By Jan Fryer

*Jan explains the technique of tree planting to Nelson Mayor, Dr Nick Smith*

Happy Spring to you all. With the daffodils in full bloom, the lambs running around and the days getting noticeably longer, we are pretty chipper here at FuturEcology.

It has been a good month of planting in the rain and shine, and we are gearing up for a busy maintenance season ahead. Knapsacks have been audited, chainsaws have been serviced and tool belts are next on the list.

We are thrilled for Dan and his lovely wife Laura, who welcomed their second baby, Sylvie, to the world three weeks ago. Big brother Flynn is a little less sure about sharing his parents but give it time and he will be very glad he did.

Emma is away at the moment, taking her nearly 90 year old grandfather on the Ghan in Australia, and having a wonderful time.

We attended a lovely farewell for Peter Grundy, who has worked in the Parks Department at Nelson City Council for 40 years in various roles. One of the speeches that really struck a chord was the talk on legacy and what legacy we leave in this world. Peter was an incredible advocate for trees. Someone described him as the Lorax of NCC. We owe many of the beautiful trees in Nelson to Peter’s legacy, along with parks filled with edible fruit and nut trees. Is Nelson City a better place for Peter having been here? A resounding YES to that.

I was speaking to a customer yesterday, who is restoring a native block on their farm and he also spoke of legacy being one of his motivations. I certainly believe that all of you who are doing great work in restoring natives are creating an incredible legacy. Keep up the good work.

Last weekend we were involved in a legacy planting of a global forest. New NZ citizens are welcomed to the region and invited to plant a tree in honour of receiving their citizenship. The Nelson Mayor, Dr Nick Smith joined us to celebrate the event. Thanks to the Friends of the Maitai Group also, who are always very supportive of work being done to restore the riparian areas of the Maitai.

Tree of the Month – Kaikōmako - Pennatia corymbosa

By Evelyn Nashiro

Kaikōmako is a small tree, up to 12m tall, with a greyish-brown trunk, that is usually less than 50cm in diameter. It is a tree of the coastal and lowland forest margins, and requires moderate to high fertility.

There is a very distinct juvenile stage in which kaikōmako has the form of an abundantly branched shrub, whose often “zig-zag” twigs can be densely entangled with very small leaves. The juvenile stage can persist for a number of years until it reaches a few metres above the ground, when there is a change to the adult form, with more restrained and orderly branching and much larger (but still relatively small) leaves.

Small, pleasantly perfumed flowers are produced abundantly in the spring. The flowers and their stalks are mostly white, but occasionally the flower stalks are an attractive red-purple.

Information from the book ‘New Zealand’s Native Trees’ - John Dawson & Rob Lucas

Have you ever seen the "duck's foot" leaves? Kaikōmako is also known as duck’s foot, because of the shape of this juvenile plant's leaf. The FuturEcology team have been planting Kaikōmako at Challies Island Restoration Project in Brightwater.

Pictures taken from Challies Island Restoration Project

Young Enterprise Update

By Emma Fryer

As many people will know, I am a big advocate for the Young Enterprise Scheme (YES). It is a program designed for giving high school students business experience by equipping them with the skills to develop their own businesses. It is a fantastic program that was instrumental for me in the development of the EmGuards. YES has seen many other similar success stories over the years.

Another wonderful thing about YES, is the community that comes with it. The alumni program was established to allow previous students to collaborate and network with like-minded people and give back to the program where possible. Mentoring in the Kickstart events is one of the highlights of my year and I would encourage anyone else to look into the YES events happening in your local towns.

In August, I was very lucky to attend and win the Innovator of the Year category at the Young Enterprise Alumni Awards in Auckland. It was an incredible room to be in with people who were in all stages of their careers that had completed the YES program over the last 30 or so years.

Weed of the Month

By Jan Fryer

Boneseed – Chrysanthemoides monilifera

Some of you will have noticed a woody shrub that is flowering profusely at the moment with a bright yellow daisy like flower. There is quite a patch of it on the Port Hills in Nelson which is difficult to get to, because of its location.

