At the Nursery or on field inspections we are often asked “what is that seedling”? “Is it a native”? “Does it belong here”?
It is often a matter of practice to identify seedlings – here are a few pointers (with photos below).
Many seedlings look just like a miniature version of the adult plant – eg Pittosporum, wineberry, broadleaf, see below. If you know what the adult leaf looks like, the seedling will look very similar.
Often there is confusion between seedlings of black mapou, (Pittosporum tenuifolium), red mapou (Myrsine australis) and pepperwood (Pseudowintera colorata) as they can all look quite similar but with practice you will be able to tell them apart.
A few are a bit more cryptic and challenging because they change their leaf shape from a seedling to an adult plant – examples are native clematis, lancewood, pokaka, see below
The big tree seedlings – totara, miro, matai and kahikatea can look quite similar to each other when young and rimu can take a bit of identifying (but it is also so rare to see it).
We have a special morning tea organised for Friday 31st March, for Lois Caldwell who will be leaving our community to live in Dunedin. Lois will be missed by all her Otatara and Southland friends but she looks forward to lots of visitors as she settles into Dunedin’s vibrant scene. Come along (with your best baking) to give Lois a good Southland send-off on the 31st
School and Garden Group Visits
On 8th March two groups of school students came to the Nursery with Bronwyn to learn about the process of collecting seeds and growing native plants. Rimu School and James Hargest are involved in Environment Southland’s Waihopai planting project so learning about locally sourced plants is important for the success of the planting site and it is a great project for us to be involved with.
On 13 March Dipton Garden Group visited and we managed to dodge the southerly showers to walk around the orchard, vegetable gardens and restoration area, culminating at the Hut for a short photoshoot!
Nursery Fridays
Nursery Fridays have been busy with native seed collecting, cleaning and processing ready for sowing and after some good rain plants are being collected for planting projects. There is also lots of produce to be processed – apples, zucchini, plums, cucumbers, tomatoes and other garden veggies. The zucchini has finally stopped growing and fell off, it was so heavy, at over 1metre long!
Weed Drop-in Morning Saturday 25 March 2023
Rachel and Walter from the ES weed team will be here on Saturday morning to identify any plants you might bring along. There will be a swap a weed for a native plant and also be the opportunity to look at the restoration and Nursery here. Drop in any time from 10-noon.
On the weekend of 25/26 February Jo Ogier came down from Christchurch to teach a workshop on “Keeping a Botanical Sketchbook” – which involved looking closely at plants, connecting with the natural world, field sketching and experimenting with different paper, mediums, tone and shading and colour and did you know there were 5 different ways of mixing blacks! It all looked very intense from an out-siders point of view (me), but people clearly enjoyed the experience and some amazing work was created but more important the camaraderie and passion and shared joy of being part of the workshop. We have come to know Jo very well and one of the best quotes I can remember from her workshops was “we would have paid just to watch Jo draw – it all looks so effortless!”. Jo is working on some amazing works that will be displayed in the South so watch this space over the next year or so. You can see some of Jo’s work here - https://joogier.co.nz/artwork/
We were also lucky to have another artist, Kyla Cresswell, visit on the Sunday. Kyla is one of the artists in residence in Invercargill at the moment and we look forward to seeing her work linked to the CBD. Also at the moment she, with others, has an exhibition at the Eastern Southland Gallery until 26 March 23 - https://www.esgallery.co.nz/southern-mother - don’t miss it!
February has been busy already with Volunteer Fridays, constant watering of the Nursery, workshops and Garden Group visits.
On Saturday 11 February 23 Geoff Dembo held a Permaculture for the home garden workshop which as well received, on Tuesday 14th February Mark Oster held a workshop for Kindergarten teachers and who should make a guest appearance our Patron Ruud Kleinpaste! On Saturday 25th Jo Ogier will be here for a weekend art workshop which is eagerly anticipated and fully booked.
Nursery Fridays have been very busy with up to 19 people attending. Now that it is seed collecting time there is plenty of activity out around the bush collecting and then cleaning seeds.
We have also been observing lots of birds at our place – flocks of 40-50 white faced herons in the early morning and evening, a flock of 20-30 kereru over many days, a kingfisher and a rarity for us a female tomtit in our bush. The scaup have also had a late brood of ducklings and there are always lots of tui and bellbirds (including juveniles) and regular fernbirds around our ponds.
February has come around quickly and we are already into seed collecting at the Nursery – with toe toe, red tussock, clematis, salt-marsh ribbonwood, tree Fuchsia already collected and other seeds coming on quickly in this heat. We will do that Friday mornings as well as seed cleaning amongst other Nursery jobs like potting, weeding and watering etc.
Two workshops are happening in February – “Permaculture in the Home Garden” with Geoff Dembo 11 February 23 and “Keeping a Botanical Sketchbook” art workshop with Jo Ogier 25/26 February 2023. These workshops are largely booked up already but there is always the possibility of people dropping out at short notice so if you are interested in being put on the list email Chris at
There is also the opportunity to run other courses if we have a list of interested people. Foraging was another popular workshop in spring so we may also run another foraging workshop in autumn. It will be weather dependent so if we already have a list of names of those interested, then organising at short notice is easier.
We are also looking into having a “growing your own edible mushrooms” workshop with Oli Cameron, so if you are interested please email and we will keep you up to date.
