We hope everyone has had a relaxing and enjoyable end of year and beginning of 2024!
The Nursery will be open for volunteers Friday 19 January and we hope you are all champing at the bit! The Nursery work hasn’t stopped over the holidays of course, plants and weeds have kept growing and watering has been an ongoing job. There will be plenty to do including potting, weeding, watering, moving plants, track clearing, seed collecting (yes it has started already!).
We have had quite a few forays away during the holidays and the odd few native plants have caught our eye on the way, as well as producing some impressive fruit and veggie crops – see photos below.
See you on the 19th January.
Chris and Brian
Posted: 11 January 2024
In the final few weeks we have been busy with volunteer Fridays, Bronwyn’s litter intelligence group and a few end of year functions. The Nursery Break -up for the year on Friday 15 December was well attended and some work was even done!! Congratulations everyone on a great spread of food and for your support during the year. Honorlea brought her Kakariki natural beauty products, which were a great hit – great Christmas pressies!
Drum Roll…….. For those waiting with bated breath, the Jo Ogier print raffle was won by Rachel Baxter, from the Haehaeata Trust Nursery at Clyde – so the wonderful shag will be winging its way to Clyde very soon! The raffle made over $300 so thanks Jo for your generous gift to the Nursery.
A rather smaller group attended Environment Southlands Pesties Christmas get-together on Sunday 17th but we enjoyed good weather and catch-ups and look forward to all continuing our pest control efforts next year.
In the previous 10 days Chris and Brian skived off to Northland leaving a posse of “waterers” at the ready. While C&B were enjoying 23 degree days it appears that Southland did have some rain and the “hand watering” wasn’t as onerous as anticipated. However, strong winds have kept the ground, and pots drier than we would like! Attached a few photos of the magnificent pohutukawa flowering up north – NZ’s Christmas Tree did us proud. And just to skite a little bit the veggie gardens are looking great and my top crops so far are a magnificent crop of strawberries and the Broccoflower – my only successful attempt to grow it so far.
Happy Christmas everyone, see you in the New Year.
The weekly Nursery Volunteer morning will re-open on Friday 19 January 2024, but feel free to call in socially anytime over the holidays.
Chris and Brian
Posted: 18 December 2023
The end of the year is coming up quickly! Since the Jo Ogier workshop we have been busy on Nursery Volunteer Fridays, producing plants for Autumn. See the article First Responders for the plants we recommend planting first in your project. We also supplied lots of plants for Kowhai Reach for a community planting at the end of October – and attended the Southland Ecological Restoration Network (www.sern.org.nz), Bus Trip in November. Read all about it at https://qeiinationaltrust.org.nz/sern-field-trip-explores-restoration-in-southland/
On 18 November we hosted a meeting of Restoration Groups that run Community Nurseries in Southland and Central Otago. People came from as far away as Ohau, Cromwell, Clyde, Wanaka and Queenstown and networked about the challenges of running community nurseries, from fundraising, to working with volunteers, to propagating native plants, to growing Threatened Plants. The group also visited Bushy Point Restoration Project https://www.otataralandcare.org.nz/bushy-point-restoration/
to see the intensive planting project there and next day to the Oreti Totara Dune Forest - https://www.nfrt.org.nz/reserves/oreti-totara-dune-forest/
For 15 December, bring your best baking and we will wrap up for the year, returning on Friday 19 January 23.
Posted: 28 November 2023
Our own property and Bushy Point is a good place to see native plant restoration in action. The aim is to turn paddock into bush and the best way to do that, in our experience, is to use the species that nature would choose to do that job, naturally. “First Responders” or “Nursery Species” have a role, and that is to prepare the way for the dominant species that will eventually grow in that site – ie the totara, rimu, kahikatea, miro, matai that in hundreds of years will be the forest of the future. In essence that means planting first the native species that grow fast, tolerate full sun, wind and frost, shade out the grass, and produce flowers and seed that bring in the insects and birds to spread more seed into the gaps that have been formed. That can be done without even planting any of the canopy species with the expectation that those species will come in eventually. Also, when the ground has been prepared like this, ferns and a wider variety of species will also come in, with birds assistance.
The first responders we use most in Otatara (and Southland generally) are – harakeke (flax, Phormium tenax), manuka (Leptospermum scoparium), broadleaf (Griselinia littoralis), mingimingi (Coprosma propinqua), cabbage tree (Cordyline australis), kotukutuku (tree fuchsia, Fuchsia excorticata), makomako (wineberry, Aristotelia serrata) Kohuhu (black mapou, Pittosporum tenuifolium), tarata (lemonwood, Pittosporum eugenioides), Koromiko (Hebe salicifolia), shining karamu (Coprosma lucida). You might think these are “boring” common species to use but they stand the test of time and almost guarantee success, if you use them in the right place. Most have very attractive flowers, often scented, or full of nectar to attract native birds to your area. See over for photos of the flowers and fruit of the above species.
