I'm gunna build me a rainforest

Building a rainforest on the Bangor property.

It's said ... "If you build it they will come!" I'm still trying to figure out who "they" are? When I build a garden or just plant plants in it I tend to over populate the ground with too many plants. Getting an idea in my head is easy enough but finding out how to build a rainforest is something else. I've never done anything like this before - building a rainforest - but how hard can it really be? Tenterfield is not the ideal place to have a rainforest naturally, if it was there'd be rainforests already here. However, Tenterfield is ideally placed, on the west side of town in places, in frost hollows which I believe would be the perfect places to start building a rainforest.

There are many reasons why I am doing this but mostly because I love trees and I cannot stand looking at bare paddocks all the time, year in and year out. And Tenterfield is full of empty paddocks, believe it or not. There is simply too much open space here in Tenterfield for my liking. With the birdlife rapidly disappearing from the area something needs to be done to improve their habitat. I have the opportunity right on my doorstep to plant native trees, and I plan on doing so and not wasting this opportunity, for it will benefit more people and bird species than anything else. It will also mask some of the carbon monoxide, hopefully, that you can smell from passing vehicles. It will also help reduce excessive soil erosion along this part of the Tenterfield Creek. I have yet to come across a disadvantage for building a rainforest.

Here's the basic layout for any rainforest. You simply start from the top downwards, I reckon, with the tree planting. You find suitable trees for the top 2 layers, allowing for room for them to grow to their natural width and height, and plant them in the ground accordingly. The top 2 layers is probably the hardest as I don't want to add trees that are not suitable for this area. Nor do I want to add foreign plants or even trees from other far away areas. Personally, I am thinking for the emergent layer, planting fig trees. I've come across a website where I can buy Australian seed for a very small price. Now this might seem ridiculous but the type of fig tree I plan on getting is the Small leaved Fig (Ficus obliqua). It is a massive tree but whether it will grow in Tenterfield is a different story. Here's a picture of a mature tree of that species (see next image on the right). This has to be the most gorgeous tree I've ever seen - not that I've ever seen one in real life!

Mature tree - Small Leaved Fig.

The emergent and canopy layers will be planted with Eucalypts and a mixture of other native trees. I'm still trying to decide on which species to buy seeds of. Two in particular I have decided upon getting are of the Mulga Iron (I think that is what it is called), and Syzygium smithii (Lillypilly) seeds. I'm also trying to figure out what the birdlife would eat and nest in. I also want a combination of 1/4 or 1/5 decidious trees to 3/4 or 4/5 evergreen trees if it works out that way.

The hard part to building this rainforest will be the constant weeding for the next 3 years of removing the grass from between the growing trees as well as watering the plants themselves. I'll have to manually bring in buckets of water for each tree, or find a bloody long hose. Maybe I can connect several hoses together and make a bloody long hose so I don't need to water the plants all by bucketfuls of water. And, you cannot have a rainforest without a rainforest floor - full of leaf litter from the trees and plants above it. It just wouldn't be the same! After 3 years there is no need to continue weeding between the trees.

I'll be starting with the basic tree planting then deciding where to go from there. I'll probably buy some shrubs to add to the rainforest, like Grevilleas and ground covers. However, at the moment I am taking cuttings from some local plants and trying to get them to strike. One plant in particular I am having great difficulty getting it to strike - is the Butterfly Bush. I don't know it's scientific name. For about 3 months now I've been taking cuttings from one bush and it continues to refuse to strike from a cutting. It is currently in flower right now, so when it develops seeds I might try growing the seed and see what happens.

Why build a rainforest though? Well, why not? My neighbour, Carol, hates mowing her paddock and it is not being used for anything apart from walking in. So where am I going to put this rainforest? In my neighbour, Carol's, paddock of course.

A small part of Carol's empty paddock.

The image on the left is just one small section of Carol's paddock and it does not show much depth. The Tenterfield Creek flows through the center of this image from right to left and is mostly devoid of flora. As this paddock is prone to flooding I also have to take flooding into consideration as to which plants can withstand periodic floods and which ones cannot. I don't think it really matters all that much as the majority of the time Tenterfield is in a drought anyway.

Any plant life added to this paddock will be an improvement, and less mowing for Carol to do. But for the time being I need to focus on getting the right plants for this area. Once I have the seeds I will begin sowing them and see what germinates. If all the seeds I buy and sow actually germinate, I'll have a problem, unless I can encourage some other neighbours to take the seedlings off my hands, or the local council, or even the local Landcare group I may have nowhere to plant the trees. I could sneek about late at night and plant the seedlings along parts of the Tenterfield Creek near my home - the parts I can access from the road. I'll cross that bridge when it happens though.

