Category: News

Our main planting project for Winter 2016 had been to plant 300 sedges and 150 manuka plants that were purchased from Te Hana Nurseries on grant money from the¬†Auckland Council (Rodney Local Grants). Originally scheduled for Sunday 24 July, it had to be postponed a couple of times because of atrocious weather forecasts that would have made transporting the plants the nearly 500m up the slippery streamside track to the planting site (in a clearing in the bush on Harvey’s land) very difficult, if not dangerous.

By late September it was getting urgent to get the plants in the ground and we rescheduled the planting for Sunday 2 Oct. However with another lousy forecast for that day a small group of 5 members decided to get as many of the plants as possible across the stream and on to the track on Saturday morning. Two full ute-loads of plants were driven down to the bottom of the concrete driveway beside the Lee’s brown cottage from where Peter Watkinson ferried them on his 4-wheel-drive mule through his campsite to the stream crossing. We carried all the plants across the stream, stock-piling them beside the track and beginning the transfer to the planting site 250m further upstream.

The next day a workforce of 8 members [Jo & Susan, Arthur & Trish, Neil and Sheryl, John H, Richard T] turned up at 9am in overcast but not unpleasant conditions to transfer more plants and begin planting. Our priority was to first get the manuka planted in the higher, drier parts of the clearing -  that had been sprayed earlier to kill rampant Tradescantia. After nearly an hour we started on the sedges, lower down where the ground was wetter.

And that was when the forecast deluge began. We carried on planting with thunder and lightning crashing above and water pouring through the site in rushing rivulets. At least we could see where the ground was wettest and some effort went into channelling the water into more defined streams so that our planting holes did not immediately fill up with water.

By 10.45 we had used up all the plants carried up from the stockpile. The stream had risen to become a fast torrent and we could not cross it to bring up any more so we decided to call it a day. We couldn’t go back the way we had come and had to get out of the valley up through Harvey’s¬† property negotiating the overgrown, slip-damaged track and the waist-high kikuyu paddock.

All participants went home to get dry and warm feeling some satisfaction that they had achieved a lot in a short time. There remain probably about 170 sedges left to bring up and plant and this could be achieved  by several small sessions over the next few weeks.

The following is a photograph of a stoat caught in the valley recently.  According to our pest control expert, Cam Rathe, it is one of the largest he has ever seen (and he has caught hundreds).

Volunteer members Jo Evans and Sue Gibbings have been regularly checking the stoat line as well as controlling pests on their own property and have caught a number of rats, stoats, weasels and mice. Thanks to their efforts and the efforts of other dedicated members, we are making huge progress in the valley and there is a noticeable increase in bird life.

My son Nik and I attended a workshop at the DoC Warkworth office on Monday, 11 July, to learn about DoC’s new mobile application for recording trapping information called ‘Walk the Line’.

DoC and Auckland Council staff who look after some of the Auckland regional parks were present, along with the local Tfs representative Frankie Hofland, Liz Maire (the Forest Bridge Trust educator) and Kevin & Gill Adshead trustees and founders of the Forest Bridge Trust.  Kevin and Gill are an inspiring couple who are farmers of a 3,200 acre seven-generation family farm at Mataia on the Kaipara Harbour.  You might have seen them on Country Calendar a few years ago.

The vision of the Forest Bridge trust is to create corridors of native bush and thriving native wildlife from the Kaipara Harbour to the east coast including Pakiri and Leigh by connecting bush remnants, fencing and running a concentrated pest control programme.  The Forest Bridge Trust are working closely with schools to eradicate pests via the CatchIT Schools programme.  Each student gets a range of pest traps to take home and the results of this pest control programme are recorded.

This project will have positive spin-offs for all those involved in bush restoration in the surrounding areas.  It is important to be protecting forest remnants with fencing but our efforts will only be successful when we see an increase in native birdlife and other native fauna.  It is exciting that the CatchIT project is being supported by Leigh School and we hope to see the benefits of the children’s pest control activities and to be able to work more closely with the school in the future.

Unfortunately the website was hacked recently and we lost all the posts between May and August which detailed a significant number of hours work.  It is frustrating to lose this information which is a helpful reference when reporting back to the Council and other organisations.

In brief our focus over the past few months has been targeting pests with the assistance of Cam Rathe from Coastal Pest Control.¬† Quite a number of hours were spent planting astelia and a selection of other native plants on the Carlyon’s property.¬† We also had a successful weeding day on Mike and Fiona Francis’s property.¬† Shortly after returning from Europe, Jo Evans and Sue Gibbings set to work checking the stoat line and planting alongside the concrete driveway.¬† We have caught several more weasels and rats.

We had to cancel a couple of planned events due to the heavy rainfall.  Our next working bee will be a Community planting day on 25 September.

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.