My happy place

Greg Carroll

Naree Reserve Manager

Mulga is one of those unusual plants that sheep and cattle will eat, so it has disappeared from a lot of the old cattle properties. We’ve owned Naree for seven years now — before that it was a sheep station — and we’re trying to allow the Mulga here to regenerate but it takes a long time to grow, so in the meantime we need to keep feral goats, pigs and stray stock away. 

There’s an area here on Naree that more closely resembles a healthy, natural Mulga woodland; there’s a thick overstorey and a lot of leaf litter underneath. 

When we get a bit of water on Naree, like we had earlier this year, you get these carpets of new growth there – wildflowers, daisies.

It’s a step towards what we’re trying to achieve, which is old growth Mulga. It grows so slowly – and it’s such a harsh climate here – that it could be years before we get what we’re aiming for. At the moment you won’t see too many of the bigger Mulga trees around Naree, but we’ll get there with time.