2012 Events and Achievements

During the first part of the year we have been active in the East of Highbury projects and in the wetland particularly around Glade Place/Valley Road.

We have met with various Council officers about pest control and bush restoration and also about preserving the carex ecology near Glade Place.

Sunday 25 November 2012

This was a great day. The weather was good and we had a great turnout.

Someone left some sunglasses and a case behind - if it's yours please get in touch with Keith - email LeRoysBush@gmail.com

There were about 500 manuka planted in about 2 hours - many thanks to

• Geoff, Lynda, Ken, Megan, Darren, Sage, Colleen, Linda, Carol, Isobel, Don, Eloise, Helen, Lisa, Stuart, Finlay, Sarah, Amy, Rose, Moses, Florence, Keith, and a visitor from Australia (and thanks to patient family members who waited)

• Mike, Vaike, Troy, Rebecca and Lesley from Unitec

• Paul Duffy of Parks Department, Auckland Council

Sunday 28 October 2012

Many thanks to Geoff, Lynda, Ken, Carol, Helen, Adrian, Rose, Davey, Ben, Moses, Florence and Keith - who planted 300 carex around the Glade Place to Valley Road bridge and also pulled out heaps of weeds (mainly montbretia and nut sedge). Thanks to Lynda for the beautiful chocolate cake for morning tea. Here's a photo of some of the participants and also the bystanders. The tracks were busy this morning with couples out for a morning stroll. Hope to see more participants in a month for planting manuka further downstream in the wetland.

Sunday 23 September 2012

Carol, Isobel, Helen, Lynda, Geoff, Ann, Davey, Moses, Florence, Richard, Becs, Megan, Darren and Keith walked the wetland area to check how the flax, manuka etc planted in May were progressing. Some areas were good, but in others the pukeko had wreaked (wrought) havoc, pulling out manuka and flax plants. We replanted what we could, pulled weeds, picked up rubbish and generally had a pleasant morning in the sun. Thanks Lynda and Carol for the goodies. We found two trays of cabbage trees, some carex and 5 kahikatea overlooked from the May planting day - these are now in the ground. Some of the boggy areas are covered in water cress and nut sedge and willow weed are starting to re-emerge. But overall the area is looking much better. We hope to meet with the Volunteer and Biodiversity Coordinator for the area and discuss next year's plantings with him soon. If you have any ideas, please email us at LeRoysBush@gmail.com

Saturday 22 September 2012 - great idea for a 40th birthday party

We are told that a local man celebrating his 40th birthday party organised a large clean up in Little Shoal Bay. What a great idea to combine community service with a celebration. Apparently they found the flax beds between the lanes where the road runs through the reserve littered with wine and beer bottles! Must be an interesting demographic - most of the litter round Highbury tends to be RTD cans.

Sunday 26 August 2012

Don, Eloise, Carol, Isobel, Helen, Lynda, Geoff and Keith planted about 50 carex virgata supplied via Paul Duffy the volunteer and sustainability coordinator. Also planted were about 20 mountain flax, 30 ferns (kiokio) and about 10 toetoe. Thanks very much to Geoff and Lynda for dropping about 50 native rushes (oioi) down to Little Shoal Bay where they will be planted on the stream banks where the high tides will help to control weeds around them. Most of the planting took place along the sides of lower Glade Place and the walkway steps down to the bridge. This has been scrappy for a long time - and hopefully the plantings will help to keep the montbretia and other weeds at bay.

We found that about 15 of the natives planted in late May had been pulled out of the ground and were lying with their root ball still intact on the ground. These were replanted. Not sure who the culprits were? Maybe pukekos? Perhaps the next working bee should be a survey of all the 1500 plants from the May planting bee to see how many others have been pulled out!

Thanks very much to the working bee team and to Paul Duffy.

East of Highbury Programme

Saturday 30 June 2012 - East of Highbury - 1pm to 5pm - Planting and Detective Work

A wonderful group of volunteers from the Incedo Church came to help plant, mulch and do other tasks in behind the Birkenhead Ave shops. They spread mulch and planted many of the totara, rewarewa, manuka etc (donated by Steve Matthews). This was hard yakka as they were clearing bamboo and planting in amongst rocky clay. Around 4pm a group of reinforcements turned up from another project and carried the rest of the truckload of mulch across to spread in the area below Westpac Bank. It's never looked so good.

Event of the day happened when Brooke found a rusty safe deposit box in the mess below the Westpac carpark. The ANZ deposit box label was still clear to read and inside were medals, coins and some rather soggy passports. We rang the ANZ bank - but they haven't called us back yet. But by coincidence we identified the owners - the box was stolen from them in 2006! They are amazed and delighted to know they may find family artefacts again.

