Kia ora everyone
Although we have been “officially closed” a lot has still been happening as usual around here, preparing for spring (orchards, veggie beds, fruit cages), major planting events - at Te Rere and coming up at Bushy Point 11 September 2022. We hosted Josie and her Reforest Southland group Sunday 28 September - great to see all the new native planting groups springing up – W reforestsouthland.co.nz F facebook.com/ReforestSouthland and we have had a major cleanout and have lots of pots, root trainers and planter bags to give away to a good home! The Community Nursery will be open for Volunteers from 9am Friday 9 September 22 and Friday mornings thereafter. Also, some exciting events coming up including back by popular demand another fabulous Jo Ogier art workshop weekend here in October.
For the Opening of the Nursery on Friday 9th September we also have a special treat – Charmin Dahl will give a talk after morning tea based around her recent conservation trip to Borneo – details below
Project Dragonfly’s Earth Expedition: Borneo
Charmin will be here to share her experiences in the field in the Sabah region of Borneo, Malaysia as part of her Masters in Conservation Biology. We’ll take a behind-the-scenes look at some of the work being done in the following areas: Eco-tourism, Scientific Research, and Community-based Conservation. Special attention will be paid to specific habitat restoration projects, connecting communities to nature, and organizations’ use of social and traditional media. Plus, lots of photos of orangutans, elephants, monkeys, and more!
Other Events coming up -
Ecofest Event Invercargill Saturday 17 September 22 – to book your table and for more details contact Jenny directly - [Enable JavaScript to view protected content]
Apple Grafting Workshop with the Guytons at the Community Nursery – Sunday 25 September 22- taking bookings now - [Enable JavaScript to view protected content]
Jo Ogier Art workshop at the Community Nursery – Keeping a Botanical Sketchbook – Weekend 29/30 October 2022 – places limited so book early at [Enable JavaScript to view protected content]
Nga mihi
Chris
www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz
Posted: 29 August 2022
The 8th July 2022 was the last volunteer Friday session for the season. The last few weeks have been dominated by talking cuttings - https://www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz/restoring-your-patch/get-growing/cuttings/
We have done the bulk of the cuttings we need for the Nursery – Olearia, Fuchsia, Hebe, Celery pine, bog pine, cottonwood, broadleaf, mountain totara etc, so we are taking a break until end of August.
However, if you have cuttings you would like to do or learn more about I am happy to run some group workshops if there is demand. So email me to arrange that or if you have any other queries or requests (eg pruning workshops, grafting etc) - [Enable JavaScript to view protected content]
Otherwise, see you in springtime (there are signs in the garden this week that its not too far away!!).
Chris
Posted: 9 July 2022
After many years of volunteering and then working for us as an Educator at the Southland Community Nursery (SCN), Bronwyn is moving to new pastures.
Bronwyn has taken the SCN Education to great heights – inspiring thousands of Southland children with her outside the classroom learning. I will personally miss Bronwyn’s energy and passion and her dedication to outside the classroom education focussed on nature and “our place”. Learning at the Nursery Education Centre was held outside with its tracks, bush, restoration areas and ponds. With the changing covid situation, outreach to schools continued the learning and connecting people with place.
Bronwyn will keep her connection with the SCN using and sharing the learnings and resources she has built up over the years here. We wish Bronwyn all the best for the future and hope to keep connecting for our shared passions and goals. We hope to arrange a special Nursery morning tea in springtime for Bronwyn to celebrate the successes and give her our massive heartfelt thanks for everything she has done for the Nursery and outside the classroom education in Southland.
Watch this space for exciting new developments for Education at the Community Nursery.
Chris
Posted: 9 July 2022
Over the past month in June and July the environmental classes from Southland Girls High School have been learning all about predator control from Mark Oster. A few preliminary lessons were held at the school and in June/July two classes a week came out to our property each Wednesday and Thursday to put the learnings into practice. Traplines were set out, traps and tracking tunnels set up and over consecutive days each week the students checked the tracking tunnels and traps recording catches and footprints. Other statistics from Bushy Point from trapping and monitoring over many years were also supplied to teacher Mel Young so that students had a larger source of data to analyse. We look forward to hearing about their findings in due course. Thanks To Mel for photos.
Chris
Posted: 9 July 2022
All the seeds collected from December to May have now been sown. It took about 3 sessions to do this (for around 100 trays of seeds) – a lot quicker than the collecting and preparation! Mostly it was done during Friday morning sessions. If you want to know the process to be prepared for next season have a look at https://www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz/restoring-your-patch/get-growing/seeds/
It has all the tips and tricks for seed collecting – the timing, type of seed, colour when ripe and methods of preparation. We sow seeds now rather than keep them in the fridge to cold stratify them and when its time to come up they do that with mystifying regularity around the end of September. It is probably the day length, as well as temperature that is the trigger. Here at the Community Nursery we don’t try to force seeds to germinate in winter because we do not have the facilities to look after them if they do germinate, and we all need a rest in winter!
During July we have been be doing cuttings – another way of propagating plants if you haven’t managed to collect seed. There are advantages to growing from cuttings – the plants are much bigger when they get roots and the plant flowers much earlier – but it is a time-consuming process and you don’t get the genetic diversity that you do from seed sown plants. However, it is a very good skill to learn as it can be applied to many plants including fruit bushes. If we have time we will also learn about apple tree pruning as it is the right time of year to do that and the “scions” (the bits you cut off) can be kept to graft onto rootstock around October.
The process for propagating plants from cuttings can be found at https://www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz/restoring-your-patch/get-growing/cuttings/
Other jobs that have been going on at the nursery over the last month have been new track construction and gravelling, potting, weeding, plant moving and loading up for planting.
Chris
Posted: 9 July 2022
