Two Native Plant ID Workshops were held for SIT first year Environment Students on Monday 29 April and 6 May 2019. The Workshops are an adaptation of the two day NZPCN Course, condensed into one day. The tutors were Jesse Bythell and Chris Rance and the courses are specifically focussed on Southland native plants and environments and have a field and classroom component.
The students seemed to really enjoy the course – even though the rain made hearing (and talking) difficult at times! Some of the comments below:
“Absolutely fabulous day, thank you very much”, “This workshop was incredibly informative and I really enjoyed all the learning, I cant wait to do more!”, “Keep up the great work. It is really inspiring and its awesome to see restoration and conservation at work”. “Listening to someone who is super passionate on the subject… very interactive and hands-on”
Chris and Jesse
Posted: 14 May 2019
A TWO DAY Art Workshop in Otatara with renowned New Zealand artist and print maker Jo Ogier - Workshop Details
Weekend 11 - 12 May 2019 - $100 for two days – at the Education Centre, Southland Community Nursery
Details and other workshops at https://www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz/education-centre/activities/workshops/
Only 2 places left! Book by emailing Chris at [Enable JavaScript to view protected content]
Posted: 10 April 2019
Its been a bumper season for just about everything! To make the most of your apple harvest come along to our Community Apple Pressing on Friday 3 May 2019 - $5 donation for the Cider Press
1-3pm at Southland Community Nursery. Bring your own apples and containers for juice - we will be restricting people to two containers of apples this year. If you have frozen apples (and we would recommend you do that now - you get much more juice, a clearer juice and you dont have to chip the apples, just squash them in the presss! so much less work), make sure they are defrosted thoroughly. No need to book - just turn up. Thanks in advance to Malcolm McKenzie for bringing along his cider press for us to use. The photos are some of our apples and my first blackboy peaches (but the birds got half!).
Chris
Posted: 10 April 2019
The last of the Otatara School classes (rooms 8&9) to visit the nursery this term arrived today in two groups. These classes are named after the easily recognisable tī kōuka or cabbage tree Cordyline australis. Each of the groups had time to share what they have learnt and noticed about the tī kōuka already and it was great to hear that these budding botanists and inquiring minds have found out lots about the cabbage tree. Then even though this tree is easily recognisable, when you only have the leaves in front of you identification can still trick even the most astute! We looked at the leaves of other school class plants and then headed out around the tracks to see what ones we could notice. Around the restored pond area many tī kōuka were found, while in the mature kahikatea forest none were found, proving what this class had learnt about tī kōuka not liking shady places to grow. This got us into noticing the differences in what was growing in these two areas. We talked about growing a forest, by planting out colonising or nursery species to provide the shelter needed for mature forest tree species to be able to then grow. As we walked we noticed the different seeds - of kahikatea, tī kōuka, mānuka, harakeke, and mingimingi - some which were in pods, some inside the fruit, and some seeds on the outside. We also looked at the two species of horoeka/ lancewood and the heteroblastic nature of this tree. We went back to the education centre and set about answering how many seeds there are on a tī kōuka tree. A huge fruiting head had been collected and each small group set about stripping the fruit off the branches (which is a job we do at the nursery at seed collecting time), and counting the fruit. The number of seeds inside each fruit ranged from 3-11, there was also a range of number of fruit on each stalk, and there were a number of stalks on the fruit head. We also noticed that different sized tī kōuka have a different number of fruit heads. We look forward to getting the answers to this mathematical problem! This class also heard about the importance of Otatara and Sandy Point for tī kōuka, the cabbage tree moth that lives on tī kōuka, and we wondered where the biggest cabbage tree would be in Otatara? This class sat at the seat on the new track and looked towards the layers of forest. “It looks like a painting” someone said….it sure does!
Bronwyn and Chris
Posted: 9 April 2019
Around 70 people came to the Invercargill Workingmens Club to hear a number of interesting speakers in the morning. First up Waikato Universities People Cities Nature team of Bruce Clarkson, Kiri Wallace and Catherine Kirby who presented on their nationwide cities restoration project. This was followed by speakers Brian Rance, Tim Whittaker, James Griffiths and Ben Doherty. After lunch everyone came to the Southland Community Nursery and into Bushy Point where Chris Rance, Jesse Bythell, Kiri Wallace and Brian Rance spoke about the various aspects of restoration in the field. You can read all about it at https://www.peoplecitiesnature.co.nz/
Brians presentation on “Right Plant Right Place”
Chris Rance
Posted: 9 April 2019
