Mark held his second Kindergarten Teachers Workshop on 5 April 23 – pond dipping, light trapping and tracking tunnels were all in use for a fun nature experience.
A Weed Identification Drop in workshop was held on Saturday 25 March 23. Walter and Rachel from Environment Southland ran the drop-in session held in the Education Centre and Brian and I showed people the restoration area. There was a lot of interest with people bringing weeds to exchange for information and native plants from the Nursery!
Major focus of Volunteer Fridays for April has been seed collecting – https://www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz/restoring-your-patch/get-growing/seeds/
- labelling, cleaning and storing. Kahikatea and totara seed has been prolific – with other collecting techniques – seed nets and long handled pruners being used!
We will be open for volunteers on Friday 28 April but then closing until Friday 26 May, then staying open for June closing again for winter in July and August. During Fridays in June and July we will be concentrating on seed sowing and propagation plants from cuttings.
A reminder that the SERN Field Trip Saturday 29 April 1pm-4pm park at Bushy Point - Bryson Road entrance walk through Bushy Point to the Community Nursery. Focus for the afternoon will be on pest control, estuary birds and restoration planting – Bushy Point has had over 20 years of restoration plantings and over 17 years of intensive pest control for rats, stoats and possums attach poster. Our own place has had 30 years for restoration planting and we are still doing it so you will be able to see all stages of a planting project –see poster for details
Posted: 24 April 2023
We are running a competition to find the biggest native trees in Otatara. The correct way to measure trees is around their trunk at a height of 1.4 metres (for consistency).
To start the ball rolling I have just been to measure 2 trees in our bush and a kahikatea measures 2.8 metre circumference and a rimu measures 2 metre circumference. Can you beat them? and do you have a big totara, matai, miro or rata on your property? We also had a look in the Oreti Totara Dune forest and got some large matai and totara trees.
Email [Enable JavaScript to view protected content] with a photo of you or a member of your family and the tree trunk and we will see at next Otatara Pigeon Post who are the winners. The prizes for the biggest rimu, totara, miro, matai, kahikatea and rata will be 5 native plants each from the Community Nursery.
Posted: 23 April 2023
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).
Posted: 23 April 2023
Send off for Lois
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.
Posted: 16 March 2023
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!
Posted: 16 March 2023
