Moss Island, October 2024June 2019 – Old rubbish collected from the forest as part of the Gahnia Grove restoration project is piled beside the orange tape, marking this extension of the Gahnia Grove chemical-free weed control trial and restoration project. The weedy grass area on the left was later cordoned to become part of “Cherry Bay”, and in late 2020 Moss island was created there.Cherry Bay in July 2020. Moss Island was created later that year, in the area of grass behind the cordon, between the foreground and the big clump of harakeke. Cherry Bay is the whole area behind the cordon on the right, visible from the lower right-hand corner of the upper field of Eskdale Reserve in Glenfield RdJuly 2020: The grassy area to the left is where Moss Island was later created. The lower trunk of the big cherry tree can just be seen on the far left of the photo.
In 2020 during Auckland Council’s construction of a new forest track for cyclists and pedestrians, we asked their contractor RAM Contracting if they could save a little of the beautiful moss-covered clay bank which had to be excavated to widen, pave and channel the track for its new use.
Native mosses, shrubs, creepers, fungi and tree seedlings lined the old forest path along the top of the ridge
The RAM Contracting team kindly agreed, and brought a digger load of large clay pieces out of the forest to the edge of the playing field below Glenfield Rd.
At our request they placed the pieces together in “Cherry Bay”, a damp weed-grass covered area just behind the Gahnia Grove cordon (see photos at top of page), where we could weed around it a few times a year while observing what happened to its covering of native mosses and gum-lands tree and shrub seedlings.
Below, some close-ups of Moss Island in March 2021.
Moss Island after the summer: Milk moss, with seedlings and young tangle fern, mingimingi and tanekaha, and a little invasive Creeping buttercup creeping in from the surrounding “weed sea”.Mingimingi seedlings – and a single kanuka seedling (top right), supported by the mostiure-retentive milk mossClose-up of the milk mossA mingimingi seedling in milk mossThree kanuka seedlings in milk moss with tanekaha leaf litter from the older forest A tanekaha seedling (centre), in milk moss, with tanekaha leaf litter from the older forestDianella nigra seedlings in milk mossa juvenile mongimingi in milk moss – with a stem of the invasive Lotus pedunculata creeping in from upper rightA kanuka seedling (centre), in milk moss, with tanekaha leaf litter from the older forestThis brown tanekaha seedling may have died, or may be among those that survived and flourished the following yearInvasive Creeping buttercup creeping into milk moss
The big vine and shrub weeds and most of the tree weeds had been manually controlled in Cherry Bay in 2019, and wild revegetation was progressing well, but this particular part of it had little shade overhead, and gets very wet in winter, so it fills with Creeping buttercup and grasses every autumn.
The buttercups creep into the mossy clay and are weeded out by hand, and the “sea” of weeds around the “island” of native forest, so we keep the weeds down with a heavy mulch of dead wood, cherry and harakeke prunings, pine litter from under nearby pines, and any weeds that can be easily uprooted or cut down around it.
A mulch of Harakeke prunings helps suppress weeds in Cherry BayMoss Island in July 2021, the area around it recently weeded and mulched with woodchips (by the cordon) and harakeke prunings (under the trees)
As expected, the larger tree seedlings growing in the clay pieces died not long after, but the native “milk moss” (Leucobryum javense) and many of the native tree and shrub seedlings are thriving, four years after translocation of their clay bed.
Moss Island in September 2024 – kumerahou left of centre
We are grateful to RAM Contracting for their understanding of and collaboration with the Gahnia Grove restoration project’s objectives, and their cheerful contribution of time and equipment in creating Moss Island.
Kumaraho (Pomaderris kumerahou, or “gumdiggers’ soap” , a seedling among the moss, now standing about 50cm high at the front of Moss Island in September 2024September 2024: New leaves on Moss Island’s largest kumerahou juvenile
Along the new track through the upper margin of Eskdale Forest, bare clay is turning to a variety of native plants, many of which only grow in kauri forest. These gracefully drooping young plants hanging over the edge of the track are Gahnia xanthocarpa, sometimes called “giant cutty grass”, a typical component of kauri forest where sun reaches the forest floor.
Almost impossible to propagate, they are so well-designed for the harsh environment of low-fertility kauri lands that they have sprouted up all along the exposed clay banks lining the track across the top of the ridge.
There are a few adult plants among them, their black seeds hanging from tall brittle stems.
To fully appreciate the value and beauty of this pathside vegetation, see the same bank below in November 2020 during track construction, when this section of rutted clay bank had suffered temporary loss of even more of its trees, shrubs, sedges, ferns, creepers and mosses.
In 2020 during track construction
Look for even greater beauty and diversity as the years pass. For example, tiny native orchids depend on the ground being undisturbed, as they only appear above ground during winter. Where old ground has remained undisturbed, they can be seen along the path on almost vertical banks, vitally protected by fallen ponga fronds and leaf litter caught in the undergrowth.
This Grass-leaved greenhood orchid (Pterostylis graminea), which we saw yesterday, has probably reached its full size at about 6cms tall.
From time to time we feel moved to describe what we are seeing in our single-handed restoration project “Gahnia Grove“, covering about half a hectare of regenerating wild kauri forest along and below the Glenfield Rd margin of Eskdale Forest.
The site has three major sections – Tanekaha Ridge, Rimu Ridge, and Gahnia Grove-the-original-2018-roadside-site, in June 2018 almost nothing but vine, shrub and tree weeds with uncontrolled kikuyu tangled in honeysuckle and blackberry,
Honeysuckle smothering native forest edge
so that area was the most urgent, and made the most difference to the survival of the forest hidden behind it – see below:
At random, then, these notes from a visit last week to “Flame Tree Bank”, visible from the roadside just uphill from the strawberry stand:
Plant species diversity beginning to increase on Flame Tree Bank
Flame Tree Bank is part of the initial 2018 Gahnia Grove restoration project. It comprises the slope around the big stand of Flame, or “Coral”, trees, from the edge of the forest canopy, uphill to the recreational mown kikuyu area bordering Glenfield Rd, nearly opposite the petrol station.
