Planting Days
2019 Autumn Planting
We will be planting a mix of carrex and grey shrub land plants over 2 afternoons, Tuesday the 30th of April and Wednesday the 1st of May. 2 Habitats, Kimiaakau and Kawarau, along with the Envrio Gp will be doing this.
We will also be carrying out a trial on weed suppression. With one area using coconut matting and another area just mulch. Both areas have been prepared the same, spray, mulch, then spray. It will be interesting to see what works.
I will add a link to the photos of these days once they are have happened.
Click on the above link and it will direct you to the all the information re the community planting days in our area. These events are successful because a lot of locals volunteer to help reintroduce native plants to very public areas within our local district.
The WRT (Wakatipu Reforestation Trust) is a get supporter in our efforts to enhance our Wetland Area.
Autumn Planting was a success
500 plants in the ground after a mammoth effort from some parents, our SWS, and our friends at the WRT, The Novotel and Sofitel in digging holes, collecting and distributing plants and supporting the rest of the school children and staff to get the plants in the ground in the morning. Once again the skies did their part and sprinkled the plants helping to water them in. A hardy group turned up to help stake the plants on subsequent days with David, the caretaker assisting Miss Jill and the senior boys.
Over a number of weekends Renee and Sarah have organised staking and mulching sessions at the Wetlands.
To date our success rate has been pretty good but those pesky rabbits have nibbled on a few of the plants.
Here are some photos.
New Zealand's wetlands wipe-out: 'We must protect the last 10%'
A dry end to 2017. Term 4 saw us not being able to plant as we didn't have any/enough rain. As a way to help the soil when it did rain we, the SWS, went down and spread bark mulch around the sides of the soak pit. It was hot work and Miss Jill shouted everyone an ice block on the last day.
We also had some great news from Sarah Jones to say that the Friends of the School were going to given us approximately $700 to buy tools for us to use.
Some of the students became interested in the thistles mainly why are they in the wetlands and how to get rid of them. Tahila and Bailey presented a slide show presentation for their fellow students. They found that thistles spread quickly and easily on the wind and have 10s of thousands of seeds per year. The best way to control them is to stop their access to sunlight. This means that when our plants get big enough they will be starved of sunlight. So it's a long term problem. We did think that if you chopped of their flower buds before they opened it would control them, ie stop them from setting seeds and spreading. As well as this we poured salt onto them as we have been informed that salt will also kill them. We shall see.
Our school nursery has approximately 800 plants in it and Miss Jill along with Mr David have worked hard to keep the plants alive over the hot summer.
Roll on 2018 and hopefully we will have 2 successful planting days as we continue to develop the area.
Annual Spring Planting Days.
This year we have decided that we will plant over 2 mornings with the habitats buddying up to do this. The Wetlands are not the schools but a valuable asset to our learning and community. It is great to see the the community using the tracks.
To make our planting successful we would like to ask that parents, caregivers to help us out with this. For those parents who have been involved before I'm sure you will agree that it is fun and a great experience to share with your children.
We are proposing to plant on Tuesday 31st of October with Skippers, Kimi aakau and Hays - with parents and helpers starting to dig holes at 9:30 with the children arriving down just after 10:30. Pounamu and Coronet will repeat the process on Wednesday the 1st of November.
I will be popping a reminder in the first newsletter of term 4 but wanted to give you all some information now so that you may be able to adjust your schedule to take part in this event.
April 2017 - 3rd Planting Day
We were very lucky with the weather for our Te Awa planting day. We were also lucky to have the expert help of Barbara and Nita from the Wakatipu Reforestation Trust along to assist us. Jim and Heidi from the Novotel also came along in the morning to help plant and hammer in some stakes with some Sofitel staff coming down in the afternoon. Also, a couple of the Novotel staff had turned up the week before to help dig holes.
This is all the planting we will do until mid spring when the ground temperature warms up. Winter jobs at the Wetlands include checking the plants and spreading the bark around the plants and along the berns.
Below is a mixture of photos of the day. Thanks to everyone who has helped.
October 2016 - 2nd Planting Day
April 2016 - 1st Planting Day. The whole school walked down the track to the Wetlands where we were joined by, some of GEMS children, some parents, Barbara and Neill Simpson.
