I have just read "Bringing back the bush" by Joan Bradley, which tells
us that to revegetate land with native species we proceed with weed
removal only at the pace that natives can take over the cleared space.
Quite obviously leaving large areas cleared is just a waste as most
likely you will just get your weeds back again.

According to Bradley one does a limited area at a time and then wait for
the local species to re-seed or otherwise propagate naturally. During
the time that the natives and weeds are competing for the area you tip
the balance in favour of the natives by removing the weeds until the
natives can take over without help. Then you move on to the next area,
so you incrementally push back the weeds from the most weed-free areas
towards the most weed affected.

Has anybody here actually done this? What were your experiences? How
far was it from the revegetated area to natural bush? How long did it
take per clearing cycle?

What happens where the landscape has been non-natural (cleared for
pasture) for 150 years? If all the land within kilometers is the same
where will your natives propagate from? My impression is that the
Bradley method as it is written is just not going to work in this
situation and that I will need to judiciously introduce the replacment
species otherwise the nearest replacement is going to always be weeds.

I would really like some war stories drawn from experience here not just
theory.

David