African Olive

Clearing weeds is a difficult job, especially on a large scale, but massive progress has been made this year with the invasive African Olive at The Australian Botanic Garden.

The Natural Areas and Open Spaces team at the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan continues to hack away at the many weed issues across the site, with the African Olive (Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata) being the prime offender.

The boer goat trial at the Garden last year reached an audience of more than 28 million people via the media, and continues to spark debate about the best way to tackle issues around woody weed management.

Our preferred and most efficient method for removing the Olive trees is a forest mulching technique, where large machines grind and chip all the trees to the ground, returning them to the forest floor as dense mulch.

You will see, from our before and after photos that our team’s dedication is paying dividends, as their efforts transform the Garden landscape. Led by Jordan Scott, with a talented group of contractors, the team has removed 17 hectares of Olive this year alone.

The Garden is now faced with the challenge of managing and restoring the vegetation on the cleared land.

We are now continuing the battle to remove the remaining Olive plants, particularly the 25 hectares of dense trees on the Mount Annan summit, subject to sourcing additional funds to complete the eradication program.