Myrtle rust is a serious threat to native plant species and a kick in the guts for wildlife enthusiasts, but our innovative Planting Days organisers and volunteers will not let it stop them. The bad news is we will not be undertaking our planned revegetation plantings at The Reserve this year due to the myrtle rust situation. Our plantings were to be (as usual) the colonisers kanuka and manuka with some pohutukawa, cabbage tree and flax. We will not be picking up any of our plants from Kerikeri Shadehouse (some 2000 plants) but we will be covering the shadehouse's cost for producing the plants. We will not be doing any planting in 2018 either.We want to continue harnessing our volunteers and continuing with the revegetation progress we have made, so instead of planting we will use another revegetation method - establishing a nurse crop by laying manuka brush. This is a sensible solution, bypassing the nursery and using on-site stock.The revegetation site is at Home Bay. The kikuyu was sprayed several months ago in anticipation of planting.
We will brush cut holes in the dead kikuyu at 1 m spacings. We will cut branches laden with viable manuka seed from the mature revegetation we planted over 5 yrs ago around from Urquhart Bay. We will then carry these branches to the sprayed Home Bay site and lay the brush over the cut kikuyu holes - the branches will be pegged down with U-shaped number 8 wire. The manuka capsules will dry and open and the seed fall to the ground - germination will then occur and a nurse crop of manuka will ensue.
Sunday 11 June9am - 12:30pm(Meet Urquhart Bay Car Park, 9am)
If you arrive after 9am walk past the gun emplacement and Home Bay and you will find us there.Bring warm clothes, good footwear, garden gloves, loppers or secateurs and something to drink. Morning tea will be provided at 10.30am. If the weather is so bad to be considered dangerous, we will postpone the planting to the following Sunday (18 June).We will also have our t-shirts and bumper stickers for sale.For further information ring Wendy Holland on (09) 434 0934[caption id="attachment_2793" align="aligncenter" width="720"]
Manuka Seeds[/caption]