Upflow Community Planting day Wairakei Drive - Saturday 18 May 2024
The Upflow team and Shawn ‘Vegetator’ Vennell
The Upflow Community Planting day, 18th May 2024 is both part of a 3 year project funded by Upflow and of Shawn ‘Vegetator’ Vennells ongoing vision for the restoration of Wairakei Drive. This area had previously been used as a rest stop along the road. It is already home to piwakawaka and miromiro and forms part of the connection corridor for birds, bikers, walkers and runners between the town and the Hub and Craters mountain bike park. Over the years without regular mowing the weeds especially blackberry had started to take over. Seay Earthmovers cleared the site and Xcut have been keeping it controlled so it was ready to be repurposed into growing native ngahere. With the additional future plantings, and removal of some wilding pines this will connect up with last years Upflow planting.
The week before the planting the Wicked Weeders and Vegetator Volunteers got to check out the great site prep work that had occurred . Then it was down to Shardul, John and Andrew to dig the 1700 holes. The day before the planting we had 10 pathways students come and lend a hand and lay out all the plants, so we were ready to go for the next day, they even got a go with the auger. The weather also came to the party and we got some rain a few days before, with the weather clearing for planting day, another glorious day to get trees in the ground.
Despite the road being closed except for access over 150 people joined us and the Upflow team to plant 1700 trees. We love having local businesses partner with us for plantings and sharing our vision. Upflow is a geothermal research and innovation company based in Taupō. They are dedicated to creating solutions for some of the worlds most severe problems with STEAM by building bridges between pure science and the business world and share our vision of a greener and more sustainable future. To find out more about their work click here.
All the trees were planted by midday so there was plenty of time to stake them all and mulch before it was time for a sausage from the BBQ, manned by the KGT student leaders and a cup of tea and a chat.
The Wicked Weeders checked out the site on Tuesday, making sure everything got staked and we even got some more rain for the trees. Looking forward to see this forest grow, ka pai team, great work.