It is a semi-woody, very branchy shrub or small tree with ribbed and woolly young stems that become smooth as they mature. It has smooth leathery bright green leaves with irregularly toothed edges that are arranged alternately along the stem. It flowers from September to February. The fruit is a hard oval green.

One bush can produce up to 50,000 seeds which can remain dormant in the soil for upwards of 10 years, hence its ability to become such a problem weed.

It tolerates all sorts of conditions from poor soil, salt, fire, wind and drought. Seeds are spread by birds and possums, and by water.

Control by hand pulling young plants when not in seed. You can leave it on site to rot down provided it has not set seed.

Stump swab with Glyphosate “Cut N Paste” or spray with Glyphosate 10mls/L plus penetrant.

Persistence is required to eliminate it.

(Weedbusters website)

Challies Wetland

By Desiah Neho

We have finally finished planting out at Challies wetland! We have planted 17,000 reeds and 20,000 trees around the pond edge, making a total of 37,000.

It is a job to be proud of as it's a massive positive impact for the area. Now it’s time to introduce the inanga and tuna.

Here are some photos of the teams' hard work and progression over the last 6 months!

Wakapuaka Update

By Shaun Burton

Another planting season working to improve the mouri of our beautiful Wakapuaka River is almost complete.

We have planted 15,000 native plants and were furiously working to get the last 2,000 in the ground by the end of August. This year has seen the majority of planting take place further back from the riparian edge up on the alluvial terrace. This strengthens and adds to the great work done during the last few years by widening the native buffer adjacent to the river.

This year has also involved a large amount of infill planting using large climax tree species such as pukatea, tawa, kahikatea, black beech, tōtara, mataī.

Now it's time to get ready for spring and all the maintenance required to ensure as many plants as possible survive!

Spraying do’s and don’ts going into maintenance

By Rob Fryer

September sees the start of our maintenance rounds through plantings. At this time of year, we audit our spray equipment and ensure that all gear is serviceable and ready for the new season.

The main product we use is Glyphosate, generally at 1% rate, delivered through a flat fan nozzle at low pressure. Weather conditions need to be suitable with no or very low wind and no rain in the forecast for the next 4 or 5 hours. Although it is a little more costly, we utilise a spray marking dye to show where we have been. The main advantage with this is that we are not spraying over ground we have already done and wasting chemical and time.

When using Glyphosate, we are very careful around any monocotyledon plants - flaxes, grasses, toetoe and cabbage tree in particular. We tend to spray while the plants are still growing upright in the EmGuard, but when the leaves start to hang down, then there is no more spraying around those species.

A good technique really needs to be demonstrated rather described, but in short, the reason why we use the flat fan nozzle is to be able to run the line of spray parallel with the outside edge of the plant guard and move outwards. This ensures that the operator can see how close they are getting to the plant guard. The EmGuard is designed to protect plants from overspray, but good practice is to avoid overspray onto guards if at all possible. If guards have been poorly installed or slumped and folded as can be the case with cheap imitations, then the operator needs to take care with any foliage that is out of the guard and at spray level.

Before stating spraying, operators need to agree on the level that the block is to be sprayed to, so everyone is on the same page. Is it just a ring around the guard or is it a blanket spray? Are there any other weeds that will be treated and if so, is the spray mix or chemical suitable?

We understand that for good, quick plant establishment, weeds (especially pasture grasses) need to be well controlled. The first release spray is the most important maintenance round in the establishment of plantings.

These are but a few quick points about spraying through plantings. Sometimes it may be better to engage a contractor with experience to take care of this for you.

EmGuard Update

By Jan Fyer

We are continuing to work with the factory to improve the fold lines on the EmGuards. A new die is underway and we look forward to having the new crease-lines incorporated into the guards very soon.

