Wild Tobacco

​Wild Tobacco is a member of the nightshade family. It can grow to the size of a small tree with heights of 8 metres and trunk girths of over 30cm not being too uncommon. It is fast growing and can go from a seedling to a several metre high plant in just a few months. It prefers rich, moist soil. 

Wild Tobacco has a distinct appearance. It has large, elliptical leaves that can grow to over 30cm long. The leaves are very furry to touch and have a blue-green colour on the topside and a whitish-green colour underneath. Another distinguishing feature is the small, spiral leaves that grow directly under the leaf node of each large leaf. The stems are white to light grey, very stiff and also very furry. More mature plants have a thick, greenish-white trunk.

​Flowers appear in early spring. It has small, five-petalled, purple flowers that appear in bunches at the end of each stem. The flowers are followed by small, round berries that start off green and then mature into a yellow-brownish colour.

When removing wild tobacco, it is very important to either dig out or poison the stump. If the stump is left untreated, it will regrow within weeks.

Removal (small infestations):

• Pull out small plants by hand.
• For plants too big to pull out, saw the trunk down to ground level and pour neat Roundup on the cut surface.
• Always pile the cut tobacco so that seeds are localised to a specific location for easy spraying of new tobacco seedlings.

Removal (large infestations):

• Brushcut with a saw blade on a brushcutter or use a chainsaw.
• Have someone with a backpack sprayer follow behind to spray the cut stumps.
• Pile all cut tobacco plants
• After a few months, spray any regrowing stumps with normal strength glyphosate or metsulfuron.

Small & Broad Leaf Privet

Broad leaf privet

Privet
Privet comes in three forms – Broad Leaf Privet, Small Leaf Privet and European Privet. Small Leaf and European Privet are nearly identical. All privet is native to South America but was introduced as a garden hedging plant.
 
Privet mainly grows along freshwater creeks and rivers where it competes with native rainforest species. It is highly invasive. A small infestation eventually dominates the entire understory by racing to fill gaps left by natural breaks in the canopy.
 
Privet Identification
Broad Leaf Privet
Broad leaf privet grows up to 20m tall. It has dark green, teardrop shaped leaves up to 5cm long. It is generally a long, slender sapling until it reaches about 2m high then it begins to branch out. Young seedlings can look a little like Lilly Pilly or Backhousia seedlings. New growth is light green.

Broad Leaf Privet flowers in mid-summer. Flowers are in clusters at the tip of each top branch. They are usually white to yellow and have a very strong odour of honey with a bitter note. Black seeds form in the millions by late summer.

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Left - Small leaf, Right - Large leaf

Small Leaf Privet
Small leaf privet is light green in colour with small oval leaves that undulate around the edges. Fully mature trees are up to 8m tall. It branches out almost as soon as it germinates. It is commonly confused with the native Tree Violet. The major difference is that privet does not have spikes and the leaves are not serrated at the tips.
Flowers appear in early summer. Large white clusters appear at the ends of each branch. They smell very strongly of honey. Millions of small black berries form within one month of flowering. ​

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​Control
Control of all privet types is the same.
 
1.Eliminate the seed supply.
This is done by chopping down and poisoning the stumps of all privets over 1m high. Preferably piles should be made to keep as much ground visible as possible to access regrowth and allow light for native species to germinate. Do not leave patches of privet until later because they will rain seeds onto your regeneration area. The well populised "Bradley method" of only working on a few metres of forest at once does not work with privet.
 
2.Poison the regrowth.
Any stumps that regrow, as well as the carpet of seedlings under 1m that come up during the spring after clearing, need to be selectively sprayed. The most effective blend is metsulfuron with organosilicon penetrant. Glyphosate generally does not fully kill the plant even though it takes its leaves off.
 
3.Maintain follow-up.
Mark any native seedlings with flagging tape or cage with plastic tree guards to protect from spray. Every six months, do a follow-up spray with the metsulfuron/organosilicon blend.

Larger weed trees

Some trees are also weeds in SE NSW.

• Camphor Laurel
• Box Elder (Maple)
• Hawthorn
• Weeping Willow
• Black Willow
• Barberry
• Buddleja
• Honey Locust
• African Olive

Control is by cut and poison the stumps. For all species except Honey Locust, seedlings are best control by selective spraying with glyphosate or metsulfuron. Honey Locust requires either fluropyxr or picloram/triclopyr.

Coral Trees

Coral trees are common in areas along creeks and used to be a popular paddock tree. They are extremely invasive and extremely hard to kill. Any part of the tree that touches the ground will set root and become a new tree. While many honeyeaters like the flowers, they have little ecological value for any other species. The sap is also a known allergen.

Control complicated because they cannot be cut down while alive as they will just regrow.

• Ringbark the tree and cut deep boreholes into the base of the trunk and outlying roots.
• Pour neat glyphosate into the cuts and boreholes.
• Wait a year for the tree to fully die before cutting it down.
• Burn all fallen wood if possible, spray any reshoots.

If the tree must be cut down while alive, do not mulch it because it will regrow from little chips! Instead, build a raft out of dry hardwood and neatly pile the coral tree on top of the raft so that none of it is in contact with the ground.

Senna/Cassia

Senna and Easter Cassia are very common in the Shoalhaven, especially in coastal areas. In the right conditions, they can reach through the canopy over 10m high. Both have spindly black stems and clusters of yellow flowers around Easter. The difference between the two is the Easter Cassia has rounded leaves while Senna has teardrop leaves.

Cut and poison is the best form of control. However, metsulfuron and glyphosate also work fairly well. Any of the long, seed pods (that resemble beans) should be bagged and binned. The pods start off green and ripen into black. Each pod opens to release dozens of seeds.

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Bitou Bush

Bitou Bush and the very closely related Boneseed were introduced from South Africa to stabilise sand dunes. Since then, they have taken over a large portion of coastal and esturine habitats. National control efforts along with a partially successful catepillar release has greatly reduced the concentrations of these weeds. 

Smaller plants can be pulled out but control of large infestations is typically by spraying with glyphosate.

Black Wattles (Acacia mearnsii)

Black wattles are a native tree that often become a weed after any other weed control activity or after bushfires.

The main problem is that they grow extremely fast but are very short lived - usually under 10 years. During their short lifespan, they shade out seedlings of longer lived trees and then crush them as they fall over. Once fallen, other weeds quickly fill the space left behind. Black wattle ofter reached heights of more than 20m.

Control:

• Saplings should be cut. They do not need poisoning as they rarely regrow
• Seedlings can be sprayed with metsulfuron
• Large and dead trees should be cut and the dried out canopy burned to ensure that good access is retained to the ground for weed control.

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