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While the dismal summer weather, particularly the relentless, heavy rainfall, meant less time at the beach, on a positive note we haven’t had to worry about watering any of the trees.  I had promised the family there would be no weeding this Christmas holiday but a bush walk in early January soon changed that.  I stared at a whole lot of moth plant seedlings and resisted until Anita, my 13 year old daughter said “go on, I know you want to”.  40 minutes later I was still digging and pulling!  By the end of the week we had progressed to clearing weeds in the valley.  Bindweed has once again taken hold in the wetland area and has strangled a number of smaller trees planted in the valley last year.  This is a particularly nasty vine and next year we plan to spray the area in late November.

Liz Watkinson had great success with her Helpex workers – 2 young men (a Venezuelan followed soon after by a chap from the USA).  An English couple are due to arrive in early March.  Apparently they are keen gardeners; which sounds promising.

Sue Crawshay from Trees for Survival inspected the plants which were planted on Sir Duncan McMullin’s property, and was very impressed.  She managed to uncover a few of the smaller trees which had become lost under the kikuya, despite our weeding efforts, and she has recommended we use longer stakes in future (at least 900 mm).  Sue has radar vision when it comes to spotting weeds, as I discovered when we went on a bush walk.

Peter Wyatt has approached the society about fencing the catchment area on his property along Pakiri Rd, and an application for funding is currently underway.

A fencing contractor will be commencing work on Mrs Wainwright’s property at the end of January.

Thanks to our volunteers Trish Gundy, Margaret Scott, Ian Paine, Keith Paine, Alexander Paine, Niklas Erikson and Felix Schmidt who helped with weeding and planting over a three day period – Wednesday 19/10/11 to Friday 21/10/11.

Good progress was made in the valley.¬† Although at times the tasks seem quite daunting, particularly when we are faced with new, major weed problems, we are inspired to continue by the successful outcome of planting of the wetland area the the bottom of the valley.¬† With ongoing maintenance over a 4 year period, the trees are looking very healthy. Now that the weather is warmer and the Rugby World cup has come to an end, we hope to have a better turn-out at future planting days … fingers crossed!!¬† Thanks to Sue and John Haigh and the Harrisons for their efforts in maintaining the bottom of Mt Pleasant Drive.¬† This area is special to me as it some of it was planted by my parents Selwyn and Frances Paine.

Amazing progress was made clearing weeds in the bush behind the brown cottage on Sunday, 9 October.

Thanks to our volunteers Cheryl and Neil Sutherland who shared their knowledge regarding weed clearing and worked hard on the jasmine for several hours.

Thanks also to Arthur & Trish Gundy, Pete Watkinson and grandson James, Linda Lee, Margaret Young, Richard Taylor, Kristin & Troy, Anita Erikson and Emily Young for all their hard work clearing weeds upstream.

The area has been completely transformed and we were delighted to discover a wetland area – another future planting project.
(photographs to follow).

There is still a lot of jasmine growing into the bush at the top of the concrete driveway.  Chris and I worked on this area briefly on Monday morning.  It is hellish stuff to deal with and a team effort is required in order to make an impact.

Spring is here and we are back into restoring the valley.¬† Chris has spent 5 hours spraying weeds on Sir Duncan McMullin’s property and Tradescantia at the bottom of the stream.¬† Arthur and Trish have planted approximately 300 plants on their property at the top of the catchment area, after losing a number of plants they put in a couple of years ago.¬† We hope to get the momentum going and will be organising some more planting and weeding days before the weather gets too hot.

12 volunteers met on Sunday 17 July to plant the remaining trees provided by DoC’s Community Conservation Fund.

As usual, the main challenge was transporting the plants down the hill.  Thankfully three fit Grammar rowing boys carried out the majority of this back breaking work.

After lunch the group met again on the Dingle’s wetland area to carry out further weeding and planting of trees funded by Auckland Council’s EIF fund.

Unfortunately there was insufficient time to do maintenance work on Sir Duncan McMullin’s property.¬† There are still approximately 300 trees still to be planted – approximately 200 on the Dingle’s property and 100 on Sir Duncan McMullin’s.

Another planting day took place on Wednesday, 29 June with Trees for Survival and Takapuna Intermediate.

30 school children and several volunteers planted over 700 trees on the slopes of Sir Duncan McMullin’s property.

The children were extremely hard working and well behaved.  After 2 hours planting they enjoyed lunch consisting of hamburgers, baking and fruit.

Thanks to all our volunteers and Shelley from Trees for Survival.

Look what Richard Taylor found in the wetland area while planting on Sunday!¬† It’s a peripatus (or velvet worm) named Peripatoides novaezelandiae.

We had a great turn-out today to plant the slips on the Dingle’s property.¬† Many thanks to Neil and Sheryl Sutherland from Leigh Coastal Care group, Richard Taylor, Trish Gundy, Jo Evans, Sue Gibbings and Alan Lee for all your efforts.¬† Thanks also to Marco de Jong, Chris Ding, Tyler Wang and Niklas Erikson who worked hard for 4 hours carrying plants down the steep slopes and planting one of the larger slips.¬† Marco and Chris managed to get stuck up to the knees in mud and needed to be hosed down before they could get in the car!¬† Great to see teenagers engaged in (and enjoying) outdoor activities.