Piles of mulch several cubic meters in size, gumboots, tools and saplings – some up to four meters high after four years’ growth – make a busy morning for biodiversity supporters.
The Spring cleaning event saw the group grubbing invasive thistles along the edge of the Martinborough golf course where a corner owned by the district council is being replanted in natives.
They also grubbed out grasses, weeds and other pest plants growing round the saplings, at the Todds Road corner area where the most recent planting happened just a year ago.
The “spring maintenance” programme also saw two large heaps of mulch distributed around the young trees – some less than a meter high – at a cool but windless part of the area.
Last year “pest” self-sowing wattles were removed which had infested the area and begun blocking driving lines-of-sight at the corner.
As shovels and grubbers swung, and mulch was tossed round the young trees, South Wairarapa Biodiversity Group president Jane Lenting said the recloaking with native species is progressing well.
“We are trying to finish off the mulching” round these new plantings, she said, adding “we have been getting rid of the weeds and mulching for the past year or two.
“The site’s doing really well, things are growing up (but) inevitably we’ve got grass and dock and thistles and things like that we want to get shot of.
“The golf club basically pile up the mulch they get from their trees and so we get people together and move it onto the site,” she said.
“I have sprayed two or three times, and we’ve done weed whacking, so we’ve kind of got things under control now – so the trees will grow up, there will be more shade and we won’t have to worry so much about the weeding.”
“Some things are going really well, the Ribbonwoods, some of the Kowhai and the White Mairi are all growing quite tall quite quickly,” some up to four meters in four years.
“It’s quite wet here and when the golf club first cleared it … it was just pure clay. So when we came to order plants … we asked what is clay tolerant, doesn’t mind wet feet, doesn’t mind drying out and doesn’t mind frost?”
The result was “quite a long list” of plants from the nursery and a resulting sapling mortality rate “which is probably the lowest of any planting we’ve done.”
This had been aided in summer by Martinborough golf club watering the saplings, “which has made a big difference.”
Lenting noted that her group began the recloaking project, while Trees of Martinborough had carried out the most recent planting from which only a clutch of saplings had not survived their first year.
“We want to cover the area which is bare earth, get rid of the thistles, make it look a bit better.”
