Native Planting Day 2024
Our first of many Native Planting Day’s was a great success, with around 40 enthusiastic participants, we had a fantastic day filled with learning and a shared commitment to restoring our native landscapes. Visiting four different planting sites provided valuable insights into their progress, challenges, and lessons learned. Adam Thompson from Restore Native shared his expertise throughout the day, making the experience both educational and inspiring. Plus, thanks to Adam’s generous donation, attendees were able to take home some native trees to continue the mission.
Check out our video and continue reading below to find out what we learnt at each of the four properties.
Te Karaka Station - North Waikaretu
Te Karaka station, managed by James Harris planted 92 hectares of manuka, different varieties. Over multiple sites. This was planted in 2016 to 2017.
James said the main key to planting any natives is pest control. You must get your pest control sorted before planting. Usually hares and goats are your biggest problem to native planting.
At Te Karaka Station they were lucky and didn't have a problem with these pests, their biggest challenge is wind, especially on exposed faces. The other big challenge they have is weeds, especially woolly nightshade. James said this is a problem in any area you fence off.
Raymond Walker and Denise Potbury - Waikaretu
Thank you to Ray Walker and Denise Potbury who showed us their amazing mature native backyard sanctuary which they have been working on for around 30 years.
Robyn and Derek Bregmen - Te Akau South
We wanted to plant some ripirian planting to help with the waterways and make it aesthetically pleasing to encourage bird life and aquatic life as well. We planted Manuka, cabbage trees and flax only and we planted around an existing dam. We also planted another block which was already had a large lot of kahikatea trees and we just planted flax around that. We also fenced everything off ourselves at the same time. When we first planted we lost quite a few plants and we we think would mostly been hare's which was disappointing. We hadn't anticipated losing so many to pests.
We have just now made a plan to finish the planting and join the two blocks up, in total we have planted 2.5ha and will be up to 6ha in the next project. This will be done next season and we will endeavor to put pest control in place at the same time.
Blacks Farms - Te Akau Wharf
In 2016 Rob Macnab and Carl bell took over the lease of the 280 ha block at Te Akau South owned by Black Farms Inc.
The farming system is finishing bulls. This put pressure of sidling’s and as over half the farm was natural water, cattle had access to water from a large gully system that fed into the Whaingaroa harbour. A reticulated water system was put in in 2016, but access remained.
A joint project with the Waikato Regional Council to retire 28 ha of this gully system was entered into in 2020. This involved 7.3km of fencing of which 2/3 was funded by WRC and Hill Country erosion Fund, and a 1/3 by the owners/lessees. It is to be noted that Amanda Black and Chris Hocquard invested substantial amount of money as part of this and it couldn’t have happened without them.
The fencing project was budgeted to cost $87,600 and was completed in 2021.
A back-to-back agreement was also entered into with the WRC for infill planting and planting the sidling’s. This began in 2022 and involved 11ha of planting natives, with 80% being kanuka and manuka and the balance larger species.
It required spot spraying before planting and then releasing again after 6 months. All work was done by contractors. The cost of this was $58,600 with WRC and funding partners contributing $41,000 of this. Once again Chris and Amanda were very generous and met the balance through Black Farms Inc.
Management of it was very difficult with goats/deer and pigs making us wonder if the plants had been completely eradicated. After 3 years they began to come through, and the established areas were a lot healthier.
Lessons learnt:
Game changer for this farm and management. Plan your project with this fore front of mind.
Retire more area, not less. Makes fencing easier and more effective.
Go hard on pests before you even do anything, knock the numbers right down.
Push hard for funding, keep questioning.
Get the experts in, they know what they are doing.
Document before and after, makes it worthwhile.
Sounds ironic, but don’t bite off more than you can chew. A few sleepless nights!!
Watch Video - Learn how to choose the right tree size and plant it for the best results with Adam Thompson of Restore Native.
Thank you very much to the four farmers who shared their properties with us, and to our generous sponsors:
