# Shelter belts



## anndankev (Aug 9, 2010)

Wow, a real sanctuary you are building/raising.

I've often thought the US needs more 'lines' of vegetation, esp in the mega farms areas. It would encourage more of a balance of wildlife for one thing.

I live on the outskirts of a large mid-west city, on a tiny little lot. It does back up to a 10ft easement where there is a field that alternates between soybeans and corn. I definitely did not want to take a lot in the middle of the community.

My parents had a 2&1/2 acre home with a 1/4 acre pond, there was a 10ft easement on one side and 30ft on the other. The developers built up housing on the both sides during the time they llived there. 

The incoming homeowners were not aware of the easement and a lot of it was cut down, much to our dismay. Once I actually came upon someone who had already downed 2 big trees and was well into a third. 

It's a shame the developer, real estate people, title search people, agencies, etc. so conveniently left the home buyers so uninformed. They all just thought it was part of their property backing up to my folks.


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## karliejaye (Nov 19, 2011)

Beautiful! I am a big fan of shelter belts and buffers. I try to convince as many of my clients to plant them as I can, where they are practical. Here on the high desert we don't have many natural plants that grow big like that, but closer in to the mountains there are some lovely examples.

Did you plant that belt with some established trees, or were these all seedlings/saplings or plugs?


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## squirrelfood (Mar 29, 2014)

I live in hill country where there are small ravines running through the hills. I cleared the flatter parts of the hills and left the ravines and their banks rough for the wildlife. They make good weather breaks too.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

karliejaye said:


> Beautiful! I am a big fan of shelter belts and buffers. I try to convince as many of my clients to plant them as I can, where they are practical. Here on the high desert we don't have many natural plants that grow big like that, but closer in to the mountains there are some lovely examples.
> 
> Did you plant that belt with some established trees, or were these all seedlings/saplings or plugs?


We planted (by hand, mostly before we started building the house) over 3000 native seedlings and 700 bare-rooted tagasaste seedlings. The native seedlings come in cell trays, in around 3cm by 3cm squares of potting mix, and are maybe 10cm high at the time of planting. I bought a small amount of plants for the garden in pots if I couldn't get that species in cell trays, which is the most economical way to mass plant here unless you grow from seed. Set us back between 50 and 90 cents a seedling in cell. The tagasaste was 10 cents a bare-rooted seedling, and grew incredibly well, providing ample mid-winter blossom to tide over our bees, and the honey is just super too. Later comes the native eucalytus/tea tree/wildflower honey, which is also delicious.

The insect populations in the tagasaste are tremendous, and this, together with the blossom and the shelter, has brought in so much birdlife, who are now starting to nest in the hedges. This is also happening in our native shelterbelts. Some pretty photos:




















Native to the Stirling Ranges about an hour's drive from us, the Bell-Fruited Mallee (_Eucalyptus preissiana_) flowers spectacularly, with lemon-coloured blooms bursting out of distinctive bell-shaped buds with reddish “caps”.












Our Friesian steers with a wildly flowering tagasaste hedge behind them. The steers, and the two geldings, like nibbling on any branches that come over the fence and so do the side pruning, while we prune the tops of the hedges to keep everything bushy, and feed these to the delighted steers. Tagasaste is also known as tree lucerne and, as it's a legume, has a nice protein content.





















Three-year-old Scarlet Banksia (_Banksia coccinea_) bursting into bloom for the first time. This famous Albany species unfortunately doesn't grow naturally on our block, so we planted one near the farm shed three years ago.












This pair of emus has been gracing us with their presence for months, browsing amongst the tall grass and sedges north of our house.












Unidentified, very striking Dipteran in a young Tuart tree (Eucalyptus gomphocephala) in our western windbreak. Native food chains are returning to this strip of ex-cow paddock; birdlife abounds here in the early mornings, and even kangaroos and emus visit this 10m by 100m area of wind break / replanted wildlife habitat, while the farm animals love to shelter in the lee of this strip. Win-win for all.





















Up close and personal with recently moulted cicada instars in a three-year-old Red-Flowering Gum (_Corymbia ficifolia_) in our western windbreak.












The first flower buds on any of our three-year-old Red-Flowering Gums in our western windbreak at Red Moon Sanctuary – very exciting, since we lost three-quarters of our initial planting of _Corymbia ficifolia_ to Quambalaria fungus during their very first summer, which was uncharacteristically humid. About ten trees of the original planting have made it, and it's great to see them start to mature.












The “ghost” of a recently moulted red-and-black cicada in a three-year-old Red-Flowering Gum in our western windbreak.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

anndankev said:


> Wow, a real sanctuary you are building/raising.
> 
> I've often thought the US needs more 'lines' of vegetation, esp in the mega farms areas. It would encourage more of a balance of wildlife for one thing.
> 
> ...


Yes, it is a real shame, and it's happening in Australia as well. Development here is along the US model, and like the US, this country was cleared for agriculture on a massive scale in a short time, rather than people doing things more gradually over millennia as happened in Europe, which has retained some of the landscape characteristics of past, smaller-scale farming practices (like the UK hedgerows and the cool drystone walls and thorn hedges they have instead of fences in some places).


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

squirrelfood said:


> I live in hill country where there are small ravines running through the hills. I cleared the flatter parts of the hills and left the ravines and their banks rough for the wildlife. They make good weather breaks too.


I wish everyone had that foresight. Would you believe at one stage in Australia, land grants were dependent on total fence-to-fence clearing of a property! And this has caused so many problems, including the highest rate of native mammal extinctions anywhere.

These fellows aren't endangered yet - and we brought these guys back from a bush walk in a sock after discovering them in the pouch of their run-over mother:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

More baby bandicoot photos!











Brett handling perky baby bandicoots at a Volunteer Wildlife Carer's Residence in Albany, Western Australia. This brother-and-sister pair were rescued from beneath their dead mother and carried in a sock to veterinary attention. I was very relieved that the dehydrated, distressed babies found on a hike had survived and were looking very cheery and well cared for less than 48 hours later.





















The female baby Southern Brown Bandicoot was keen to explore the world outside the artificial pouch, while her brother apparently mostly preferred to sleep. The male put on 20% in weight in under 48 hours after coming into care. A bellyful of milk makes all the difference in the world.


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## squirrelfood (Mar 29, 2014)

Always kind of wondered what a baby bandicoot looked like!


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