Kia ora
As mentioned last post we have a course running in the Education Centre Thursday and Friday 26/27 March so will be closed for volunteers. Also, with Easter and Holidays we will remain closed on Fridays, opening again on Friday 24th April.
In the meantime we have been busy in the Nursery on Fridays with major seed collecting, potting, weeding, watering and getting plants ready for planting out. A new shelf has been added to the Shadehouse for new seedlings which are now out of the reach of rabbits! A few birthdays have gone by and Nursery Fridays have been well attended with lots of jobs getting done. Next major jobs will involve seed cleaning and sorting ready for sowing in May/June. Sherry Elton has 60 cabbage trees in PB3’s to give away – phone Sherry 027-213-1156 if you want to take them off her hands.
On 12 March, Jordon brought a full group of first year SIT students to do part of the Plant ID and plant propagation workshop. Its great to see a large number of students taking Environmental Management this year. They also collected plants for Kew Bush where Jordon is leading the restoration of that important remnant of kahikatea forest.
On Sunday 15 March a “Damson Night” was held! Lots of damson plum produce was eaten and a great film “Breaking Bread” was shown on the big screen. A Damson jam competition was held with newbie jam maker Chris Rowe taking the Damson Queen crown!
We have also been planting out our new pond, with much more to go! Watch this space and see you on the 24th April if not before. We will still be around intermittently for plant sales or advice – phone Chris 021660361 if you need anything.
Chris and Brian
Posted: 25 March 2026
A two day native plant ID course will be held at the Southland Community Nursery on Thursday 26 and Friday 27th March 2026. These courses are part of the nationally run series of courses which includes – pest control, Five Minute bird counts, monitoring etc and as we are the venue, but not organising it, you must register with NMIT – see poster and link below
https://www.nmit.ac.nz/study/short-courses/cfs423-plant-identification
Consequently, the Nursery wont be open for volunteers that Friday. However, on other Fridays we are concentrating on seed collecting – working through our list of species to collect. Some, like red tussock, toe toe and Carex have been collected already and we are busy looking for fruity seeds like Coprosma, Corokia, Melicytus, Fuchsia, Astelia before the birds get them. Following collection we will be busy cleaning and treating seeds ready for sowing in June. If you are interested in this aspect of propagation come on a Friday morning and join the fun.
On the subject of seeds, well fruit, we have been busy with 50 kg of damson plums (kindly donated), and those attending on Fridays have also taken their fair share! We intend to have a damson themed night on Sunday 15 March, so bring your makings along to the Nature Centre! For the record, Ive done damson paste, schmootsch, jam, sauce, and damson vodka, tho that wont be ready for the Sunday night!
Chris
Posted: 8 March 2026
The Community Nursery will be open for volunteers on Friday 16 January 26. Come any time from 9am to noon. Shared morning teas are a highlight!
Jobs will include potting, weeding, moving plants in the nursery, trackwork and the start of seed collecting for the new season. Seeds from plants such as red tussock, toe toe, salt-marsh ribbonwood, Carex will all be ready to collect from our property.
Over the holidays there has been exceptional flowering of native plants. Some of the most spectacular have been the mistletoes and native brooms. The beech mistletoes in Southland are some of the best populations in the country – pictured below are pirita or scarlet mistletoe (Peraxilla colensoi) flowering near Riverton and piriraki, yellow mistletoe (Alepis flavida) flowering at Manapouri. We also have a range of native brooms flowering on our property at the moment with their purple or pink flowers. Those flowers are favoured by the tiny black native bees.
As well as having a relaxing time over the holidays we have been busy creating a new planting area with predominantly threatened plants. Thanks to nursery volunteer Peter we managed to shift 2 metres of mulch in double quick time after planting 80 or so plants the day before. Brian has also been very busy preparing the new pond area for planting, amongst other things! It is very encouraging that while we work around the created ponds we are now often accompanied by fernbirds. A few of this years fernbird pics below as well as a juvenile tui in the garden.
We hope you’ve had a restful break, ready to enjoy what 2026 has in store.
Chris and Brian
Posted: 13 January 2026
Our breakup celebration was a great success yesterday with a good crowd of volunteers on another rainy day!
We had a few treats – Pauline had made a fabulous Harakeke Christmas Tree, Clarissa had brought her lovely pottery, Chris gave out Honolea’s natural soaps as thanks for volunteers and Geoff, Pauline and Eleanor brought their ukuleles for Christmas Carols! And the food……..scrumptious!
Then the drum roll……………………… and the winner of the Jo Ogier Karearea print was Els – one of our most regular volunteer helpers, who was here to collect it.
Thanks to Jo for donating the print and to everyone who took a raffle ticket, proceeds support what we do here at the Community Nursery.
Happy Christmas everyone, see you in the New Year and have your native planting plans ready!
Chris and Brian
Posted: 20 December 2025
A month has gone by since the last post and soon we will be closing for Christmas holidays. As well as closing day on Friday 19 December we will also be drawing the raffle for the Jo Ogier Karearea Print, so last few days to buy your raffle - Tickets are $5 each and you can pay at the Nursery (cash) or on internet banking – Sthld Community Nursery, bank account number 03-1355-0645582-00.
This month has flown by and we have had lots going on at the Nursery and Education Centre. Fridays have been busy with main activities watering, potting, pricking out and weeding. While we are mostly here over the Christmas holidays it would be good to have back-up waterers – so if you can spare a few hours over the holidays to help water the Nursery, that would be appreciated – email or txt Chris.
We have supplied quite a few native plants to schools and other groups for planting over the last month and look forward to doing some planting ourselves around our new pond over the holidays. Everything is flowering at the moment – from harakeke and cabbage trees to rata and it should be a bumper seed season. I had an encounter with a fernbird recently at Bushy Point, it was picking insects off cabbage tree flowers – not great photos but it was unusual activity to see. Also tadpoles in the pond and a bittern, kereru eyeing up our cherries, and our veggie garden is being taken over by poppies and they are glorious!!
We have had numerous Christmas end of year functions in the Education Centre and recently a “Film Night” on the big screen. We have also had a Conservation Dogs training day with Sandy King and two Harakeke workshop field trips to our property.
On Friday 19 December, bring your best baking and we will celebrate the end of the 2025 year and look forward to 2026. We will also draw the Jo Ogier print raffle!! The Nursery will re-open on Friday 16 January 2026. If you don’t manage to get to the Break-up day, best wishes for Christmas and see you in 2026!
Also in the last month was the SERN trip to Te Anau visiting lots of inspiring restoration places – see story and photos at - https://www.sern.org.nz/news/sern-spring-trip-te-anau-revisited-16-november-2025/
And finally, a walk around the Oreti Totara Dune Forest with Barry Smith on Wednesday 17 December 2025 - 7:30 pm This walk will take about an hour and is suitable for families. As this forest belongs to the Native Forest Restoration Trust, no dogs are allowed. No need to book just turn up, entrance at 348 Oreti Road - https://www.nfrt.org.nz/reserves/oreti-totara-dune-forest/
For other Otatara news see the latest Otatara Pigeon Post - https://www.otataralandcare.org.nz/news-events/the-summer-pigeon-post-is-here-in-full-colour/
Chris and Brian
Posted: 15 December 2025
