Flower Friday - Fire

What a wonderful twist this week, Biker Bear.  It gives me the chance to talk about fire and its value in the Australian bush.

There are two very different images here ( just snapshots really - I wasn't going for quality)  - the one on the left is in the Park, and it's an area that has not been burnt for many years.  The landscape is full of weeds, bracken, and there's even a dog rose in there.  The image on the right is taken in an area that was burnt just two years ago.  The scene is magical - many different species of flowers, and the Aussie equivalent of a bluebell wood, except that these are vanilla lilies and there are so many of them that there is a distinct smell of vanilla in the air.

The rangers undertake a regime of controlled burn-offs every year.  It lessens the fuel load in any given space, gets rid of a whole raft of woody weeds, and opens up the bush to allow the native seeds to germinate and dominate the landscape.

Once the area has lain fallow for a season, and rains have fallen, our bush carers go in and hand weed the weed seeds that have germinated. 

That's one thing we have learnt from the Guardians: they used fire for centuries and it was to our own detriment that we didn't follow suit.

End of lecture.