Green ‘S’ Force Planting Day—5 July 2014

Today the Green ‘S’ Force team were back at CUE Haven in full force for a great day of planting.  Twenty-six members, including several new members joined us.

The group included Aman, Ankush, Bharpoor, Guneet, Harinder, Jagdeep, Jagveer, Karan, Karamjit, Mandeep, Meenu, Narinder, Navjot, Navneet, Nitash, Paramjot, Prabhjat, Raj, Ranjit, Ritu, Samandeep, Simarjeet, Simarpreet, Suhas, Sukhwinder, and Veerpal.

Some of the team members live in the city and they arrived a little earlier than the group driving up from Manurewa, an hour farther away. So while waiting for the remainder of the team to arrive, Mahrukh took the early birds on a walk around the recently completed wetlands boardwalk.

After morning tea the team went to work. As Tom is still out of action, the first task was to load up the truck and take the plants up to the planting site.

This week the group continued working on the steep gully.  This is the most difficult planting we have done so far as the ground is steep and uneven and the dead grass is very long.  Nevertheless, the group coped very well and planted a huge number of trees before the end of the day.

On particularly steep sections, the team used a human chain to get the plants from the road to the planting site.

And this gives you some idea of the conditions the team had to deal with.

The hard working team took their midday tea break in the field.

And after several hours of planting, they had a late lunch.

After lunch, the team returned to the planting site and moved through the site and put a stake by each plant.  This enabled them to identify any gaps in the planting and will also help us this summer when we do weed control.

The last task was to pick up all the trays and pots.

After returning they emptied the truck and cleaned the equipment.

A big thank you to Bharpoor, Ranjit and Jagdeep for keeping the team well stocked with plants.

And our heartfelt thanks to all the team members.  As always, it is really wonderful having you over and we enjoy working with you. We really appreciate your enthusiasm and all your hard work.  We look forward to seeing you all again for the last planting of the season.

Many thanks!!!