God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease,
avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.
But he cannot save them from fools.
- John Muir
"Blue Gum and Black Wattle trees" Acrylic on Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper - Maree©
SIZE : 11" x 7.5" - unframed - SOLD
SIZE : 11" x 7.5" - unframed - SOLD
In this painting I experimented with acrylics on a good, thick Bockingford watercolour paper and decided I just LOVE how the acrylics feel on the paper. It's amazing! I think I'm falling more and more in love with this versatile medium.
These trees are on our smallholding and although we are trying to get rid of all the Black Wattles, they spring up faster than you try to eradicate them. The problem is that they produce a huge amount of seeds, which can grow in the most arid and infertile of soils. Even worse, these seeds can live up to a 90 years. And after a first clean-up, even though you have removed hundreds of trees, millions of young seedling appear. It's basically fighting a losing battle. These evergreen trees were originally imported from Australia for our tanning industry.
Now the touchy subject: chemicals. One simply cannot get rid of Black Wattles unless you use a good herbicide. Cutting a black wattle and hoping it will die, is wishful thinking. We do not use any chemicals at all, with the result that we have an on-going battle, but which provides employment opportunities as we hire several casual workers every year to do another clean-up.
The spreading growing habit of the Black Wattle
The flowers of the Black Wattle also causes great outbreaks of hay fever among hay fever sufferers during spring.
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