Just because John and I were away in Nelson for Arbor Day last week that doesn't mean we weren't thinking about and wanting to plant trees, guess again! Recently we discovered a movement called "Trees That Count," which keeps a tally of native trees being planted across New Zealand. Groups, communities and private individuals can register their projects to count towards the total for the country and even request help. A very cool idea, eh?
I've just registered John's new planting project here at Struan Farm, the one that runs from the border of one of our existing QEII protected bush reserves along a creek down to the Mangaotaki River. So far this winter he's planted about 200 trees (totara, rimu, kauri, kowhai, kahikatea) plus 50 flax/manuka/kanuka. It's slow going on steep hillsides; some weekends he makes more progress than others. He's using squares of used carpet as mulch mats to try to keep the weeds down.
I'm contributing to the effort by growing flax, kahikatea and kowhai from seed, and re-bagging seedlings so they grow on a bit before being planted out. I've said I'd help out with weeding (maybe!), if time permits, since that may become more of a challenge than the actual planting in the medium term.
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