Green ‘S’ Force—6-7 July 2013

The Green ‘S’ Force team returned to CUE Haven for the fourth weekend this season and finished up almost all of the planting planned for the year!

As in past weeks, the team arrived on Saturday morning and left on Sunday evening, but because of work and personal commitments some came on Saturday or Sunday or both days.

The group included Amandeep, Bharpoor, Captain, Dalveer, Jagdeep, Jugseer. Karmjit, Loveneet, Navjot, Navneet, Pooja, Pradeep, Raj, Ranjit, Samandeep, Simar, Suhas, Sukhi, Veerpal, Vinod, and their friend Randal.

The first task for the weekend was to finish off the revegetation planting that we have been working on this planting season – an area of almost 4 acres that includes wetlands and rolling hills.

The team almost finished on Saturday but it got too dark to safely work.

On Sunday morning the team finished off the last of the planting and then undertook the major task of picking up the empty pots.

The last task involved putting in bamboo stakes to mark each of the trees.  The tops of the stakes are painted white so when the weeds start to grow up we will be able to find the recently planted trees in order to release the weeds.

As usual, the team even took tea breaks in the field.

The number of trees planted in just four weekends is simply astounding and it is great to imagine how the area will look in a few years as the trees grow up.

This planting effort was directed at establishing pioneer canopy trees in open pasture.  The idea is to plant fast growing trees close together in order to create a shade canopy to supress weeds and to encourage bird life.  We have been doing this kind of planting at CUE Haven since 2008 and the canopy is slowly establishing in the earliest areas we planted.

As a result, we can now move the restoration project along by planting the long lived canopy trees such as kauri, totara, puriri, taraire, karaka, etc. in those areas.  We have been cultivating those trees in the nursery at CUE Haven for the past three years.

On Sunday afternoon, the team shifted gears and moved into the established planting areas to do the infill planting.  Unlike the pioneer trees which are planted a metre apart, these trees are planted from 3 to 5 meters apart, so the team was widely spread out in the bush.

Simar took good care of the team cooking yummy lunches and dinners.  She was helped by Dalveer on Saturday and Pooja on Sunday.

And she even had some of the boys helping with the clean up!

On Sunday afternoon our friends Jack and Adrienne Welch dropped in for a visit.  Their family has planted several memorial trees for their grandson, Duncan, and they came out to visit Duncan’s Grove.  They also met the team and spent some time getting acquainted:

The team also had belated birthday celebrations for Simar and Amandeep and an advance celebration for Navjot. And Mahrukh baked special (vegetarian) chocolate cakes for the occasion!

It has been a fantastically successful planting season at CUE Haven – we have exceeded our planting goal for the season thanks to the Green S Force teams!

Our heartfelt thanks to everyone on the Green S Force teams for their amazing dedication to community service.  They have made a major contribution to the New Zealand community with their hard work and the trees they have planted at CUE Haven and other sites around the North Island will make the world a better place for generations to come.

Thank you all so very much!! We look forward having you all back for future planting seasons.  There are lots of empty pastures still to be planted!