Thanks to Mal, Glen, Brooke, Daniel, Tanya, Tom, Tim, Jim, Michael, Isaac and many many others from the local Korean YFC in Onewa Road and from Incedo churches all over NZ as far away as Christchurch.

Walkabout with Auckland Council Officers

On Thursday 14 June, a group of committee members showed Chris Burgess and Paul Duffy of the Auckland Council Parks Department two of the main projects that the committee is working on in Le Roys Bush. We visited the wetland site below Maritime Terrace where we have with assistance from Council and the Birkenhead Licencing Trust cleared the wetland of crack willow and pampas grass and are controlling a wide range of other invasive weeds on both public and private land. We also walked around the "East of Highbury" project site from Hinemoa Street to below Onewa Road. Other projects discussed included the replanting at the bottom of Glade Place, the rodent control programme and the fish research being undertaken by Dr Hustler of Northcote College.

Le Roys Bush 2012 Wetland Planting Programme

Wetland Planting Report - Friday 25 and Sunday 27 May and October/November

On Friday 25 May, we were joined by students from the Northcote College Learning Support Centre. They carried 1500 plants from Glade Place down to the wetland - they finished by lunchtime - then helped do some weeding and planting. A special thanks to Sooz Gunman and to Scott and Ethan and all the other students for sharing this work with us. Thanks also to Paul, Ken, Mark, Grace, Lydie, Lynda, Geoff, Dave, Keith and the two Helens. We probably got about 200 plants in the ground. (Thanks also to Adrian Meys and to the Barfoot and Thompson agents who volunteered to help)

On Sunday 27 May we had a great turnout of planters who put about 1000 plants of all varieties into the wetland. Many thanks to Paul for organising it and to David, Sydney, Tim, Louis, Dorothy and John G, Leanne, John N, Phil S, Susan and Michael, Lynn M, Carol H, Robin W, Don P, Andrew, Geoff and Lynda, Richard, Helen R and Keith. (Apologies if we missed anyone - please remind us).

On Saturday 2 June we finished off planting the 300 odd remaining plants.

Thanks very much to Geoff, Linda, Sylvia, Ken, David H, Brendan, Robin, Jolyon, Ben, and Keith for a great job - all plants done in 100 minutes AND bags of willow weed and nutsedge pulled out too.

In October and November we planted another 800 plants! And in January 2013, we released them. For more details, see Calendar - what's coming up?

Photos: Sunday 27 May 2012 - volunteers planting flax, manuka and other natives in the wetland below the Glade Place to Valley Road Bridge (photos Paul Duffy)

BNZ "Closed for Good" working bee - 8 May 2012

On Tuesday 8 May 2012, we were very fortunate to have a wonderful team from the BNZ (and IAG) who helped clear invasive pest plants from the marging of the wetland below Maritime Terrace.

Many thanks to David, Nick, Paul, Peter, Richard, Ross, Sharlene and Tim.

We carried out 6 black bags of seeds and roots but also left hundreds of weeds to mulch down - including nut sedge, moth plant (and some pods), privet, wattles, climbing asparagus, pampas grass, ginger, arum lily, woolly nightshade, blue morning glory and heaps of others.

A wonderful effort from a great group of people. Thanks very much to the BNZ for making this possible.

See a photo of two local lads doing good here.

The working bee revealed that there are still a major number of resurgent weeds along this slope - a further working bee is planned for later this year.

Working bee to release plants below the Glade Place bridge - 22 April 2012

A great job was done by Werner, Helen, Rebecca, Richard and Keith releasing the pukatea, carex and other natives planted in mid 2011. The beggars ticks that hadnt got cleared in February had run to seed and died. The emerging willow weed was in pink flower. It was good to see that the nut sedge was not strong in the areas cleared over the last six months.

Glow worm and stream walks - 17 April 2012

The stream walk was part of the Summer Walks programme on Tuesday 17 April 2012. About 45 people booked the stream walk to view the glow worms in Le Roys Bush? And although we had not anticipated seeing any fish, some walkers saw some small galaxids and a big (900mm?) eel swimming downstream.

If you and your family would like to hear about the stream walk next year, please subscribe to our newsletter by sending an email to LeRoysBush@gmail.com giving

• • your name(s), email address and address and optionally your home and mobile number.

Your information will only be used by Le Roys Bush committee members to contact you about the stream walks and other Le Roys Bush related activities. You may unsubscribe at any time. A notice will be sent to all members of the Le Roys Bush mailing list and to local schools active in Wai Care or Enviroschools.