August 2023 – North Shore Wilds

August 27, 2023September 4, 2023

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, 2023August 26, 2023

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 24, 2023August 24, 2023

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, 2023August 28, 2023

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, 2023August 4, 2023

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.