For the restoration of Cape Rodney and the Leigh Harbour foreshore
Richard Taylor, Sue Gibbings, John Harvey and Emily Harvey kindly gave up their Sunday morning on 14 June to split the flaxes transferred from the Carlyon’s property and plant them on Julie Turner’s wetland area. This proved to be a time consuming task due to the length of the roots and the height of the kikuyu.
After spending 1.5 hours working on this task, Sue Gibbings joined me on the Carlyons where we spent another hour planting the area cleared at the previous working bee.
Upper bank prior to planting 8/2/15
Upper bank after planting 14/6/15
The follow-up Environmental Education Fund planting days were held on 30 and 31 May. Michelle Gordon, a Canadian biodiversity exchange student studying for a semester at Unitec, volunteered to assist for the weekend and proved to be our most enthusiastic and hard working volunteer to date. She was up at 6.30am and keen to commence work.
The first 2.5 hours were spent preparing the Carlyon’s property for planting. Unfortunately we were unable to kill the periwinkle despite four previous attempts with a variety of sprays, so we cleared some areas by hand. Later in the morning we cleared weeds on the wetland area behind the Brown cottage with Linda and Alan Lee, as well as transplanting several cabbage trees and splitting/transplanting sedges. Two other Unitec biodiversity student volunteers who were going to join us were unable to make it. Michelle soon rallied around and on Saturday night we were joined by four of her flatmates, also Unitec students studying architecture, graphic students and IT; Vaishai from Dehli, Monik from Mumbai, Emily from the USA and Vaidik from Rajisthan. We woke to heavy rainfall on Sunday morning. However, this did not deter our enthusiastic volunteers who got to work clearing, splitting and planting flaxes. With the help of Richard Taylor, Chris Erikson and Rick Carlyon, several large flaxes were replanted. Only some of the funded native plants were planted and we hope to complete the planting within the next four weeks.
Many thanks to all our volunteers including Jo Evans who transported the plants from Te Hana Nurseries.
We were expecting 4 workers to assist with weeding around the trees planted by Takapuna Intermediate/Trees for survival and were pleasantly surprised when we ended up with 9 enthusiastic volunteers. Unfortunately a lot of the smaller plants did not survive the dry summer including the cabbage trees which were eco-sourced and re-planted last winter. According to Mike Francis, the chemicals sprayed to enhance his maize crop also caused the kikuyu to go crazy and this was very evident in this fenced area. The stream bed had disappeared and further spraying will be necessary in advance of the planting day in August. Despite the number of plants lost, there are some very healthy specimens present, particularly the coprosma and flaxes which seem to thrive in the environment.
We had a good turn-out for the Community planting day held on 11 April. 16 volunteers assisted with clearing weeds, including deadly nightshade, tobacco plant, ginger, moth plant, jasmine, honeysuckle and tradescantia in the wetland area behind the brown cottage and along the coastal walkway. Manuka, kanuka and pratia angulata, funded by Auckland Council’s Community Education Fund, were later planted. We had planned to spray the area prior to planting but ran out of time. Much to our delight, a significant number of native seedlings were discovered under the weeds, confirming the importance of hand weeding once native plants become more established.
Pratia angulata was chosen as a ground cover to replace Tradescantia. Poroporo has also been recommended.
Arthur and Trish Gundy prepared a delicious spit roast lunch which was enjoyed by everyone.
Unfortunately our first planned weeding/planting day had to be cancelled due to cyclone Pam. On 29 March we continued work on the Gundy’s property; clearing weeds on the borders of the stream. Thanks to our volunteers Jo and Sue Evans, Richard Taylor, Arthur and Trish Gundy and John Harvey 3.5 hours were spent clearing areas which had previously been worked on. Clearing Tradescantia does appear to be a rather sole-destroying task but we are determined to win the battle!
We have a contest underway. Jo Evans has managed to catch 3 more stoats in the past two weeks; almost matching our count for the whole year.
More traps have been purchased and with the help of Ditch, from Coastal Pest Solutions, we plan to set up a stoat line which will be monitored regularly.
4 hours were spent clearing cotoneaster as well as other weeds and spraying periwinkle on the Carlyon’s property in preparation for planting this area at the end of May.
Due to an extremely hot summer, we have made very little progress in the valley although we managed to pull out a bit of moth plant. The rabbit population has increased and pest control expert, Ditch Keeling, will be targeting the area within the next few weeks.
A big thanks to Jo Evans and Sue Gibbings who have been carrying out pest control along Tenetahi Rd. Their recent catch includes four rats and one stoat, dispelling the theory that all the stoats are located on the Mt Pleasant side of the valley!
Sunday 26 October
It seems to be a matter of one step forward and two backwards when it comes to clearing this nasty weed. We revisited areas where we had previously cleared tradescantia to find that it was at least ankle deep over the top of the weed mat we had put in place. Nik and I made an early start and spent 5 hours working on the Harvey’s wetland area. We were joined by Richard Taylor who helped Nik to empty out one of the weed bags which was full of great compost. With Richard’s help we filled about 6 garden rubbish bags and plan to purchase more large weed bags which can remain in situ. Richard Taylor spotted a large centrepede under one of the weed bags which was cradling some eggs. By the time I had my camera ready it had let go of the eggs and retreated into a hole.
Sunday 2 November
Spent 4 hours spraying pampas and clearing Japanese honeysuckle covering trees at the bottom of Mt Pleasant Drive.
Richard Taylor, Jo and Sue Evans spent two hours weeding around the plants on the Harvey’s property.
The Tradescantia has become established again and we plan to meet during Labour Weekend to carry out further weeding in this area.
Chris and I spent Sunday morning, 12/10/14, checking the stoat traps and refilling the bait stations.
We were amazed to find all the bait had been taken in 3 weeks and were delighted to add two more stoats to our tally – a total of 4 this year on our property.
It is hard to know whether this is a credit to our stoat-catching skills or an indication of how many stoats exist in the valley. However, we have increased our efforts in recent months and feel sure the bird chorus is louder.
The afternoon was spent weeding; in particular removing a large amount of asparagus fern which was becoming established along one section of the BNZ Track. Cotoneaster was also targeted at the bottom of Mt Pleasant Drive, along with other weeds including pampas and wilding pines.
Nik and I met with Dave Galloway and Rebecca Kemp0 from Auckland Council who provided us with advice regarding weed and pest control and provided us with a variety of traps, including the temporary loan of a myna trap. The preferred bait is apparently popcorn. We had no success with our first attempt at trapping mynas but hope to be more successful with future trapping efforts.
In the afternoon we eco-sourced sedges and planted them along the stream edges along with some split flaxes.
We have added one more stoat to our tally (rather hard to identify in this photograph).
