19 May 2011 - It’s wet and windy. It must be time to start planting!
In fact, the planting season has well and truly started, there are trees going to ground all over the coast. Last weekend we finally got to plant the area at the top of Lower Raroa reserve in Pukerua Bay where a new retaining wall was built last year to hold up the highway. Twelve of us turned up on a cold and wet morning to put in the trees which have been waiting at Ted and Cath’s place for nearly a year. With general Tony Jackman and sergeant Ted Coates organising, the rest of us; Gay & John Hay, Malcolm & Maria, Vicky, Peter Martin & Philipa and a couple of others I don’t know, set to work. It’s a slippery site and I couldn’t stay long enough to see the plants go in but the fun bit was getting them down in the first place!
The week before, six of us took turned up to take the pleasant walk along the Ho Chi Minh trail to the quarry. Walking in the shadow of trees we have planted were, Paul Callister, Ken Fraser, Helen & Ton
y Griffiths and Charlie Hopkins who came over from the Hutt for the day. We were there to root out the remaining cape ivy and this was only a partial success. I’m pretty confident we have the infestation beneath the trees under control but we will have to return in the spring to spray some patches which are regenerating out in the open.
In the meantime we will be doing planting, planting and more planting. The next weekend working bee is not until the 29th but there is plenty going on during the week until then. We will be planting every week from now until September, on Wednesdays, Thursdays or Fridays. Later in the season we will plant two or three days a week. This Thursday, we host Hannah Zwartz’s mature horticulture students at our main Paekakariki site the Ho Chi Minh trail. On Friday we are on the Matai Huka Escarpment with a bus load of School children from Te Ra School, Raumati South. Next Wednesday we host visiting Canadian students planting on the Ho Chi Minh again. If you are available during the week and want to get involved in any of these contact us for the details.