Kia ora tātou!
We’re now 6 months into the year and as a team, we’re really proud of the progress made by the Reforest Northern Southland Trust. The board have met several times so far this year and a place on the board may be opening shortly up so if joining an environmental non-profit and investing time in a trust that has some solid achievable goals around biodiversity, native plant life and community is of interest to you, please reach out to us.
Projects & events
Lumsden Creek Project: We’ve seen the Lumsden Creek Project move ahead in leaps and bounds this year. The 2023 planting sessions have mostly focused on the Lydia Street area where teams of our wonderful volunteers have been planting Silver tussock, Toe toe, Corokia cotoneaster and Coprosma rugosa. We’ve also been planting Carex secta along the waterline to improve the habitat for Lumsden’s very own native endangered fish, the Gollum galaxias.
We have one more scheduled session before closing off for winter on the 24th of June – we’d love to see you there. You can follow our facebook page for updates to stay in the loop. Come on down and plant some plants or just join us for a cup of tea and a cookie and a bit of friendly plant gossip! If you miss out on the 24th of June, our sessions will be kicking off again in Spring on the 9th of September.
We also have a Wetlands Field trip planned for the 8th of July (weather permitting – with a back up date on the 15th of July).
The Nursery: If you’ve popped down to the nursery recently, you’ll see that we have more planter boxes and green houses in giving us the opportunity to expand our offerings. The new greenhouses were installed to increase capacity for the plants when they are at their smaller seedling stage, when they are too delicate to go out into the elements – especially important this time of year! The new shadehouse that will be going up at the front of the nursery is going to be for shade loving forest plants – including ferns and the new beds are to help keep everything tidy and contained.
Opening Hours: The nursery is now open to the general public on Tuesday – Friday 8am – 12pm but we recommend that you message the Trust on Facebook first to avoid disappointment – hours are dependent on weather and during winter we often arrive to frozen plants and solid potting mix!
Monthly Plant Markets will continue through winter so pop on down and see us on the first Saturday of the month, 10am – 2pm.
With thanks.
The Reforest Northern Southland Trust would very much like to thank their supporters, volunteers and contributors without whom, all the work that we do would be impossible.
We’d like to thank:
- Lottery Community Fund
- Lottery Environment and Heritage Fund
- COGS
- Community Trust South
- Denise and Garry of G & D MINI DIGGER AND TRUCK HIRE LUMSDEN.
- The Team at Northern Southern Transport Services.
- Fonterra and the Board of the Hapori Fund.
- Scotland’s Te Kiteroa Charitable grant (Rural Women)
- Grasslands Fund
We’d also like to acknowledge the team of dedicated and wonderful volunteers that show up rain or shine, to put the plants in the ground, without whom, the projects would be impossible.
What we’ll be doing for the rest of 2023.
We have a very busy 6 months ahead of us.
Lumsden Creek Stage 3: We’re looking to accelerate our efforts along Lumsden Creek and hoping to push further on from Lydia Street. We’re delighted to have received assistance and funding from Fonterra to help us achieve this goal. We’re waiting to finalize a few more details around some legalities and requirements and then we hope to announce a community day to complete a large section of the Lumsden Creek planting schedule down from the Lydia Street site so stay tuned for that.
Cycle trail planting: We have been working behind the scenes on another project to beautify a section of the Around the Mountains Cycle Trail and plans are starting to come together. We look forward to working with the team on the Around the Mountains Cycle Trail Board.
Projects: We have a variety of projects in planning and are quite excited about some of the potential future activities and direction that the Trust might take. Some future paths include the possibility of an endangered species project and other environmental concerns which means expanding our scope. Continue watching this space for updates.
eDNA: We have procured some eDNA kits from Wai Tuwhera o te Taiao and are excited to confirm what we have living in and around the Lumsden Creek. We will be collecting samples in late Spring and the results will be added to the national database. Keep an eye on our facebook page for updates!
Find out more about the Wai Tuwhera o te Taiao project and eDNA here.
A few words from our resident plant nerd:
Just because it’s a winter wonderland, doesn’t mean that you should abandon the garden completely!
Our Resident Plant Nerd (Josie Blackshaw) says:
“People often think you can’t plant over winter, but actually, as long as the ground isn’t frozen, it’s a good time to get hardy plants like flax, toetoe, cabbage trees, and other trees, in the ground while the weeds aren’t growing.
The plants can get their roots settled in over winter and ready for Spring growth. It’s also a good time to mulch around things to help keep the weeds under control in Spring, with the bonus that it helps feed and insulate the soil too. We have LOTS of flax and cabbage trees at the nursery available.”
How you can get involved:
Here’s how you can get involved:
Become a volunteer – we’d love to have you join our planting sessions or just be plant nerds with us! Come on down to one of our sessions and have a cup of tea to see how you might become better involved.
Share your thoughts – Do you know of any public areas that could really do with some increased native biodiversity? Let us know – we’re always interested in looking at local projects and things that we might do that could involve our area and local communities.
Are there any native plants that you’d like to see at our nursery? Let us know!
Are you a plant nerd too?
We also run seed collection groups so if you know of an area that contains native or endangered species that we might be able to admire or collect seed from, we’d be delighted to hear from you! Increasing native biodiversity is one of our goals – finding and propagating endangered species is (simply put) our thing. It’s what we plant nerds do. We’d love to hear from you!