The mission? To plant just over 800 native trees at Rameka on this September conservation vacation. The result? Success!
It was a great week, with awesome Golden Bay weather and working alongside 30 just-as-awesome volunteers. The native trees that went in the ground are going to look fantastic in a few years’ time (a darn sight better than the barberry they are replacing).
400 trees went in the ground on day 1, thanks to Murray, Corrine, Richard, Nicole, Sam Erina, Perrine, Bruce, Sonja, Liz, Brett, Helen, Mark, Glenda, Tony, Ray, Ann-Louise, John, Phil, Bronnie and Jonathan.
On day 2, Chris Stone and 20 other people carefully planted native trees in area cleared of gorse and barberry by Murray Drake, with help from others, including Richard Mansfield who always loves a wrestle with some old-man barberry.
Nicole and Richard revisited a previous planting on ‘The Knoll’ to weed the trees and plant more in any remaining gaps.
Rameka trustee Bronnie Wall hard at work planting trees near beside driveway.
Jonathan Kennett and Murray Drake got stuck into the forest restoration business (planting native trees and attacking gorse and barberry).
The volunteer humans were tolerated by a pair of plump kererū.
We also infill planted along The Odyssey track. Only another 100 trees went in on this site this year! The trees we planted last year were growing well if they had just a little bit of shelter. So we have focused our plantings around manuka or barberry, even though that means we may have to do some releasing for a few years.
The plant guards protect the trees and make them easy to find over the next few years, when they may need to be released from weeds.
We also installed a dozen new signs at Rameka this week. These will help people find their way around/through the 93-hectare project. Normally these signs are made from ‘forever materials’ such as ACM (aluminium and a polyethylene plastic core). We asked the sign company to print our signs on marine plywood instead. This material may only last 30 years, but in our experience, wayfinding signs usually need to be changed within a few decades anyway, so why use materials that will hang around forever?
Jonathan routered this sign on an old bit of matai floorboard to acknowledge the generousity of Tama Easton (owner of website design company Upshift and long-time mountainbiker) in donating 500 trees to Rameka this year, and he plans to do the same again next year. Thanks Tama! Your legacy will last for generations (not so sure about the sign though).
And we popped up a temporary map board at the Totara carpark. This will be replaced by a permanent sign when we have time. So much to do at Project Rameka!
We also planted 50 flax at the Totara carpark. It was great that first-timers to Project Rameka, Phil and Sue, were able to come along and help out that morning.
Thanks to everyone who came along this year for an hour, a day, two, three or more! None of this would be possible without the community of willing volunteers who care for the land and forest at Rameka.