The challenge of revegetation
It is simply amazing what can be achieved by a hard working group of people, and it is often only after the work has finished and you walk back to the starting position that it becomes fully apparent. In the case of this tree and shrub planting day a stretch of river bank land some 500 metres long and 15 metres wide had about 500 plants put in. The plants came from a $500 NRM South grant.
The soil was quite dry and follow up watering will be very important. Unfortunately, other tasks take up PWS staff time, which relegates watering well down the list. Rather than leave it to luck, we will need to schedule some trips there if the dry conditions persist through summer.
This is just one of the challenges we face trying to revegetate sites on this cleared land that for some reason has not seen natural regrowth in any significant volume. Native animal browsing is a factor, but flooding, disease and some unexplained losses have all contributed to making the undertaking quite a challenge.
Getting these latest native plants also had a setback with vandalism of the Understory nursery, resulting in wrecked stock just a few days before they were due to be collected. Enough could be salvaged and together with those from another nursery meant we had ample to put in the ground.
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