2017 September 17th Planting Day
Our second planting day was a huge success!
To the delight of our 40 volunteers, all 300 native plants (everything was grasses, to ferns, to trees) were planted within the first 1.5 hours of the 3 hours we'd allowed for!! This is a huge difference to the previous planting day, where we were left with another 60 plants in a similar time frame. To be fair, this time we didn't do any weeding, and the sites weren't too difficult to get to.
The largest site was on the east side of the Guide hall on the grass, giving us 100m squared to work in. The second site was boggy almost all year round so took up a lot of grasses, while the third and final site was dry and exposed, as well as point for cars to regularly drive down.
Once the planting was done, there was the opportunity to set up two rat traps after everyone had gotten something to eat.
These rat traps had been supplied by Ngati Whatua and Pest-free Devonport the previous weekend, and are environmentally friendly, instant-kill, and painless. With any luck, it won't be long until Jutland Reserve becomes a safer place for native animals.
As always, thank you to Takapuna-Devonport Guides for the use of their hall and workers.
Thank you to Kaipatiki Project for lending us spades and gloves, and to Anna Baine, the Community Ranger for volunteers at Auckland Council for buying us the food for the sausage sizzle, and for buying us all 300 plants (funded from Devonport-Takapuna board funds) from Kaipatiki Project.
Finally, thank you to everyone who came. 300 plants wasn't something I had thought we'd be able to do easily in a couple hours, let alone find enough space in the reserve that wasn't overrun with weeds; and we did it in half that time! So thank you all for coming along and making it such a wonderful time. Next time, we should be on to mulching and helping the plants that are there to thrive.
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