TRIP REPORT : Druce covenant workbee

Saturday 31 March 2007

The virtually weed-free condition of the Druce Covenant is living testimony to six decades of Tony’s and Helen’s dedicated, hard work.   Only in recent times has tradescantia become established in the former orchard, and veldt grass has invaded a few places near the house.   As well, there is one small area of gorse ranging from seedlings to 2 m tall, needing regular attention.   BotSoccer (and Wellington Queen Elizabeth II rep.) Robyn Smith has since sprayed the tradescantia and workbee members weeded veldt grass and gorse.   At Helen’s request, two of us created a canopy gap around a grove of elegant Dracophyllum latifolium collected in Waima Forest, on the BotSoc Jubilee trip to the Far North in the summer of 1988 / 89.   Near the dracophyllums is a tall, slender, sapling Halocarpus kirkii collected by Tony about 30 years ago from Kauaeranga Valley, Coromandel, which is at last reaching the canopy.   Up the hill, under planted beeches, I delivered a dose of Helen’s granulated fertiliser to the Metrosideros bartlettii, still a sapling c. 25 years after being planted.   Others cleared the tracks of abundant leaf litter and judiciously trimmed overhanging branches.

Participants :   Penny Currier, Helen Druce (leader), Bryan Halliday, Chris Hopkins, Chris Horne, Rosalind Iles, Lynsie Kerr, Rodney Lewington, Barbara Mitcalfe (scribe).