Major planting coming up

IMPORTANT NOTICE
When:
Saturday 11th June 1pm
Where:
Below the walk bridge joining St James drive to Grenache Place
To bring:
A spade (most important), a rain coat and something to eat and drink.

HCC has a planting plan for the grass area just north of the walk bridge on the west side of the gully. On the map it is the two blue circled areas, one with the number 25 in. HCC are supplying the plants (1563 of them) and we are committed to planting them. We have scheduled Saturday 11th June from 1pm. We are aiming for AT LEAST 20 people. This will be the one and only “BIG PLANT” as the gully we are working on does not have any other large areas in grass. You will notice on the map other blue areas on each side of the path. These will be planted by the Wednesday crew.
This is how it will work.
To ensure we have enough support for the afternoon planting could you please send an email by the end of this week to gullyrestoration@gmail.com if you are able to come. If you can get a group of friends together so much the better. Having the end of this week as the deadline gives us the opportunity to look for support elsewhere if we do not get the numbers.
If it is wet we will try the Sunday. If still wet the following weekend. By wet we mean heavy rain. It will still be on if it is showery. Check this blog on Saturday morning if in doubt.

Saturday’s Working Bee 21st May

We were rained out last month. This Saturday we will be focusing on the same area at the end of Sexton Road. The Wednesday team has done some work there and cleared a path down to the gully floor. It has some excellent specimens of Totara, Kauri and Miro that someone planted some 20 odd years ago. The ivy needs trimming back from the native plants and the introduced plants need removing.
No gum boots required this time.
Bring:
A spade, secateurs, and your morning tea (a rain coat if it looks like showers)
Meet:
At the end of Sexton Road. That is the road Odering Nurseries are in off Thomas Road.
Time:
8.45am.

Sorting out traps

To protect the nesting birds and small fauna it is important to get the rat and mustelids population right down. We are at the stage of trialing a trap design for rats or rather a container design. The trap itself is just the standard wooden rat trap. The container that holds the trap has been designed to minimised or eliminate the catch of un-targeted species. We have five ready to go this week. This should give an indication of whether the design works and if it does what the rat population is likely to be.
When finances permit we are looking at two traps for mustelids. These are $80 each so we will have to wait a while - and then there are possums.

Seed collecting at a back swamp, Ngaruawahia

I accompanied Wayne Bennett from Forest Flora Nurseries to a native back swamp on private land on the Te Puroa Road which is off the Waingaro Road just out of Ngaruawahia.
This was an excellent example of a native flora back swamp with mature Kahikatea and Pukatea with their buttress roots dominating the canopy. The understory had an interesting variety of native flora flushing in the very wet conditions. The whole eco system looked so healthy and is what I imagine our gully floor to look like in 50 to 70 years.
Even this bush remnant has pressure from exotic weeds. Notice the grey willow branch in the top left of the photo!

Planting of donated trees

We have planted the 7 trees purchased from Forest Flora Nurseries with the donated money. There were 4 x Swamp Marie, 2 x Pukatea and 1 x Kahikatea. These are all good sized specimens. We have planted them along the track that runs up the west side of the gully. The last planting was the Kahikatea in the gully bottom below Sexton Road.
Big thanks to those that made the donations. It is very muddy but you can walk up the track guided by the blue markers. All the trees have double bamboo stacks.

Trust progress

We are officially “MANGAITI GULLY RESTORATION TRUST”. Our trust deed is available to view on the companies office website www.business.govt.nz/companies Our trust number is 2548109.

However we still have to apply for an IRD number, and then apply for charitable status and then open a bank account.