Free full day workshop on Southland Native Plant Restoration - including speakers on Urban Restoration (Bruce Clarkson Waikato University), Key factors for successful restoration (Brian Rance DOC Southland), New techniques - direct seed drilling (Tim Whitaker DOC Otago), Wetland Forest Restoration (James Griffiths DOC Science) and the Billion Trees initiative. The speakers will be followed by lunch (provided), workshops and a restoration field trip in the afternoon. Bookings essential to [Enable JavaScript to view protected content]. The workshop is open to anyone with an interest in native plant restoration. Southland Native Plant Restoration Workshop Poster
Date and Time 5th April, 8.45am-4.30pm
Venue Invercargill Workingmen’s Club & Southland Community Nursery and Bushy Point Restoration Project
The workshop is the initiative of Waikato University People, Cities & Nature project running throughout New Zealand, supported by local Southland agencies.
Chris
Posted: 6 March 2019
A few weeks ago our place was a flurry of activity – timber, mini digger, track machines, big loads of gravel and two very industrious “track doctors” - Phil and Joan Fluerty. A beautiful new track is now in place along the ditch side of our second pond in the covenant area. It gives better access and space for school and other groups as well as a quiet place for contemplation where a seat was gifted to us. There was quite a lot of volunteer help as well with setting up the route and later helping with gravelling, but most of the credit must go to Phil and Joan. Thanks also to QEII National Trust for a contribution to the track costs. Another construction type job came hot on the heels – Gary Brown and his portable sawmill and help from Stephen Elford cutting into planks the macrocarpa we had felled years ago – for our next project – watch this space!
We also had Liz Meek staying for a week helping out with Threatened Plant work – the shadehouse was cleaned out and plants re-potted, the shrub border weeded and mulched, some un-named Melicytus potted, seeds cleaned and a host of other jobs caught up on!
Posted: 4 March 2019
Seeds are being collected and cleaned each week until around June. First were the tussocks, toetoes, Carex and other grasses. Then the fruit bearing plants Mingimingi and other Coprosmas, Makomako (wineberry), Pseudopanax (five finger, lancewoods), Pate (seven finger), Corokia, Astelia (bush flax). Then dry seeds of rata (from last years flowering), lowland ribbonwood, kowhai, flax and manuka and Hebe to come. All seeds need some attention even if its only separating them from their seedcoats, but it takes quite a lot of time – particularly the fruity seeds. To learn about the various seeds and methods come along on a Friday morning.
Chris
Posted: 4 March 2019
I often think seed collecting is a bit like searching for jewels! Once you get your eye in, there they are – beautiful, sparkling, translucent orbs of colour. The photo below has some of the seeds I collected on Saturday 2 February 2019. Can you identify any of the species – and guess the odd one out? Its not native and its actually poisonous so you would be well advised to learn about it and certainly not eat it. The others are natives, mainly in the coffee family.
Come along to the Nursery on a Friday morning in the next few weeks to learn more about seed collecting, by doing it! And come and see our new track and take part in other nursery activities, and dont forget to bring some kai!
Chris
Posted: 11 February 2019
A Predator Free 2050 community group evening was well attended on 30 January 2019. Around 45 people came along to the Education Centre and listened to some very interesting speakers – the evening was organised by Environment Southland and DOC.
First speakers were two Otago University Students researching pest issues on braided rivers and in the alpine region. This was followed by food and drink and networking and then Ed Chignell Chief Exec of Predator Free 2050 Limited - https://pf2050.co.nz/ gave a presentation.
Ed outlined the landscape scale projects that had been funded around the country to date - Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Wellington, Waiheke and Dunedin and shared some amazing videos of those projects. The videos can be viewed at https://pf2050.co.nz/project/
Following on was Rhys Millar from Predator Free Dunedin who gave a positive but honest talk on the process of getting such a project off the ground and the steps involved in joining many individual projects together into a landscape wide project – including setting up a new overarching Charitable Trust, fundraising, getting collaborators and the actual work on the ground. Lots of food for thought. To complete the night Willy Gamble from Stewart Island Restoration Charitable Trust (SIRCET) showed all the good work that group are doing to free Stewart Island of animal and plant pests and the technology they are using to log catches and track weeds. In typical Willy style he introduced quite a bit of humour into his talk, including some fascinating statistics from Pokemon! (see photo below).
Earlier in the day the speakers had addressed the Southland Predator Free forum organised by DOC and Venture Southland. At that meeting Ed ad Rhys gave talks with the addition of Al Bramley of Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP) who spoke about the new technologies and current learnings, which were fascinating.
Well done DOC, Environment Southland and Venture Southland for bringing the speakers to Southland.
Chris
Posted: 2 February 2019
