Coastcare back in the dunes

OCEAN Grove Coastcare is back in action having filled a staggering 30 bags with weeds following a weed pull in the dunes to take care of invasive weeds.

Close to 20 volunteers across two sites (7W and 20W) attended the clean, the first club activity since March.

Club President Margot Busch said the enthusiastic group focused on a weed known as Cypress Spurge, which poses a major threat to the dune ecosystem. The Cypress Spurge is drought tolerant and resilient to most pests and diseases, making it a formidable opponent.

“It quite desperately needed a weeding,” she said.

“We will probably return to that area. Each time we weed a patch like that we need to have the ‘okay’ of the land manager, who in this case is Barwon Coast, so we can’t just decide today that we’re going out there – we need to do prep work.

“We are talking with them about follow ups before Christmas because we didn’t get the job done with just 10 people.”

Like many clubs and organisations, COVID has been a dormant period for the passionate eco-protectors.

“This was our first return to helping out the vegetation along the dune system there,” Ms Busch said.

“Typically we have our working bees across autumn and winter and into spring and often monthly. But smaller groups might get out every couple of weeks and focus on smaller patches.”

Ms Busch said their work got tongues wagging.

“We heard passer-bys say that they had wanted to get in there and pull some of the weeds out over the last few months,” she said.

“But we have taken car or it… or at least a portion of it.”

The club is gearing up for their AGM to be held on Zoom tonight at 7PM. Jen Carr is the guest speaker.

Head to facebook.com/OceanGroveCoastcare/ for more information.