The Cedar Wattle

There's a cedar wattle tree behind a shed on the east side of our house. It has been there longer than the almost 30 years Lib and I have lived here, as has the old shed. It was a spindly tree, growing tall and lean under Peppermint Eucalyptus and with a distinct lean over the shed, which worried me given the rapid growth of it. Many years ago I climbed up a ladder and cut it about half way up, pulling the top half down with a rope so it didn't land on the shed. The danger to the shed was temporarily gone and I planned to get up each year and prune it to stop it becoming a worry to me again.

I forgot all about it for some years, and, as is the way of it when a tree is cut and regrows, it shot out numerous branches in all direction upwards, with vengeance. When arborist Steve Major was here getting a dead tree down a few years ago, I asked his advice and he said it was OK for now but later on it'd be better to remove the whole tree as the multiple branches will one day start dropping. He added that Cedar Wattle was a weed in this district which I knew having seen it on the shire's list of environmentally threatening vegetation.

About a year ago, after regularly looking at the 3 branches now hanging over the shed and realizing they were too difficult for me to get down without damaging the shed or myself, I rang Steve and told him to pop in when he was quoting in Gembrook, have a look at it and book it in for removal. A month or so later in a windstorm a branch broke off and came down resting on a rhododendron but with the break not clean and the branch still connected at the break. I rang Steve about some work in Nobelius Park, adding that a branch had come down from the Cedar Wattle at home, and saying I could attend to it myself but he might as well do it, thinking of when he came to remove the whole tree. He must have thought I said I could do it myself, or forgotten about it, because a month or two went by and he still didn't turn up.

During the footy finals, Cheryl up the road, a Collingwood supporter, sent an footy related email which also told me about a young bloke, Scott, who'd got down a dead tree for her at a reasonable price and gave me his phone number. Now with no ill to Steve who has done all my tree work for many years but who I know is very busy with a waiting list of many weeks, I rang Scott. It took a while for us to meet as he rang a few times to arrange an inspection and quote for me but I couldn't be there, eventually we keyed in and I'm expecting him any day to attend to the tree having agreed on a price.

The tree is close to our clothesline. Lately while I've been hanging out washing I've been hearing the 'creaky door' voices of Gang Gang Cockatoos as they happily feed on the seed pods. At close range I watch them holding the pod in the claw of the left leg up to their beak while they munch away.The ground is littered with dropped empty pods which shows what a feast they're having. They are a lovely quiet bird in contrast to their screeching cousins. They are nomadic and not commonly seen in Gembrook. I'm sorry I've organized the destruction of a food source.

I found Cedar Wattle in a tree book. It's a NSW tree, Acacia elata, which has become naturalized in parts of Victoria, and will grow to 20 metres. The seeds need to be boiled to help germination. I'll collect some and hopefully get them growing, weed or no, so I can plant them in other places to feed Gang Gangs down the track.