This year’s planting season ended on a high note with Diana Eden of Conservation Volunteers NZ leading a team of four Year 13 students from Auckland Grammar School – Kaven, Joo, Zhengshen and Jason – and two local community volunteers – Bridie and Terry.

The group arrived at about 9:30 and we got acquainted over morning tea and an orientation to the CUE Haven project.

Tom and the team went up to the planting site where Diana gave a planting demonstration and safety briefing and then everyone went to work.

The main task for the day was to finish off in fill planting in some previously planted areas.

And even after a couple of hours of work, the team still had a lot of energy.

And when they broke for lunch, Jason entertained everyone by singing Korean songs:

After lunch, Tom and the team went back up to finish off the planting.

We had a supply of karaka trees which we had cultivated from seeds harvested in the mature bush on the property.  Karakas are an important tree because they enrich the soil and create a good environment for other trees to grow.  The mature trees grow to 20 metres and will form part of the tree canopy in the future.

When all the trees had been planted, Tom took the team on a walk along the walking track through the mature bush in order to give the team an idea of how their trees will look when they grow up.

And the group made it back just in time as the heavy rain that had been predicted all day finally came.

We want to thank CVNZ for providing us this great team to help us finish off our planting for the year.  We enjoyed meeting Diana and she did a great job keeping the group moving.  We would like to thank everyone for all their hard work and for giving up a Sunday and coming out to help.

We hope you will all come back to see us again.