September 2004 - Margaret Suman

Yet another month flies by and its time for another report. We have started to spend more time at our nursery now as we gear up for the “busy time,” pricking out emerging seedlings and potting them on for next years planting season. But that hasn’t stopped us taking off on some exciting adventures to visit other projects and work with other organisations - sharing ideas and learning heaps.

Nursery
Over the past month we have been tidying the nursery and readying ourselves for the emergence of tiny seedlings from the many trays of seed we have sown. This is a very exciting and nail biting time for us. When you’re dealing with untreated wild seed you don’t what will come up - and what won’t. The seeds are sown in trays and covered with glass and paper to protect them from the light – so the days we lift the covers are always exciting for us. There is a big cheer when something unusual comes up, that we were just lucky to get the seed for and that will further enhance the vegetation on our penguin habitats.

Once the seedlings emerge we remove them from the trays and place them into their own individual pots. This process is called “pricking out” and gives the plant its own space to develop roots and grow. The process of pricking out can be very laborious, particularly if you get a good seed strike. There may be hundreds of seedlings in a tray requiring this sort of attention. All good news, but it does take time, and from now up until Christmas this will demand a lot of our time.

Our building projects also continue at the nursery. We’ve erected our new tunnel house that will be excellent for housing our increased cutting production and will help to bring plants on faster.

This month we have also had the assistance of a horticulture trainee from the Otago Polytechnic as he completed the work experience part of his course. He was a great help to us particularly when we were working with Conservation Corps.

Conservation Corps
We’ve spent a lot of time this month helping the Conservation Corps get their revegetation project started. They’ve spent time with us at the nursery setting up their propagating facilities. The group erected a shade house in an area we’ve designated to their project and prepared and sowed more seed to put in their facilities.

We also assisted them at their project site, planting out silver tussock that the Trust had donated to them. Silver tussock is an excellent native plant that provides low lying ground cover that yellow-eyed penguin needs for socialising before moving off into the forest beyond. Earlier plantings were also weeded, including some revegetation work that hasn’t been maintained for many years. To our excitement, despite being overgrown with weeds, many of the plants were still alive, and now thanks to the Corps have an excellent chance of surviving to become big trees.

Small totara seedlings were collected from under the remaining forest canopy at the site. Often seedlings found in this sort of situation won’t grow large in the shade of the bigger canopy trees. These were brought back to the nursery and potted on and it is expected that with more light and nutrients these will grow bigger, faster and then we will replant them back at the site.

As always we really enjoy working with the Conservation Corps. The members keep changing as courses get completed and new people come through. So over the time we have been working with the Trust we have managed to meet quite a few young adults and share some time and conservation issues with them.

Goodwood Bush
All year we have wanted to explore the native bush next to our reserve at Tavora. Goodwood Bush is one the last remaining stands of podocarp/broadleaf forest in Otago and the vision for the Trust is to extend this bush all the way to the sea through our plantings on the Tavora reserve.

We just knew it would be full of goodies that we needed for revegetation work, but somehow every time we went up there was always something more important to do. This time, armed with pruning saws to assist the Trust ranger remove hawthorn from the bush, we went to have a look. We were not disappointed. We found the uncommon Olearia fragrantissima (a big favourite of ours), native broom and lots of lovely totara. We took cuttings but will return again in autumn at seed collecting time. We also removed a few hawthorns –although because of all the other things we found I think our ranger was a little dubious about how much.

Karori Wildlife Sanctuary
We were fortunate to get the opportunity to visit the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. This sanctuary was of particular interest to us because a lot of the work they do uses volunteers. In fact, they have a volunteer labour force of 400 people and a waiting list. Their plans for restoring native vegetation are different to ours, but they still get the same results. It was great to have the chance to meet with a variety of staff, ranging from predator trapper to guide to marketing manager, and learn about how they have made their project so successful. The staff were very welcoming and generous with their time and knowledge.

It was such a privilege to walk around the sanctuary, appreciate NZ birds at close range and in natural vegetation. Thank you so much Vodafone.

Upcoming Events
Next month alongside our usual nursery work we will be involved with restoration of a large area of sand dune at the Tavora reserve. We will be removing marram and planting the native sand sedge Pikao alongside many of our volunteer workforce.

A trip to Motakurara nursery in Canterbury is also planned. We’re lucky to be able to spend a few days working with Jorge Santos the nursery manager and “godfather” of native plant propagation in NZ. We have so many questions saved for him!

And when we’re not doing all this we will be preparing for the trip to Stewart Island in November.

Nine months done. Thank you Vodafone for the opportunities you have given us.

Until next time
Margaret and Anita

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