August 2023 – North Shore Wilds

August 27, 2023May 26, 2025

Availability for new clients

Chemical-free weed control for two of our major garden restorations has now been completed and those projects now only need monthly maintenance. This means we will have 8-10 hours a week free for an intensive start to one or two new garden restoration projects where some rapid transformation is needed in addition to the longer term transition to a low-maintenance outdoor environment.

Learn more about our garden services, w hat to expect, and how we do it.

Below: the narrow space between house and fence (1.5m including a paving block path, out of view in the foreground) has been transformed from kikuyu, bare clay and weed trees to native shrubs and trees that need only annual pruning to maintain access along the path directly beneath the windows, from where the residents can watch kereru, tui and songthrushes eating kawakawa fruit in summer.

Foreground left is a nikau, about 10 years old and a metre high. Each year for the next 20 years, one of its 2 or 3 new leaves a year will grow towards the house, obstructing the path, but in this seldom-used area it can be pushed aside, or if necessary tied back or even cut off.

Much later, it will present only a single trunk, and each year two or three of the leaves, canopying the path and surrounding garden from above, will fall to the ground and be carried down the back to add to the natural environment (and invertebrate habitat) under larger trees.

There’s nothing more splendid to watch from your kitchen table than a kereru feasting on nikau fruit an arm’s length away, but if the big leaves are not for you you could skip the nikau and just have karamu, kawakawa and smaller shrubs and groundcovers, such as the sedges (Carex lambertiana) shown here. A couple of seedlings planted here have multiplied themselves by both seed and division, and will continue to spread until they cover the ground without further intervention.

August 26, 2023May 26, 2025

North Shore Wilds garden services

We started this business just before Christmas last year, encouraged by comments from people who have enjoyed watching the progress of Gahnia Grove, the restoration project in Eskdale Reserve which we began in 2018 for pleasure and for our own further research into the most economical way to control weeds and restore the plant communities native to this area.

Our methods of restoring or creating outdoor order and beauty are very different from what is commonly practised commercially.

For example, Phoenix palm seedlings quickly become deeply rooted. We never dig them out. The photo below shows two of them, each controlled within seconds by knotting its few leaves.

Learn more about what to expect, based on our experience over the year and the feedback of our customers:

What to expect

August 25, 2023March 30, 2026

Public projects

North Shore Wilds is an independent landcare and conservation education enterprise owned and operated by Jenny Christianson. Prior to advertising the current services of North Shore Wilds to the public, as a resident she initiated and led two well-known restoration projects on land owned by the public and managed by North Shore City Council until 2009 then by Auckland Council:

2019: Kaipatiki Stream viewed from the footbridge of the Native Plant Trail, entry on Kaipatiki Rd opposite Glenfield College's tennis courts.

1997-2002

Kaipatiki Creek Restoration Project,

Witheford Scenic Reserve and Kaipatiki Esplanade Reserve, Kaipatiki Rd, Glenfield

2018 – ongoing

Gahnia Grove Chemical-free Restoration Methodology Trial Project

Eskdale Reserve, Glenfield Rd, in the neighbourhood of Glenfield, Hillcrest and Birkenhead

August 24, 2023March 30, 2026

Native restoration through wild revegetation

Wild revegetation does not disturb existing plant roots or soil, is generally perfectly sited both in terms of its genetic adaptation to the area and the micro-site. Compared to seedlings grown in a loose potting mix, wild seedlings have diverse root structures developed to follow the micro-channnels of moisture, nutrients and sub-surface fungal networks, holding them fast to dense clay and making them resilient to drought. They are also the survivors of the battle to germinate and grow at all, often among hundreds of seeds which failed.

And the first wild regeneration is, naturally enough, largely composed of the “pioneer” species; those that are hardy, resilient and quick-growing, producing the shelter and shade, and eventually a low canopy, for longer-lived and more sensitive species.

Provided for free through handweeding, and needing no transportation or planting, wild seedlings and sporelings are the most cost-effective way to cover an area with a diverse locally-native plant community.

But where there is a large space to fill as quickly as possible, the planting of some larger specimens will definitely hasten the development of full soil coverage — ie shade and protection for wild regeneration, and habitat for critters… and reduce weed reinvasion.

In bare, ie weeded, areas where you can easily dig a trowel-depth for easy planting of a small plant, it can be well worthwhile.

As to a wider variety of suitable plants, you will find lots of suggestions from the people who sell them

Shrubby toatoa/Haloragis erecta – the busiest volunteer, and the restorationist’s friend

This modest plant was pointed out to me on the Kaipatiki Creek restoration site in 1998 by NZ native nursery pioneer Geoff Davidson : a very quick growing and self-spreading short-live perennial, extremely beneficial in restoration as it provides shelter that nurses wild or planted seedlings.

