Page 25 - Landscape SA 98

ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURE

Ipomoea ommaneyi is a trailing
perennial with large leaves and
wavy margins, and the flowers of
the Morning Glory (Convolvulaceae)
family.

CPZ provides two guards which are
positioned where there are vistas
Jacross the reserve, and contracting
teams which keep the many trails clear for
walking and hiking. Beagle Watch armed
response provides another guard, while
the MK employee Clement Ndlovu has
been given security training and they all
keep watch over the river environment.

Weeding, particularly of invasive species, Wendy Carstens, Chairman of Friends of Melville Koppies. Ipomoea ommaneyi
is an ongoing important task, especially with its trailing stems is draped around her neck in honour of all the
after the summer rains. Power tools are conservation work she does at the reserve. Commonly called the Beespatat,
not used by the MK workers, as the men it grows prolifically in the grasslands of the Koppies. Photo by Joanne Gibbon.
are not qualified to use them. Problem
trees and trees that have fallen across trails
are taken down by means of a well-honed
machete, while small branches impeding
trails are cut away with loppers. Long grass
on overgrown trails is slashed in between
visits from the City Parks contracting
teams.

A particularly useful tool is the Tree Popper,
designed and manufactured in South
Africa, of which MK has both large and
medium sizes. Women volunteers use the
lighter, medium-sized Tree Popper, while
the men are able to handle the large tool
more easily. They are highly serviceable on
plants with sturdy tap roots; the front end
of the tool is dug into the soil, grasping Wooded areas on the rocky outcrops, along a trail
the root stock and the whole of the root is
levered out by manpower. Damp ground
facilitates the work.

The Tree Poppers are used on the declared
invader Solanum mauritianum (Bug
Weed) but if the tree has been slashed
down previously and has resprouted, the
multiple stems are difficult to pull out.
Solanum pseudocapsicum (Jerusalem
Cherry) with the yellow fruit has a large
taproot but can be successfully ‘popped’.
Listed Acacia melanoxylon (Blackwood)
and, as Carstens says, surprisingly, Lantana
camara which re-sprouts if follow-up work
is not done regularly, can be dealt with
by the large Tree Popper, although some
larger bushes are easier to remove with
picks. She adds that some of the men
prefer to use a sharp machete and stump Protea caffra evergreen Sugarbush in stands in the grassland.
treatment.

Landscape SA • Issue 98 2021 23