Another 1450 native trees have been planted at the Te Hōnonga a Iwi Restoring Rosedale restoration site after an amazing effort from our supporters across the 2023 planting season.
Project co-ordinator Nicky Shave says about 350 trees were used to infill the original restoration site, which was planted last year. The remainder of the trees went into the 2000m2 extension that was cleared and planted this year.
About 1000 of the trees came from Auckland Prison’s native plant nursery at Paremoremo and 350 were seedlings left over from 2022. Jan Knight, from Albany retirement village Greenwich Gardens, repotted the seedlings at the end of last winter and ensured they have been cared for since.
Another 100 were generously gifted by volunteer Nicholas Mayne, who has a nursery in his backyard where he raises natives using eco-sourcing principles, ensuring they come from the same ecological district as where they will be planted.
Planting was not the only work completed on site over the winter months. Cover crops were sowed across the extension site and two tonnes of mulch and organic material was collected to put into our bioreactors.
Three tonnes of the organic compost inoculant that has been produced in the bioreactors across the past 12 months was used in the planting and sowing process, ensuring our natives and cover crops get a head start.
Several local schools supported the 2023 planting season, including students from Westminster Christian School, Rangitoto College, Albany Senior High School, Kristin School and Wairau Valley Special School.
Brightstar, Stormwater 360 and North Harbour Hockey all invested staff time in the planting season through business working bees. “And it was great to have representative players from North Harbour Hockey on site this year,” Nicky says.
Local residents, iwi and project volunteers also supported the working bees over winter and a big thank you must go to Ventia and Landscape Solutions, who undertook land preparation of the site extension, guided by Auckland City Council staff, local iwi and Matt Cummings from Untangled Landscapes.
“We had a lot of work to get done by the end of the planting season and we are so grateful to all the volunteers, school students and businesses who supported the project,” Nicky says.
The project team plan to extend the restoration site further in 2024, so there will be working bees in November and December to create volunteer access to steeper areas of the site.
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