Spotted at my local bushcare group last week. This trunk section has been sitting on the ground for months. The main tree (background) was hacked apart, drilled and poisoned by NSW Forestry, but it’s also happily sprouting everywhere again.

Camphor laurels are beautiful, toxic trees that you will see everywhere but sadly they’re also weeds. The ground near them tends to be barren, they intentionally poison the soil (allelopathy) to avoid competition. I’ve been told that they were used to make shipping boxes because their wood resisted insects

    • WaterWaiverOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Yes they drilled the stump, but the “stump” is something like 5m high. I’ll grab some photos next time I’m there.

      The bit sprouting in the photo hasn’t been poisoned. It’s just a chunk of tree left on the ground.

      We took ownership of an old piano and inside was a bag of DDT and Camphor.

      Nice. Just lazy piano tuners leaving bottles of their cologne everywhere.

        • WaterWaiverOPEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I’ve been told that we want to keep it in some sort of tortured semi-alive state. I can’t remember the reasoning (possibly bird hollows or epiphytes?), I was too blinded by the horror :|

          Either ask NSW Foresty to drill and poison it again or see if we can do it ourselves. Not sure how the politics work there, there is probably precedent.

            • WaterWaiverOPEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              I’ll have to share that story, thanks :) I might also suggest my colleagues try rinkbarking some ehrharta.