In 2018 Flame Tree Bank was completely dominated by environmental weeds. The entire tangled mess, on a steep slope above regen kauri forest margin, was (and remains) overhung by invasive Flame trees. One of two trees planted in 1999 has spread through suckering and falling branches, becoming over 30 trees, most of them now occupying space in the canopy of regenerating kauri forest.
After a request to Council for intervention when we initiated our restoration of a section of forest margin we called Gahnia Grove, these trees were expected to be controlled by arborism.
Above: Flame Tree Bank in May 2018, with Elephant’s Ear, Arum lily, Cape Honey Flower, honeysuckle and Tradescantia, and kikuyu in the foreground
Below: Jan 2019: after honeysuckle was controlled by uprooting it wherever it was easy, and rolling it up, invasive bindweed took over.
The planned arborism would have destroyed or smothered much of any regen present by that time, so we did not attempt to maintain much weed control here till 2020, when it became apparent that there would be no Flame Tree control by Council.
( On the positive side, this meant the site was not subjected to the injection of poison prescribed to accompany the arborism. And over the years since 2018, necessity being the mother of invention, we have discovered we can manually control all but the largest trees, through partial breaking of branches and ringbarking of small trunks and lower branches, both of which procedures appear to have suppressed or slowed growth in the large trees of the smaller stands, while eliminating the small trees in the forest itself).
So in 2018-19 on Flame Tree Bank we controlled only honeysuckle, bindweed, ginger, Alocasia, Arum, moth plant, extensions of Flame Tree invasion, and kikuyu, allowing the more benign weeds including Tradescantia to maintain ground cover and suppress spread of environmental weeds.
Above: The second image shows Flame Tree Bank in October 2021, after control of vine and shrub weeds, with only a few wild native plants (shrubby toatoa and karamu) emerging so far among the ground-covering weeds . (The top half of the cabbage tree on the right was knocked off by a falling Flame Tree in 2020, so it is now half the size, and has grown a new head)
During hundreds of explorations and interventions, only 12 wild native plant species were observed on this bank from 2018-2023. In addition to the wild regen, only a dozen or so 10cm H nikau seedlings were planted.
The new wild native species seen were very young seedlings released from Tradescantia in 2019
Karamu seedlings in thinned Tradescantia Ti kouka seedlings released from Tradescantia
and later dying (due to natural attrition or drought). These seedlings were ti kouka/cabbage tree, karamu, and a few kahikatea.
The forest canopy edge down the bank had been released from Tradescantia in late 2018, and the same species of seedlings were found beneath Tradescantia regrowth in 2019:
Karamu seedling and moss in thin Tradescantia regrowth on vertical bank
This week, under the shelter of the rapidly developing regen spreading from the boundary of Flame Tree Bank top with the adjacent Cape Honey Flower (CHF) Bank top, we found:
a single mapou seedling
a single Pteris tremula sporeling
2 Hebe (Veronica stricta) seedlings
Hebe seedling
and several Carex lambertiana – with more karamu seedlings, which have become common on Flame Tree Bank since 2022.
Juvenile Carex lambertiana, released Jan 2024 from Tradescantia regrowth and creeping buttercup
These 4 modest finds are all well-situated among 2-3 year-old native regen not likely to be overtaken by weed, drought or flood, and while not extraordinary or even of note in other situations, they indicate significant progress here.
A very weedy site gives enormous rewards, through the contrast of ugliness, waste and destruction with the harmony seen in emerging native plant communities, and the lush growth in sheltered soil enriched with the composting weed material.
We hope to find time to present some other views of Gahnia Grove before, during and after the ongoing restoration.
In 2018 we started to notice yuccas growing wild in local native forest reserves. The ones we saw were either hidden among native trees or inaccessible down steep banks or cliffs.
2018: Wild yucca tree growing on the Kaipatiki Road side bank of Kaipatiki Stream
So when we saw these unfamiliar seedlings near the Kaipatiki Walkway along the estuarine shore, we suspected yucca.
We found a larger group of them a bit further downstream. Having been assured by botanists they were not native, we pulled out some of the larger group.
To find out what they were, we had to do some research. It included watching those seedlings until they were larger, but also, unexpectedly, finding a few unidentifiable hard-as-rock seeds dropped by kereru in our own garden,
then planting and growing these seeds on in a pot until they could be identified by an expert. (The one pictured above was dropped still encased in its fruity outer casing, but we opened it and found the same hard seed inside).
Turns out they were the same new invasive species as the unfamiliar seedlings we had found on the Kaipatiki estuary … Dragon tree (Dracaena draco).
The following year we found, identified and uprooted a single dragon tree seedling in the youngest outer edge, still mostly manuka, of Eskdale Forest.
And the next year, two more…and a single seed, (with several bangalow seeds, under the growing myna roost…which may be relevant?)
We suppose we should not be surprised that the kereru, lover of the fruits of nikau, puriri, karaka and taraire, nowadays finds as many if not more fruits on bangalow, Phoenix and queen palms; and instead of a side-dish of tataramoa, porokaiwhiri or kohia, the kereru swallows … and delivers by air … the seeds that will become yucca and dragon trees.
This year we found a single seedling further inside the forest…under the taller kanuka, which have now successfully burst through the canopy of the naturally-dying-out manuka.
Not a problem for our local ecology as long as every corner of every reserve, including gullies, streambanks and cliffs, is tended with care by an eagle-eyed weed seedling spotter.
