The Great Regeneration Project

There is a section of our front garden which some people might consider potential "lawn" (ugh, spit!) or just a big pile of weeds. But it holds treasures within. It's not so long since it was bushland, so the soil still contains seeds of the original flora either dormant or recently dispersed, and there are tiny seedlings struggling to find their way out of the invasive plants (both exotic and native) covering them.

The "regen zone". In the foreground is a Telopea

speciosissima (red Waratah). The other species I've planted
are mainly Allocasuarina spp, Eucalyptus spp, and Acmena smithii
(lillypillies). There remain some exotics, including Camellia. I'll
be removing them when their replacements are a little larger.

Today, my friend from the Herbarium, Peta Hinton came for lunch and we spent the afternoon combing the garden looking for seedlings, and removing weeds around them to give them a chance. It'll be a long process, but with patience, we'll let the local flora return to its rightful place. Peta is a veteran bush regenerator and has bogglingly good skills at spotting and identifying native flora when it's barely past the cotyledon stage.

We found an amazing array of seedlings:

Proteaceae:

• Grevillea sericea
• Persoonia pinifolia
• Banksia oblongifolia

Fabaceae

• Acacia spp.
• Pultenaea daphnoides
  

Myrtaceae

• Angophora costata
• Kunzia ambigua
  

Asteraceae

• Ozothamnus diosmifolium

Euphorbiaceae

• Poranthera microphylla

Orchidaceae

• Cryptostylis subulata
• Cryptostylis erecta

Apiaceae

• Xanthosia pilosa
• Platysace linearifolia

On the upper left, are two seedlings close together. One is an
Angophora costata, the other an identified Acacia species.
On the right, a Grevillea sericea.

I knew that I had some more terrestrial orchids in the front yard, but until today, didn't know what they were. Now one's flowered and demonstrated itself to be Cryptostylis erecta. There are many yet to flower in this part of the garden, but I'm hoping that when they've got some space, they'll take off too. So now we've got two species of the Cryptostylis genus, this and the Cryptostylis subulata I posted about previously.

Cryptostylis erecta

So, as New Year Resolutions go, this, I think, is a good one. To get the weeds under control and nurture the babies.

Happy new year!