FuturEcology & EmGuard ™ December 2022 update.
Wishing you all the best for the upcoming holiday season.
It’s that time of year again when we are on the rapid slide to Christmas and it’s a good time to reflect and review 2022.
Wow, what a year it has been! 2022 has certainly been a whirlwind that brought with it an ongoing roller coaster of emotions. We are sure everyone will agree that COVID, supply chain issues, staff shortages and the Nelson flooding have been incredibly challenging for businesses this year. While we recognise this, we are determined to look back and see the positives that 2022 brought.
Jan and Robert welcomed their first grandchild, a gorgeous wee ray of sunshine. Isla is 10 months old now and growing and learning so quickly. Ben and his wife Laura bought their first home. Em graduated with her Bachelor of Commerce, Meg finished her Trainee ranger course and has made a great addition to the team at FuturEcology. Dan and his wife Laura celebrated their wee boy’s 1st birthday.
Desiah signed up as our first apprentice and brings a wonderful element of curiosity and optimism to the team. Alvin helped set up a creative society for emerging artists in Nelson and Bridget had an amazing trip down the Whanganui River in a canoe, which she said was one of the best trips she has ever done (and she has had plenty of amazing adventures).
Some of the team at FuturEcology.
2022 also reminded us the importance of living every day, taking opportunities as they present themselves and looking for the good in every day. Pete’s sudden passing was a reminder of this as you never know what is around the corner. We will always remember Pete’s can-do attitude, positivity and loyalty. We are so grateful to have had the pleasure of knowing him.
So, we look forward to some relaxing with family and friends over the holiday season and wish you all the same and hope that the new year will bring some remission from the woes of 2022.
Our motto for next year is
“If your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough.
~ Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. (Africa’s first woman president).
With Christmas just around the corner, we thought it would be fun to dive in and learn a little more about the festive traditions surrounding plants.
Mistletoe
By Emma Fryer
New Zealand has nine native mistletoes, with three species found mainly in beech forest, five species in lowland forest and scrub, and one species is presumed extinct as it has not been seen since 1954.
Possums and vegetation clearance have both contributed to the decline of mistletoe populations since the early 1900s. The decline in native bird species has also played a role as they act as pollinators and seed dispersers. Rats and insects are also suspected to be damaging of mistletoe.
Mistletoes are semi-parasitic plants with green leaves and stems that photosynthesize but they rely on their host tree or shrub for water and nutrients (DOC, n.d.).
So where do the plants festive origins come from? Great question and one that nobody is totally sure of.
Some historians believe the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe goes back further than Justin Bieber’s 2011 hit “Mistletoe” and can even be traced back to Norse mythology.
Look out for them over December and January if you are in beech forest. There may be telltale signs of red flowers on the ground, so look up in the trees above for this glorious native.
Pōhutukawa – Metrosideros excelsa
by Jan Fryer
As we come into the Christmas period, one tree in NZ appears to be synonymous with the Christmas season. Early settlers to NZ celebrated it as “Antipodean Holly” and that love affair with the tree has continued.
We were lucky as a family to spend Christmas 2012 caretaking on Stephens Island in the Cook Strait and I clearly remember the joy of finding a flowering Pōhutukawa on the Island. We picked the flowers and put them into the house to give us some Christmas colour. Sadly, just after that we had to remove the tree as it is not endemic to the island flora, but we did enjoy the gorgeous splash of colour.
EmGuard Sale
With Christmas on its way, along with the pressure of finding gifts for people who really don’t need anything, how about thinking along the lines of a sustainable Christmas gift that keeps on giving.
We are offering free bamboo canes with every pack of EmGuards sold between now and the 14th of December and we can ship these directly to your friends and family including a personal message if you wish. This will give you a saving of almost 15%,
That way they can plant and protect trees for the future benefit of themselves and the planet.
Supporting all forms of local business this year will be really appreciated from the food suppliers to the makers of wonderful artisan products throughout the country.
Hybridising of plants.
By Jan Fryer
We were out on the cycleway near the Waimea estuary the other day looking at a planting project and noticed a very attractive looking tree right down near the waters edge. It had some of the characteristics of Plagianthus regius - lowland ribbonwood which has an upright habit and leaves 40-70mm long and up to 50mm wide with obvious teeth along the margins. It was amongst Plagianthus divaricatus – saltmarsh ribbonwood, which is very divaricated with narrow untoothed leaves, 10-15mm long by 2mm wide.
The hybrid was about 3m tall with a tangle of slender twiggy branches, more open than saltmarsh ribbonwood with leaves that were about half as long as the lowland species, and had a toothed margin. It was a real mix of the characteristics of the two.
On consultation with one of the local nurseries, they have noticed similar trees where lowland ribbonwood has been planted near estuary margins and amongst saltmarsh ribbonwood.
Non-hybridised P. reguis
It led me to doing some reading up on these hybrids and it appears they do grow occasionally from seed where the saltmarsh ribbonwood seed source growing close to estuaries has lowland ribbonwood in close proximity. The nursery said they had found an apparently naturally occurring hybrid out near Hira, but they try to avoid collecting seeds of either species where they are in close proximity to each other. It is well worth looking for hybrids when you become familiar with species as a number of plants do hybridise and that is often what gives rise to new cultivars.
Convolvulus in New Places
By Alvin Bartley
It has now been three months since the top of the south Island / Te Tai Ihu (as well as other parts of Aotearoa) experienced major flooding back at the end of August. This led to a massive amount of erosion and sedimentation wherever water flowed. Through this process, things were picked up and left in totally new places. Unfortunately, we have noticed our arch nemesis, Convolvulus, Ipomoea indica thriving in all sorts of places it has never been seen before. Convolvulus is in many regards the apex weed, with quick growth, ability to climb and smoother plants and a vast underground network with bulbs. We are focusing on knocking back these new infestations before they settle in and hits them before the underground network takes over.
To deal with small infestations, dig out all root material (including all bulbs) and dispose of it appropriately. For any larger infestations, cut and paste any larger stumps at ground level and spray leaf material with Glyphosate in line with the product label. Find more info here.
Interesting Snippets
Books we have read.
The Bookseller at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw.
I received this book for my birthday recently and was thrilled to read about one of my favourite places in the world – Manapouri and the Fiordland area, made all the more poignant as I lived and worked in Fiordland for DOC 35 years ago and knew the author’s husband.
What an incredible memoir of Ruth’s life, crammed full of adventure, tragedy and hope, with an underlying joy pervading it, of the love of books and their impact on our lives.
See more here.
By Jan Fryer
Christmas Closure.
Just a reminder that we will be closed from 4.30pm on the 21st of December and reopen on Wednesday the 4th January with limited hours until the 9th January.
If you wish to have EmGuards sent, please ensure orders are placed prior to the 14th December so we have time to get them to you before all the freight companies also close for the Christmas period.
The whole team conducting a weed survey
