While Brian and I were away visiting family and friends in the UK the “closed” nursery went on as usual with Linda and Ray and regular volunteers coming and helping on Fridays. While we enjoyed the best summer in the UK for many years, there was the odd rainy day - as experienced while camping with nephew Jack in Devon - see his delight as a river started running into our tent!
The Otatara Landcare Group held the third Living Legends planting event in August with 3500 of Linda and Ray’s nursery grown plants going to Bushy Point - totalling 10,000 native plants in the last three years - a mightly effort by the Landcare Group committee, Otarara volunteers, schoolchildren and the public.
The Nature Centre - though not quite finished, was equipped well enough for ES Enviroschools Mark Oster and Pat Hoffman to hold two workshops in the building - one for school caretakers and one for teachers. Both were well received and the Nature Centre proved to be a good venue for the workshops. We are now gearing up for school visits and other workshops.
Murals by Janet Hodgetts and an interactive “tunnel” in the Nature Centre are big drawcards for the children who visit!
Posted: 2 October 2013
In mid July we will be closing the nursery for winter. But in June - lots of action at the nursery. Ray and Derek have been busy fitting out the building with plywood, building window seats and framing the windows beautifully.
Janet Hodgetts has been busy painting two of the tree murals that will grace the building - its an exciting time when our dreams and aspirations for the Nature Centre are coming to fruition.
In June two successful cuttings days have been held - and we will be continuing to do cuttings through July until we close for winter.
Posted: 1 July 2013
In May, our patron Ruud Kleinpaste came to visit and see the progress with the new Nature Centre. He enjoyed a good couple of hours looking at the new building and then showing us the amazing variety of bugs around the building and the restoration area. His enthusiasm is infectious!
Posted: 30 May 2013
Maggie and Stephen have been back in Southland for a few weeks. They did not see it as a rest but were busy most of the time - a good deal of it helping out with the nursery building! Stephen helped Ray with the plywood inside the building while Maggie got stuck into the staining of the window frames.
Mid May James Hargest students came to visit and helped out with seed collecting,
Obviously missing teaching (not) Maggie helped out Chris and Ray with a visit from Lees Street Kindy. The new building got a work out with potting up and sheltering the children from the hail, and the bus park catered for maggie and Stephens bus plus the school bus with ease.
Posted: 30 May 2013
Friday Mornings on 14 and 28 June 2013 will be devoted to Cuttings workshops. If you want to learn how to propagate plants from cuttings come along from 9.30am-noon.
Bring something yummy for morning tea and bring along some freshly collected cutting material. We will also go out into the garden and property and collect cuttings which will form the nursery stock for next season.
Posted: 30 May 2013
