painting with herbicide, and if the weather is hot we will tackle Sweet Pittosporum and Wild Tobacco growing in the shaded gullies. So bring your own water bottles, face masks and cutting tools. 

We are also planning to have an outside End of Year BBQ after the working bee at Yvonne and Geoff Bell’s place, located at the end of Dykes Road, Ruby, just passed the Ruby Hall. So bring your own bread and meat or sandwiches if you’d prefer. 

Looking forward seeing you on Sunday 6th December.  

Regards

Ian Starkey

Friends of Ritchie Reserve – October 2020 Update

Posted in Community Announcements

Dear Friends On Sunday the Eleventh October we had a successful working bee. We managed to plant and guard over 100 understory plants i.e. Olearia […]

Friends of Ritchie Reserve Reformed

Posted in Community Announcements

Friends of Ritchie Reserve have reformed and is under the Parks administration, however has severely lacked any love for 20 Years.  However, Ian Starkey has worked […]

Dear Friends

On Sunday the Eleventh October we had a successful working bee.

We managed to plant and guard over 100 understory plants i.e. Olearia argophylla (musk daisy bush) Prostanthera lasianthos (Victorian Christmas bush) and Pomaderris aspera (Hazel) it felt great planting these important understory plants after many working bee’s removing Tree Tobacco and Sweet Pittosporum that have inundated our Reserve.

We plan to have our next working Bee on Sunday the first of November  10-12 AM.

We had to change the date this time as a number of our workers could not make the second Sunday that we usually have. So Keep that date Sunday Ist November.

We plan to tackle the Spanish heath growing rampart near the Vic Roads dump site. And check over our plantings. Look forward seeing you there with Masks.  

Regards Ian Starkey

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Friends of Ritchie Reserve have reformed and is under the Parks administration, however has severely lacked any love for 20 Years.  However, Ian Starkey has worked with Brian Martin Parks Victoria and managed for the Friends to perform passive rehabilitation of the land.  Ian and Dick Lester along with Arawata Landcare Group, David Meikle and Danny Drummond (ex Parks) to coordinate weed abatement to restore the reserve for a walking destination along the “Skip Track” a Korumburra Rotary Club project with members under John O’Neil and Ken Sim.

Ian had received notice from Parks Vic that we can restart working bees.  However, there are a number of protocols we need to follow i.e. social distancing, register names and addresses of people participating and sanitisers etc.  Please bring your own tools hoes, shovels, loppers, Ian will have sanitised hand saws available for use that have been kindly provided by Parks Victoria.

The main target weeds are Tree Tobacco, Ivy and Lily type weeds that have bulbs that we need to dig out.  Again, we have bags provided by Parks Victoria so we can transport the bulbs out Ian has dealt with the mountain of Parks Vic online forms and notifications we have to do.