McNICOL ROAD PLANTING
Saturday 17 September, 8-10am, opposite 430 McNicol Rd
We need a really good turnout for this final planting day at this site for this year so please come along, even if you have only an hour to spare. You do not need to be a member of WRL, everyone is welcome. There are a great many plants in our nursery that are ready to plant and need to be moved out to make room for new ones.
Your contributions in planting out on this public land will be greatly appreciated by all those good people producing these plants at the nursery. You, your children and the whole community will enjoy the benefits in years to come when the riverbank will be transformed from a weed ridden mess to a mature stand of bush, with more fish in the river, cleaner water, perhaps swimmable and certainly less erosion.
More planting on our waterways. We are very pleased to see the extensive plantings going ahead on private land along the Wairoa River and Taitaia stream, as well as those smaller areas around the catchment by WRL members and many other individuals.
Planting 400 McNichol Road Aug 2015
POTTING BEE
MONDAY 19th Sept 10am to 11 am.
Come along and join these great supporters and pick up some plants. The ground is still wet, the sun is shining, temperatures rising – great conditions for planting.
KOHEKOHE
In case you missed our earlier notices, we still have a good number of these very attractive trees available to members. Contact Tony
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Welcome and thankyou and to all those new members and to those who have renewed on time. If you would like to join us or you have not yet renewed are not one of them, please send your $20 to our ANZ account 01-0234-0104478-00 with you name as reference.
TREES NETWORKING
– a Wood Wide Web – a look at what is going on beneath the forest floor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdaIcKG3Zms. (If the link does not work, Google TED talk Suzanne Simard.) In this fascinating 18 minute video, ecologist Suzanne Simard talks about her research and amazing discoveries of how trees co-operate with each other. This research shows that trees look after their own, communicating and nurturing their offspring and others through their roots and micorrhizae (fungus roots). Does this explain why some trees I have planted in isolation have failed while several of the same species planted together on similar sites have thrived? This video should get you thinking differently about the ecology of trees, the existence of mother trees and their own social media system. There is much more on this topic in Peter Wohlleben’s latest book “The Hidden Life of Trees”.
BENEFITS OF THINNING TREES.
Findings of the effect of thinning a planted kauri stand in the Hunua Ranges.
The results of this research, produced by Greg Steward of Scion and Ian Barton of Tane’s Tree Trust (www.tanestrees.org.nz) show that the annual increment in the diameter of the thinned trees was much greater than the unthinned trees. The full details are given in this TTT publication, but a visit to the trial site on Workman Road, established in 1973 by Ian Barton when he was the Forester, is well worth while and clearly shows the benefits on growth rate due to siting as well as thinning. The growth of the trees on the wetter terrace is significantly greater than that on the drier slopes.
PREDATOR CONTROL
A reminder that WRL is not just about planting trees. As a community organisation we can help individuals by supplying bait stations, bait and traps. Many native tree species are ice cream for possums; rats and mustelids (stoats, weasels, ferrets) devour eggs and fledglings; rabbits and hares cut down seedlings. For more information, on line tools and more, visit www.predatorfreenz.org