Adventures With Gorse

When we bought our little block, the land was at least half covered in gorse, broom and blackberry.  We knew that this was going to mean a lot of work, but started into it anyway.

To begin with, I spent several days with loppers and a small hand saw, cutting it back enough to be able to get to the main trunks.  This took me hours to clear even 5 square metres.    We looked in Hardware Stores but most of them were the little domestic “weed whackers” with the nylon thread ‘blades’ that also ran on electricity.  Not particularly practical for us as most of the gorse was quite some distance from the house and any sources of electricity but also we couldn’t see how the little nylon thread would cut through wood.  Then Hubby started to look on Trade Me for scrub cutters.

Hubby found a petrol powered John Deere scrub cutter with metal blades for $100.  It needed a service, but that only came to $130.  These babies were a minimum of $600 in the shops.  I think it took him all of 15 minutes to clear what had taken 3 days with the loppers and saw.  That was it.  His mission every waking moment that he was home was the gorse.

The neighbours soon noticed the difference and commented on it.  One said he hadn’t been able to see that paddock from where we were standing for at least 10 years.  Hubby was proud of his accomplishments.  At our recent wedding, another neighbour was overheard commenting to friends and family that it was nice to have someone like Hubby who was making such a noticeable difference to the land - and especially the gorse.

Every weekend in autumn, winter and spring is spent cutting more gorse and burning it.  He’s learned to keep the fires smaller, after one that had 10 metre flames leaping into the sky.  Gorse burns very well, very hot and leaves only a small amount of ash.  We’ve started saving the bigger trunks and branches for firewood.

Gorse fire being prepared

He’s found (and we’ve now heard from neighbours) that the previous owners used to just set fire to it where it stood.  We often find blackened dead trunks and plants in the middle of a healthy patch of gorse.  We’ve also found electric fence standards, long lengths of electric fencing wire and tape and more baling twine than should be reasonable.

The problem is, cutting it isn’t enough.  It grows back.  Many people grub it out, but when you’re talking about approximately 7 acres of gorse to grub, it’s just impractical.  Our land is also very hilly, the stream banks suffer serious erosion every winter and many of the paddocks are just too small to consider getting a digger in to root rake them. Never mind the costs involved.

After a lot of research and consideration, we bought tordon brushkiller.  We were given a 15 litre spray pack and we went off to buy some dye so we could see where we’ve been.  Our local farm supplies store was out of the more commonly used red dye, but sold us some blue dye.  That was a colossal waste of time.  The blue runs off the plants very quickly and is very hard to see against the dark green of healthy gorse.  We looked around some more and managed to get hold of some red dye.

Hubby went out and sprayed a paddock.  Two spray packs to clear it.  At $100 per litre of tordon, this was going to be an expensive exercise.  He noticed that the neighbour had called in spraying contractors and his place was dotted with bright pink gorse bushes dying off, so we talked to him.  It cost him thousands to have it done and that was with him supplying the poison!  Hubby rang a contractor and asked a few questions.

If you cut first and then spray, you have a window of between 10 and 20 seconds to spray (it varies depending on who you talk to) before the plant seals itself off to the spray.  So the theory was to cut it, let it grow back a little and then spray.

Weekends now were filled with Hubby cutting and burning and Master 14 wandering around with the spray pack on his back doing paddocks that had been done previously.  Master 14 wasn’t as interested in making sure that every little bit was covered so we’ve had sickly looking gorse grow back on half a bush in a number of places.  It’s still better than a healthy bush fully growing back, but is frustrating none the less.

I spent several hours one weekend with the spray pack on my back, following Hubby with the cutter.  That paddock is looking pretty good and it was only one pack to Hubby’s two last year.

Hubby was wandering around paddocks at night with the spray pack finding the tiny plants and spraying them.  The problem was that our grass is growing too fast and really we needed to get the cattle into those paddocks to eat the grass down so we could see where the gorse was.

I tend to get frustrated at the amount of time he spends clearing gorse.  I know that it needs doing, but it seems to be his preferred activity and sometimes there are other things that need his attention.  In the end, I bought chooks and was on my way to collect them before he finally finished building the chook house.  I had to force the issue to get it done!

This year though, we have nine cattle instead of last year’s two.  Every hour that he spends clearing gorse is potentially another day of feed for them - based on the amount of land he clears and how much grass grows in those spots.  In one paddock, we doubled the amount of grass that had been growing in there previously.

He commented the other night that the valuer who looked at our place for us said to him that there was a lot of unusable land here.  I personally don’t believe that any land is unusable, it just depends on what you want to use it for.  The amount of ‘unusable land’ that has become healthy pasture is incredible and there is still a long way to go!