Nestlé New Zealand—30 June 2017

Nestlé NZ has been a major supporter of CUE Haven over the years, providing our volunteers with Nescafe coffees and other refreshments.  Nestle staff have also contributed their time and efforts and volunteered at CUE Haven, and today they made another important contribution with a great planting day.

The group arrived early and included Angel, Bryan, Chaelvin, David, Daina, Emma, Heath, Jason, Jennifer, Jyotsna, Kate, Matthew, Michelle, Nadia and Renate. 

We got acquainted over morning tea and then Mahrukh gave an overview of the CUE Haven project and Thomas gave a safety briefing and a description of the work planned for the day.

The plan for the day was to plant long- lived canopy trees in the area that Nestlé staff originally planted in 2015.  The pioneer trees they planted then have grown up enough to provide protection for the taraire, totara, lancewood, matai and titoki we planted today.

This is how the area looked in 2015 and here are some of the Nestle team planting it:

And this is today’s team working in the same general area:

It was challenging planting because the area is sloping and there were also a lot of dead weeds to contend with.  But the group coped very well and quickly worked through all of the trees we had to plant in that area.

Here is Matthew planting in 2015:

And here he is amongst the trees planted then:

After planning in the 2015 area, the team moved into the wetlands to continue planting an area we are restoring.  Over the years, the invasive Mercer grass has taken over in some parts of the wetland and one way to control it from spreading is to plant hardy flaxes and cyperes that will shade it out.  We also planted some long-lived kahikateas in the more open areas.

The planting there was challenging because of the thick grass but once again the team worked hard and cheerfully got an amazing amount of planting done.

Planting in the muddy wetlands was a messy job!!

Jyotsna was unable to assist with planting today, but she contributed just as much as she assisted Mahrukh get lunch organized for the group. Thanks!

After a relaxing lunch we went for a short walk to explore more of the property.

It was a lovely way to end a great day.

We are very grateful for all the support Nestle NZ has provided to CUE Haven over the years.  The Nestle refreshments are very much appreciated and enjoyed by all our volunteers and visitors and we look forward to our ongoing partnership.

Our many thanks to Matthew and Jyotsna for organising another successful Nestle visit.  It was great having you back at CUE Haven and we very much appreciate your continued support.

And extra special thanks to the hard working team.  We really enjoyed meeting you all and working with you and really appreciate your enthusiasm and hard work and help.  We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did and that you will come back to visit.  You have made a lasting contribution to CUE Haven, and the planet.  The canopy trees you planted will create a sustainable habitat for a variety of plant and animal life and the growing forest will be enjoyed by the community for many generations. What a great legacy!!

Thanks again!