Some time ago I was playing round with a temperate guild [probably 4 years ago] and I set down a possible guild for planting in the corner of a grazing type paddock. Or as a fenced island in the middle. Anyway, I will post it for discussion. I wanted to provide habitat, fodder, shade, windbreak, possibly even harvesting some pole or fence timber from it. Also being able to 'chop & drop' some of the trees. After its established have it open some time for browsing. All of this was to be squeezed in an area maybe 15m x 15m. This was to be hypothetically in the middle of a perfectly flat paddock with fair soil. Cheers Floot
Have the perfect sopt to try your Guild Floot.....I always worry about stuff getting overgrown with grass....and what about irrigation...(I don't have any) Cathy
Hi Cathy, I was envisaging the western slopes/plains of NSW & Queensland when I made that list. A good solid fence, rip and mulch. The trees would need watering to establish and then they should do fine and because it would be reasonably crowded they will get on top of the grass in the second season. I had also envisaged judiciously locating it across any natural run off collection point. I dont think it would take long for the birds and insects to find it and move in. I found a nice info link about canowindra. I have been there but it was circa 1970 when my dad took a family of 5 on 'holidays' from Mildura to the Gold Coast in a new HT holden ute!!... Being the only boy I travelled the whole way in the back of the Ute. Lucky my oldest sister didnt come with us. We detoured to Canowindra for dad to look at a truck. The road from Brisbane to the Gold Coast was not bitumen at that time but the Coast had just opened the first KFC. https://www.martisfiesta.com.au/canowindra.htm Cheers Floot
Ha Richard, you sound like my wife. She always struggles to read things I have not written down yet. Anyway, just for the non-mind readers!! Here it is.... 1 Neem 2 Willow 10 Tagasaste 1 Honey Locust 1 Carob 1 Wait-a-while [spikey type bush] 1 Banksia 1 Sugar gum 1 Conifer 1 kurrajong 1 paulownia Thankyou richard. Here is a present for you. I saw the Cowper worm quote and decided to read his bio and then went looking for 'worm quotes' and found this. It's a fun read. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/worm.html cheers Floot
Yeah, that would be an interesting assemblage eh? Pretty tight at that spacing for the mature trees maybe? Which ones would win I wonder? Probably the Paulownia and the Willow. You could actually throw in a hundred tagasaste in that much area couldn't you? Get your canopy up quick and then chop and drop them to mulch the "climax species" as they emerge... Some good worm quotes there. I think I might transcribe a few on the inside of our worm farms! Give the wwoofers some reading material!
Hey Floot, Sounds good. I am familiar with Neem, Tagasaste and Carob - but would be interested to hear if there were specific properties of the other types that prompted you to include them. Also, I think wait a while is a noxious weed in se qld. Had you considered bamboo at all? Cheers Ree