TRIP REPORT : Te Marua Bush workbee

 Saturday :   4 June 2005

Melicope simplex.   Photo: Jeremy Rolfe

This was a combined planting and weeding session.   Despite being on Queen’s Birthday weekend, and cold and drizzly, 11 keen workers turned up.

Sixty-seven plants were put in to fill some gaps in older plantings, and to fill out the area along the SH2 realignment destruction zone.

Last year’s plantings have done well, and a lot of growth is noticeable on all plants.   Considerable pruning was needed to allow the longer-lasting, but slower-growing, species to see light through the dense hebes and pittosporums of earlier plantings.

We did a sweep through the bush looking for weeds, and were pleased to find only two small patches of Tradescantia, and plenty of native seedlings.

We had a late morning tea / early lunch in the shelter provided by a pile of large pipes and road barrier sections, under the large totara, outside the reserve fence – a good use for this unsightly pile!

We were pleased to find that three Ileostylus micranthus / small-flowered mistletoe seedlings have grown from seeds, from the existing plant in Te Marua Bush, put onto other Melicope simplex host plants about four years ago.   More mistletoe seeds have been put onto some of the shoulder-high totara in the planting area this year.

Participants : Stan Butcher, Steve Edwards (GWRC Ranger), Glen Fitzgerald, Bryan Halliday, Dave Holey, Brenda Johnston, Troy McColl, Sue Millar (leader), Christine and Shannon Pettengell, Sunita Singh.

Sue Millar