Sydney golden wattle beyond ‘eradication’ and outgrowing native red-stemmed wattle

Despite being bright and eye-catching, the Sydney golden wattle is quickly outgrowing the WA red-stemmed wattle and is beyond the point where it can be eradicated.

“Sydney golden wattle was introduced to the area in around the 80s,” he said.

“The issue with Sydney golden wattle is that it grows a lot quicker than our local native wattles.

“It grows quicker and it grows bigger, so it stops our natives taking hold and growing in that area.

“The colour of the leaves and the colour of the flowers, it’s quite a bright sort of colour that attracts birds and insects to eat the flowers, eat the seeds, and then pass the seed so it gets spread really quickly.

“Once it gets a foothold into an area, it just takes over.

“In the 80s it was used as a bit of an ornamental tree/ shrub, and it’s a beautiful-looking tree with beautiful flowers.

“And it’s native to Australia, it’s just not native to Western Australia.

“We have our own native that’s a lot slower growing that then competes against the Sydney wattle.”

Despite being non-native to WA, not all councils have officially declared the sunny wattle a pest.

“Certain local governments have declared it a pest and can force ratepayers to remove it,” Mr Balhorn said.

Sydney wattle has been declared a pest in some local government areas, such as the Shire of Denmark, but the weedy wattle has not been formally given pest status in the City of Albany.

“We’re at a point now where we’ll never eradicate it from anywhere, so it’s down to control,” Mr Balhorn said.

The wattle can be quick to spread due to its quick growth rate and numerous seedlings in comparison to the native WA acacia myrtifolia wattle.

“If there’s small immature plants from saplings up to a metre, you generally can just pull them out of the ground,” he said.

“Once they start getting a bit larger you generally have to chainsaw them down and then spray them with glyphosate.

“There’s a number of apps that are available on smartphones where you can take a photo of a plant and the app should be able to identify what the species is.

“There’s a lot of material out there that clearly shows you the differences.”