Eumundi Voice - Issue 104, 17 October 2024

ENVIRONMENT

Have you seen Ochna amongst the springtime flowers?

Spring is a great time to keep an eye out for weedy plants like Ochna serrulata amongst the flowers.

While there are many beautiful yellow flowers around that are good for your garden, this one can be a destructive garden escapee. It was originally sold and planted as a garden ornamental in Australia but escaped cultivation and now threatens our wild places. It is spread by birds and can grow well in the shady understorey of forests, competing with endemic wild plants for sunlight and nutrients.

Ochna has a few telltale traits. After flowering yellow, the sepals – the outer parts of the bud –turn bright red and the seeds turn from green to black as they mature. Its strong tap root makes it difficult to pull out of the ground, but it can be cut at the base. From there, either dig out the tap root or an approved herbicide can be carefully applied to the stump, ideally within 10sec of cutting.

Your local native plant nurseries have a great selection of endemic yellow flowering plants to replace the Ochna in your garden. For more information visit: t.ly/2gyI4.