Kahikatea Reserve Planting
If you haven’t visited Kahikatea Reserve between Springcreek and Tua Marina, you must put it on your to-do list!
This 20 year restoration of bare pasture land features beautiful Rimu, Totara, Kahikatea, Matai, Manuka, Tarata, Lancewood, Harakeke, Kawakawa, Koromiko and a myriad of other natives. The aim of the restoration is to return the land to its origins of a lowland swamp ngahere dominated by the mighty Kahikatea of which there are only 3 semi-mature trees left standing on the Wairau Plains.
This was the backdrop of a planting project with Tua Marina and Springcreek Schools. Unfortunately, a small fire destroyed part of the restoration late last year. The crew of Landscape Marlborough wanted to replant before weeds took hold and made it too difficult, so the children jumped at the chance to help them. I jumped in to help too.
The soil was soft and easy to dig, however it took a bit of effort to navigate around the charred, but still standing trees, to find the markers and saplings to plant. That didn’t seem to bother the children too much – such was their enthusiasm that 450 trees were planted in a little over 1.5 hrs! Ka pai team!
Piwakawaka kept us company, flitting from place to place, checking up on how well we were planting. There was more bird song from other parts of the restoration too. We talked about coming back to do a bird count later in the year so watch this space!