Saturdays working bee

Time: 8.45am to 12noon
Place: The foot bridge
Bring: Morning tea, Gum boots (it’s dried out a lot but still has wet patches), Pruners. Sun screen and hats are optional as we will be working in the shade.

Wednesday Working Bee

We worked off site for the first time this Wednesday cutting bamboo for staking tree. We gathered, trimmed and cut to length over 200 plus a lot of “shorts” not shown in the photo.

Regeneration at Mangatautari

After four years of the total eradication of deer, pigs, goats and possums the regeneration of the forest floor is amassing. This photo essay was taken on the south side of the mountain last Monday.

Field Day reminder for this Saturday

A reminder about the field day at Peter Morris’s Matangi gully property this Saturday 13th November starting at 1.30pm. His address is 67D Fuchsia Lane which is right off Matangi Road heading south from Morrinsville Road (almost to Matangi Village). If it is wet it will be postponed to the following Saturday. Check our blog if in doubt.Peter started clearing the gorse and planting natives in his 6 acre gully 30 years ago. You get a great view from his neighbours of the classical gully slope to swamp floor planting which you normally only see diagrammatically. Peter also runs a small native plant nursery so there will be an opportunity to see various stages of seed raising of a number of our native species. BRING GUMBOOTS!

Image from http://gullyguide.co.nz/files/Gully_Guide_Mar07.pdf

Weekend Working Bee coming up

The November weekend working bee is on Saturday 20th. Working bees are a very important part of the overall restoration project. We assemble at the foot bridge at 8.45am and work through to 12 noon stopping for morning tea. At the moment we are clearing the honey suckle vine off the native plants. This is relatively easy work. The vines do not have any thorns and we are cutting the vine leaving it to die in the trees and pulling up the roots to prevent them re-growing. Bring along your morning tea, pruning shears and if you have them loppers (big pruning shears) and a grubber.
The photo is of a new sign put up this week supplied by Hamilton City Council.

Taking this Wednesday off

There will be no working bee this coming Wednesday 27th Oct. With the short week and excellent progress we are taking a week off.
The next Wednesday working bee will be on Wednesday morning 3rd Nov from 8.45am to 12noon. These morning only working bees are working out well. We all get home for lunch and find they are not too disruptive to the day.
If any of you are out walking check out what we have been up too. If you go down under the bridge on the St James Drive side you will see the work we have done on both sides of the bridge. Most involved the clearing of the creeper, Honey suckle away from native flora. On the south side in a blind gully behind No.62 St James you will see an excellent stand of Astellia Grandis (It looks a bit like flax and is over 1 metre high).

Our First Saturday Working Bee

Our first monthly Saturday working bee is this weekend Oct16th.
Time: 8.45am to 12 noon
Where: St James side of the walk bridge. Access is from beside either 64 St James Drive or 2 Grenache Place off Coleraine Drive.
What to bring: Your morning tea, gumboots, gardening gloves and either / or loppers, grubber, garden shears (no slashers please for safety reasons). Wear clothes that you do not mind getting dirty!
The weather looks fine for Saturday but bring a rain jacket if showery.
We look forward to see you.

Wednesday Working Bee
We had our second Wednesday working bee. We tidied up and cleared part of an old wire fence and cleared some dead gorse at the entrance to the bridge on the St James side. In the gully we planted 10 good size Kahikatea and uprooted more Honey Suckle.
There were some good positive comments from locals out walking.