Contact Energy, one of New Zealand’s largest public companies, is a generator and retailer of electricity, natural gas and LPG.  Today eight people from Contact’s Auckland office came out for a fun day of tree planting.

Various corporate staff from Contact Energy’s office in Auckland have come to CUE Haven over the past years and assisted with planting trees. Today’s group included Bergen, Bobby, Dora, Emily, Francisco, Peter, Valeriya and Wouter.  We want to thank Marg who organised the visit but wasn’t able to join us today.

The group arrived at nine and we got acquainted over morning tea.  Mahrukh then gave an overview of the CUE Haven restoration project and Tom gave a safety briefing and description of the work to be done.

The Contact Energy teams in prior years have helped with planting the pioneer revegetation trees such as manuka, kanuka, karamu, wineberry, etc., but today we asked the group to help us with planting infill canopy trees.  These are trees that will live for hundreds of years and tower over the pioneer trees.  They are larger and planted farther apart in areas that have already been revegetated so they take longer to plant than pioneer trees.

We started by planting kahikatea trees in the wetlands and the first task was to carry the trees down to the planting area and then the team began planting.

Once the team had finished with the kahikateas, we moved towards the top of the property and planted totara, pigeon wood, karaka, and kohekohe.   Unlike kahikatea which are planted in the wetlands, these trees had to be planted in areas where the previously planted pioneer trees had grown sufficiently to provide shelter.

In just a couple of hours the team planted 166 canopy trees, an amazing effort!!

Because we were near the top of the property, we decided to walk back down and explore more of the property through the Duke of Edinburgh Grove and the gully walking track.

And then it was time for a late but well-deserved relaxing lunch.

Peter had come to CUE Haven with the Contact Energy team in 2012 and wanted to check on some of the trees he had planted so we took a ride up to the planting site.

Here is Peter planting in 2012.

And admiring his handiwork in 2014!

We had a great time working with this team and we really appreciate their hard work and enthusiasm.

The team made an important and long lasting contribution to the CUE Haven project.  The canopy trees planted today grow very slowly, but will live for hundreds of years and will be enjoyed by many generations.

Thank you all so much. We hope you will all come back again often over the years to see how your trees are growing.