A Crater Ate My Paddock

There's a crater where one of our paddocks used to be. At least it looks like a crater but it is actually a dam (or small lake?) that we built at the bottom of the water course of two springs that flow from the hillside. It's filling up steadily and soon that lump in the middle will hopefully be the island we envisaged it to be. It's also a whole lot bigger than it appears (you could put a house in there):

Aside from having huge craters made, we've been busy planting. We're re-vegetating the creek line with a variety of shrubs and trees. At this stage we're only planting the trees and we've planted:

• 6 Swamp Gums (Eucalyptus ovata) which grow to about 25M high
• 6 Blackwoods (Acacia melanoxylon) which grow to about 12M high

Although I don't trust those height estimates as the blackwoods already on site are some of the largest trees I've ever seen and easily exceed 12M and Wikipedia has them at up to 45M.

The two tree types are going to form a two layered screen along the creek line, with the Swamp Gums being closest to the creek, in the soil that is the wettest for the longest part of the year and the Blackwoods being the next line.

The Blackwoods were chosen because they are an impressive tree, water tolerant and will make a good screen. The Swamp Gums because they are fast growing, love getting their feet wet and native wildlife (particularly possums) love their leaves.

Here's a recent photo of us at the farm.