JLL–11 May 2018

JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle) is one of the largest commercial property firms in New Zealand, specializing in valuation, research, property management, project development services, sales and leasing.  The Valuation team cover a wide range of areas including, plant and machinery, retail, industrial, office, development, residential infrastructure and health and aged care. And today a great team of professionals from the Auckland Valuations department spent a day at CUE Haven planting some special trees.

The group arrived just after 8:30 and included Alex, Dale, Glenn, Hannah, Isabelle, James, Liam, Matt, Megan, Nicola, Phoebe, Sophie, Tom and Wouter.

Also joining us for the day was our good friend Alan.

We spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea and then Mahrukh gave a short talk about the history of CUE Haven and our plans for the future.  Thomas then talked about the work planned for the day and gave a safety briefing.

The plan for the day was to do infill planting of forest giants amongst the pioneer trees which have now grown up enough to provide a canopy to protect the bigger trees from sun, wind and weeds.

We have not planted many kauri at CUE Haven because of concerns about kauri dieback, but we are now starting to establish a small grove around the mature kauri on the property well away from the walking tracks. So in addition to the totara, rimu, taraire, puriri and kohekohe, we also asked the JLL team to plant kauri trees.

Before we went out in the field, everyone cleaned and sprayed their shoes to protect the kauri grove.

We then went up to the planting site.  The plants had previously been brought up in crates, and the group broke into teams of two.  The challenge was to find a good spot in the thick pioneer plantings.

The team started with planting the kauri.

And continued with the remaining trees.

The hard working group accomplished an amazing amount of work in a short time and we even had to bring up another load of plants to keep them busy!

It was a very enjoyable and productive planting day and the hard working team exceeded our expectations and planted 314 canopy trees. We ended the day with a relaxing lunch.

We want to thank Alan for joining us yet again and providing invaluable assistance in keeping things moving along.

A special thanks to Phoebe for initiating the visit today and to Megan for handling all the logistics.

And a huge thank you to everyone in the JLL Valuations team.  We really enjoyed meeting you all and working with you and we hope that you enjoyed the day as much as we did.  We so appreciate your enthusiasm and efforts and look forward to having you back again to assist.

You have made a significant contribution to CUE Haven, the community and our planet.  The trees you planted today will live for hundreds of years and be a home to native birds and animals, and will be enjoyed by many generations to come. What a lasting legacy!

Many thanks again!