In the second of four Wakatipu Reforestation Trust planting days this spring, about 70 grown-ups and children turned up at a riverside trail site near Arrowtown’s Chinese Village on Saturday to put 870 plants in the ground.
Trust operations manager Karen O’Donahoo said the 1000sqm site was cleared of unwanted vegetation, including willow and sycamore trees, by a trust team a few days earlier, and Fulton Hogan had carried truckloads of mulch there at no cost.
The Bush Creek area was the newest in the trust’s collection of sites throughout the Wakatipu, and planting would continue along both sides of the trail, in either direction, until it eventually merged with other trust sites or existing native forest, Ms O’Donahoo said.
About 100 volunteers turned up at the trust’s first spring planting day on September 12, at the Whitechapel Reserve, planting nearly 2000 trees and shrubs.
The trust plans to plant twice as many plants this spring to make up for the forced cancellation of its autumn planting days because of Covid-19.
The plants are among the 10,000 a year produced at its nursery in Kelvin Heights’ Jardine Park, all eco-sourced from remnant native forests in the Wakatipu.
The next planting days are at the southern end of Lake Hayes this Saturday; Mill Creek, off Slopehill Rd, on September 26; and the Tucker Beach wildlife management reserve on October 3.