One thing is for sure though, there is no such thing as a rainforest in Tenterfield. When I grow one it may even attract more visitors to the area when it is fully established? Maybe, just maybe, the whole rainforest idea might catch on across Tenterfield and other people might start doing the same as me? Fat chance of that happening but I am always hopeful.

What I do know is this: It will be called the "Bangor Rainforest" named after Carol's house and if nothing else it will attract the birdlife. It may even attract a lot of the bird species that have disappeared from Tenterfield over the years. Satin Bowerbirds might come back and actually breed in the rainforest area. Who knows, anything is possible really.

However, one thing does concern me and that is the feral rabbit population in the immediate area. Even though their numbers have dropped I would like it if the rabbits just died out altogether. I may have to somehow make the rainforest area rabbit proof so they cannot ruin the rainforest. Or I could just not block them off from the rainforest area and maybe if they create burrows they will all drown from the next flood or two we get - end of rabbit problem!

Flora revegetation ideas

Me and my brain come up with some brilliant ideas at times but I tend to run out of enthusiasm after a while. This is simply because I do not know if the plants will survive nor do I know if the people in question will approve of my ideas. However, it is a fact of life here in Tenterfield that bird species are leaving Tenterfield as fast as you can identify them and this deeply concerns me. Why? Simply because of a lack of rain and the plant life is sparsely scattered across town so there isn't enough trees, etc to maintain even a small number of any species.

If any bird species do breed in Tenterfield the juveniles tend to move elsewhere and never stay in Tenterfield. A lot of bird species have become migratory birds that were not that way inclined before. I have seen entire species leave town and never return. Where they go to I do not know. Do they become extinct? I don't know that either. All I know is that the remaining bird species are clinging to dear life here, often times many species of birds will inhabit one single tree.

I am aware, for example, that in a densely flora area of the Tenterfield Creek located near my home, a stand of about 5 plants including one mature gum tree, there are at least 7 species of birds that inhabit those plants. See image to the left.

The worst part to this is some of those plants are invasive weed species but the native birds have nowhere else to roost and nest. The weed is the tall bright green plant on the left in the photo. I am trying to find a more suitable flora species to eventually replace that plant even though it is not my business to replant vegetation along the actual Tenterfield creek.

The image to the right was recently desecrate by the local council to remove all the plant life and the invasive weed species from two areas of the Tenterfield Creek less than 100 metres from my home. As a result large boulders were disturbed and no native plants were replanted in this area. Several large trees were removed from this area.

In this image you will see some regrowth from the plants that were pulled up on the left side of the creek bank. Like everything that is done in Tenterfield, the invasive weeds will regrow but will come back profusely if nothing is done to revegetate this small area of the creek properly. Should Tenterfield experience another flood most of the creek's dirt will be washed away as has happened in the past.

My idea is to revegetate this area with natives but it is a huge task for just one person. I am currenlt trying to grow Grevillea from seed at the moment whilst waiting for the local gum trees to come into flower. But the problem is much more greater than simply planting a few trees or bushes. The local gum trees are dieing because of the drought. In the last 3 years they have been dropping large branches. Not all the gum tree species are doing that though.

Planting local willow trees seems like a waste of time as I only know of one bird species (I've yet to identify that species) that actually inhabit willow trees in Tenterfield along the Tenterfield Creek. The main two plant species I will add are wattle and gum trees. I would like to plant some Lilly Pillies and others but am not able to know exactly for sure if they will survive. You see I recently learnt that a big chunk of the Tenterfield Creek and nearby areas adjacent to it are actually "frost hollows" - meaning cold air is attracted to these spots. These frost hollow areas is also where most of the birdlife in Tenterfield exists, or used to exist.

The Tenterfield Creek seriously needs to be revegetated if the birdlife is to remain in town. Not only that but serious soil erosion has begun to take place along certain areas of the creek, especially along the edge of my neighbour Carol's property that ends next to the creek itself. All through the Tenterfield Creek in town you'll see a build up of sand in the creek. Where the sand came from I do not know but it got washed into the creek from somewhere. The source of the sand needs to be located and the whole area revegetated to prevent soil erosion. The sand piles up higher every time we have another flood.

I seriously need a trip to the local nursery, but unfortunately all the plants I buy from there die after a while. Why that is so I have no idea. I guess that is why I have begun collecting my own seed and cuttings from local plants. Some cuttings are much harder to strike than others, and some don't strike at all. Knowing that I continue to wonder if revegetating my neighbour's edge of the creek is really worth my effort.