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
The Garden Bird Survey is on from 25 June to 3 July 2022. Its easy to do and the website has lots of fun resources to help. As well as being a fun activity to do it will build up a good picture over time to see whether we are making a difference with all our pest control in Otatara and elsewhere - https://gardenbirdsurvey.nz/. See below a few photos of the birds we are lucky to have visiting us on our property and also have a look at the plants you could plant to help attract birds to your garden (and I dont mean apples tho they seem very attractive!).
Posted: 28 June 2022