Our contractors, Forever Trees, who have been conducting a planting trial with a range of scenarios, have had some fantastic results. We will feature these next month. However, one thing that has become abundantly clear is that the success rate of a planting goes from about 20-30% without plant guards to over 90-95% with plant guards. Many of our customers have told us the same thing in their own planting experiences.

We have EmGuards in stock, so get in touch if you are needing to protect your new plantings.

Buy EmGuard ™ now

Interesting Snippets

It was Evelyn’s birthday last month so she treated the team to this delicious cake. It was very well received!

Pear cake baked in the air fryer.

By Evelyn Nashiro (We love this recipe at home!)

*Evelyn and Tom Kennedy (Friends of the Maitai) at the Global Forest planting.*

Ingredients

Flour: 2 cups of all-purpose flour.
Baking soda: 2 teaspoons.
Sugar: 2 cups. We prefer brown sugar but you can use the one available at home.
Oil: 1 and ¼ cups. I used sunflower oil but you can use any vegetable oil with great results.
Salt, cinnamon, and vanilla essence: ½ teaspoon of salt, 1 ½ teaspoons of ground cinnamon and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Cinnamon makes the cake taste a little bit spiced. Yummy!
Eggs: 4 large eggs
Pears: 3 cups of freshly grated pears.
Pecans: You can add as much as you like. We loved them so we add 1 cup of chopped pecans.

Directions

Preheat the air fryer to 180°C for at least 5 minutes.

Grease two bread silicone pans, a cake silicone pan or a cake pan suitable for the air fryer with butter or oil, and flour.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl until very well blended.

In a separate bowl, whisk the oil, brown sugar and vanilla essence.

Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking after each one.

Switch to a large rubber spatula. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, then add the dry ingredients in three parts, gently stirring until they disappear, and the batter is smooth.

Stir in the grated pears and pecans.

Divide the cake batter between the prepared cake pans. Bake for at least 20 min at 170°C (until the tops of the cake layers are springy when touched and when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean). Every air fryer is different so, don’t panic. The first times we burnt our cakes a little bit until we could finally find the correct temperature and time.

Let it cool a little bit and enjoy!

Top secret detail: Our favorite filling is caramel spread and we also like adding a little bit of caramel spread with coconut on top. Yummy!

What we’ve been watching:

“The Twelve” on TVNZ +

By Jan Fryer

I don’t usually promote things I have seen on TV but this past month Robert and I have been engrossed in a TV series called “The Twelve” on TVNZ +.

It was the usual story of us trawling through looking for something to watch after a hard few days out in the field. We came across this and it had us absolutely hooked. Robert even managed to stay awake!

It is an Australian production about a jury in a murder trial. A jury is supposed to be anonymous but this series delves into the lives of the jurors and the complexity of their own lives. It explores how serving on a jury makes you look at your own self in a different way.

Both of us have served on the jury of a murder trial, so we found it very interesting and well done.

Well worth a watch.

Conclusion:

By Jan Fryer

Legacy – As a noun, this word has a range of definitions from a gift by will (for example money) or something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor, to something from the past. Our society is very much built on legacy and it influences so many factors.

I have been thinking a lot about legacy lately. As an individual, what legacy do we leave? The things we surround ourselves with are really tied to our own memories. It is why I often feel sad walking round op shops, seeing so many treasures that have no memories attached to them.

Legacy is extremely important to many indigenous cultures, and stories and traditions are passed down through generations.

How are you passing on your legacy? Write down your story. We all have interesting things that have happened to us and motivated us to do the things we do. If you are working on a physical legacy of trees for the future generations, capture the story of the progress and your dreams and plans for this.

The future generations who will benefit from it will appreciate the story of how and why you were motivated to do this. September is actually wills month, so its a good time to think about how you want to be remembered and what positive things you can do for the future.

10,000 trees about to go into the Wairau Valley

If you have any projects in mind and would like to talk further, give us a call or pop in and see us.

We look forward to hearing from you!

FuturEcology & EmGuard ™ September 2024 update