I have been given the interesting task of clearing about 300 metres of creekline along Third Creek, at the base of Old Norton Summit Road, just out of Magill. This blog is really a photo history of the transformation from weed and feral tree infested watercourse, to an area that has the right native planting for this unique and beautiful patch of Adelaide.

When I first saw the area to be cleared, I must say I was a bit overwhelmed. I visited the site a number of times to get my head around it. The only strategy was to do it in bits, otherwise it would just be too hard.

I also want to document this as a way to chronicle the upcoming evolution of the creek over the next few years too, hopefully as an example of what can be done.

The challenge here is the amount of stuff to be removed and chopped down and either burnt or used to secure those super steep hillsides for the new plantings. There are olive, willow, hawthorn and ash trees, all weed trees, that must go. There are also many rampant creeper weeds that must be sprayed, although this will be a long and ongoing process. I am still learning the names of all these weeds, and will be chronicling their demise in upcoming posts.

Part of the challenge is that upstream, all these weeds are in full control, so eradication may be impossible, but at least we can control this patch and lessen the load for other properties down stream.