The bright green foliage is very pretty when bushy and leafy.

It gets leggy in the the first year or two, but can be kept compact with pruning if time permits. The stems are slender, becoming woody after about a year, when they can be snapped off or pruned with secateurs or shears, maintaining their leafiness if wanted, for instance in an ornamental garden border.

The tiny red flowers of toatoa are not obvious, but the bush acquires a reddish colour as the seeds mature.

toatoa seeds almost ready to drop or be collected

An unpruned toatoa bush in full sun in moist soil can grow up to 2 metres high, but they are often kept smaller by the development of surrounding vegetation, and even the well-fed specimens usually die out out after a few years, exposing the native seedlings which by that time will be up to about a metre high, large enough for pioneer species like karamu, manuka or ti kouka (cabbage tree) to look after themselves.

Once you have it in your garden or forest margin, hundreds of seedlings will arise wherever soil is undisturbed under the toatoa plant itself or between other plants, with full or partial light.

toatoa seedlings in Tradescantia — two toatoa seedlings, centre, in Tradescantia

seedlings of Haloragis erecta (shrubby toatoa)

The seedlings are easily transplanted to new areas when small.

August 24, 2023May 26, 2025

More about dragon trees

There are some fascinating photos and information about their history in Auckland on the Auckland Museum website:

https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/collections/topics/the-mystery-of-the-dragon-tree

We have not noticed – or perhaps not recognised – an adult dragon tree in the Kaipatiki area, and wonder where the birds are getting these seeds? Does anyone know of a mature Dracaena draco (dragon tree) in the Glenfield/Birkdale area?

Of course, the parent tree does not need to be close by, as kereru can fly up to 20km and back to feed. From our own observation, kereru droppings usually contain the undigested portion – eg seeds – from a very recent meal. But maybe dragon tree seeds take a while to be excreted.

Anyway we would be interested to hear if there are dragon trees growing in this neighbourhood…and if so, whether many seedlings are being found in the gardens around them.

Learn more about our chemical-free garden and forest restoration services, how we do it, and subscribe for emailed post updates.

August 20, 2023May 26, 2025

Yuccas and Dragon trees grow wild in local forest edges

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.

August 12, 2023August 13, 2023

More about Kawakawa – male flowers fully mature now!

This male kawakawa tree on the forest edge now has fully mature flowers, some with the pollen being shed as a white dust, coating leaves … and hands:

Meanwhile, in our garden the male flowers don’t have much pollen dust yet.

If you look really closely at the flowers on the female trees you can see the little receptacles that will receive the pollen from the male trees.

The black dots that form on the female flowers will eventually become seeds once the fruits are ripe in Spring or Summer.

In late Spring the kereru will start visiting daily to check out the fruit for ripeness

starting the season by eating the orange ends of partially ripe ones

August 2, 2023May 26, 2025

Is my Kawakawa tree male or female?

Last week, visiting an area we had freed from honeysuckle and other weeds in 2019, we were delighted to see the first flowering of a male kawakawa.

We were surprised to see it mature so soon after we had planted it in 2020 as a 10 cm high seedling.

The same tree is pictured below, then 20-30cm high, in December 2020. Beside it are wild native Weeping grass, toatoa, and (behind, on the remnants of a harakeke shade fence) the common harmless weed “cleavers”.

Both in the wild and in our home garden, we love to see the Kawakawa flowers forming each year, the female trees promising to attract kereru once fruit have formed in early Summer.

We see two distinct forms in the flowers, because kawakawa is one of those trees that can be either male or female. Both produce long thin flower spikes – the tiny dots are flowers -but only the female produces fruit.

The flower spikes of male trees are longer, thinner and upright, like candlesticks. Below are male kawakawa in various stages of flowering:

In contrast, the flower spikes on female trees are shorter and stouter, and in Summer will gradually turn entirely orange to become a soft, juicy fruit enjoyed by blackbirds, thrushes, tui and kereru.

Below are female kawakawa trees with fruit in various stages of development:

kereru have already eaten the riper ends of some of these partially ripe fruit

This year we will try to remember to get a good photo of fully ripe fruit. Finding a whole fully ripe fruit in this tree can be difficult, since at least one kereru checks out the unripe crop each year, visiting frequently thereafter to nibble on a few unripe fruit. Once the fruit reach the partially-ripe stage pictured above, one or several kereru visit the tree many times a day, and spend a lot of time in it eating.