"ant" wrote in message
...
Farm1 wrote:
And the trouble with most of the indigenous Monaro species is that
they are stunted ghastly bloody things to begin with. No wonder
there
are so many Pinus radiata everywhere. At elast they grow in the
bad
conditions and provide some shelter for stock and humans.

Yep! Exactly. I'm looking for some pines now, actually, just to beef
up the
windbreak (Lleylandii Cypress) a bit. They actually grow here.

Pines and gums grown together right form the start can do very well as
wind breaks. They sem to grow at about the same pace if started
together.

I've tried
some allegedly indigenous gums, they grow on alpine mountain tops
apparently, and are endangered (euc. Baeuerlenii). Well I know why
they're
endangered, they're hopeless.

:-)) Yup! I prefer the permaculture approach to the purist
approach - whatever works in hard and hungry conditons.

A few are struggling on, meanwhile some argyle
apples (my least-favourite gum) are shooting up. And the mannifera
are OK
too.

Have you tried E. viminalis (spelling???) and E. McArthuri (or should
that be Macarthuri)? Both of those SHOULD do well. Don't bother with
E. Nicholi (spell?) though.