COREOPSIS – WEED OR WILDFLOWER?
Golden Coreopsis
It was largely due to the spread of this perennial plant, a native of the prairie grasslands of the USA, that farmers feared the introduction of the Flanders poppy into the Granite Belt district and opposed my proposal for a Memorial Drive linking Amiens, Messines, Bapaume, Passchendaele, Bullecourt, Pozieres and Fleurbaix where people along this route could grow the poppies to bloom for 11th November.
The farmers said, “We have enough flowering weeds in this district!” They pressured the Stanthorpe Shire Council to veto my proposal. I took the heat out of the issue by establishing a field of Flanders poppies on our land as a Remembrance Field to prove that the poppies were unlikely to spread in the same manner as the Coreopsis.
I knew that the Eastern Rosella parrots ate the seed of these flowers and then via their droppings, spread that seed across the district. I knew that the Coreopsis was a perennial plant of the prairie grasslands of the USA and was therefore adapted to grow in grass country.
Farmers can easily cultivate out Coreopsis seedlings from any agricultural field, but the Coreopsis is a perennial plant that has adapted to grassland. Therefore the roots will remain alive after the leaves have been eaten by livestock or burned during annual burning of grassland.
A controlled winter burn of grassland
This is the way the dry grassland appears in August or early September when we undertake a controlled burn with the assistance of the Rural Bush Fire Brigade.
Then, God willing, the spring storms arrive and green grass grows.
Blue sky and golden coreopsis
Almost over night the view changes to reveal the blue skies of spring and the golden Coreopsis flowering across the grassland. These flowers are no problem for the graziers whose cattle and sheep consider them just another nutritious form of herbage, but they are spreading into the National Parks and competing with indigenous wildflowers in the Girraween National Park.
Yet, from a tourism perspective the site of these Coreopsis flowing across the Granite Belt in November and December is a tremendous draw card as little girls are posed amongst the flowers.
Picture postcard pretty
This little girl was born on the 11th November and for a number of years her parents brought her to see the Flanders poppies in our Remembrance Field.
There is something special about photographing little girls amongst flowers.
My granddaughter Rachael
This photograph of me with my granddaughter Rachael, hugging her teddy bear, appeared in local newspapers in November 2007 to promote our Remembrance Field of Flanders poppies.
So what do I think about the Coreopsis?
I laugh when shops in Stanthorpe try to sell the seedlings as a garden plant.
I don’t like to see them invading National Parks.
I don’t consider them as any threat to farmers or graziers.
I do see them as a plus for tourism on the Granite Belt and believe more should be done to promote them and other introduced wildflowers. I was at a wine tourism conference where the discussion focused on district branding. Recognising the value to tourism of wildflowers and that we had so many of them on the Granite Belt, plus four wilderness national parks which are famous for their native wildflowers, and all the wineries, I proposed using the words Wildflowers, wilderness and Wine. Instead the district went with a promotion called ‘Wake up to the beauty of it’. I then used my suggestion as the title for my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine about a year on the Granite Belt.
Book cover
To obtain Wildflowers, wilderness and wine go to my new website http://www.australia-book.com.au where you will be able to read more details.
Have you discovered my new blog? It is called http://fayhelwigauthor.com and I’m using it to publish another book in the travel genre. It is the story of my husband’s early years in Germany, from 1926 to 1950 when he arrived in Australia. The story is told as he relates it to me as we holiday in Germany.