Right plant right place
You will probably notice that the seedlings that land in your garden often seem to do better than those that you plant in a certain place. Different plants have different ground requirements. All of the above species will tolerate sun, wind and frost but whether the ground is “wet” or “dry” will determine success to a large extent. Bushy Point has two distinct forest types – dry totara forest on sand dunes (summer dry/drought prone), and kahikatea swamp forest on seasonally wet peaty soils. You will notice that in wetter areas we have planted flax, toetoe, mingimingi, manuka, and cabbage tree and the drier areas broadleaf, kohuhu, lemonwood, koromiko and karamu. Fuchsia and wineberry like a mixture. We do plant some totara in dry places, and kahikatea in wet places but we largely expect that the birds do that job for us, dropping seeds into both areas and the trees suited to those areas will thrive. It is also worth noting that a very wet area can be “dried out” by planting wet tolerant plants, making the ground more suitable for a wider range of species over time. It is also expected that when the trees grow high enough to shade the flax, the flax will die out as they are not shade tolerant, creating gaps for other species to establish. These gaps provide sites for plants such as pate (seven finger, Shefflera digitata) and other shade tolerant plants and ferns will form in the understory – without us having to plant them. There is lots of advice including plant lists and plant tolerances on the Community Nursery website at https://www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz/restoring-your-patch/.
Additionally, as well as using the best species, it is always good to prepare the site pre-planting (spray or mulch the planting spots) and protect the plants from wind and browsing by using combi-guards of varying sorts.
We are also happy to talk to you about your particular site and visit to give advice if needed. Remember that locally sourced plants are best adapted to the local environment. Restoring new areas of native forest gives a great sense of satisfaction and in some ways helps amend for past forest clearance, but protecting older growth forest first is always the top priority.
Chris and Brian Rance
Example table below from the Community Nursery website - https://www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz/restoring-your-patch/planning-your-project/attracting-birds/
Posted: 28 November 2023
We have again been privileged to have artist Jo Ogier taking a weekend workshop on printmaking here on 14-15 October at the Community Nursery. As soon as the word goes out I am inundated with bookings, such that a “reserves” list is usually needed. Concentrating on “leaves” the participants enjoyed learning various techniques from carving to painting to Gelli plates!!
Jo is very generous with her expertise – giving readily her information, tips on techniques, materials and the use of her vast array of different pens, crayons, paints, etching pens, different papers etc etc. The artwork which everyone produces, all in different ways from the same idea, is testament to Jo’s teaching style and her enthusiasm for her work.
Linda commented “our mark making differed greatly, but by looking closely at the beautiful shape, colour, details and texture of the leaves, along with new techniques and materials we were able to create a series of highly individual prints”. Look at the photos below to see just what she means.
Jo is a full-time artist and passionate about her conservation or nature art – if you are unfamiliar with Jo’s work have a look at her website at https://joogier.co.nz/
Next year Jo will be exhibiting at the Eastern Southland Gallery a collection of works in collaboration with the Gallery and Hokonui Rūnanga on many of the native species, which would have, or still live in and on the banks of the Mataura River. Linda and I had a sneak preview of one or two of the 28 panels Jo is drawing and painting and it will be amazing to see the works in their entirety in the Art Gallery. We will be sure to let you know when that is on, late next year.
We will be running a raffle of a print Jo kindly donated – proceeds to the Community Nursery. We will have the artwork on display in the Nature Centre and at any events prior to Christmas Break-up but in this digital age you can also purchase a ticket/s through internet banking for $5 a ticket – 031355 0645582 00 – make sure your name is in the reference field so that you are included in the draw which will be held at our Nursery Christmas Break-up event on Friday 15 December 23. See Gallery for this wonderful print.
Also, last opportunity to book in for the free Southland Ecological Restoration Network (SERN) bus trip to some great restoration sites in Central Southland – see poster for more details. SERN is a network of people doing work on the ground – you will see from the website that there are sites all over Southland. If you live near one of the sites then link up with that group and help out – many hands make light work! www.sern.org.nz
And many of you will know Daniel Cocker from his days at the Nursery – Daniel is championing the Southern NZ Dotterel in F&B’s “Bird of the Century” and you can vote for the Southland underdog the Tūturiwhatu Southern New Zealand dotterel at https://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/ - see details here
Posted: 1 November 2023
