Curator's Page
From the Curator
I know I keep going on about the weather but if it's not one it's the other. After one of the driest summers on record, May was 1mm short of the wettest on record. It is certainly a risky business if one decides to stray off the gravel paths!
That aside it was still a good autumn, although the colours were not as good as in previous years due to the drought and then rain in mid April and this was also reflected in the visitor numbers for the season. One tree that stood out for autumn colour this year was the Japanese maples. As these colour up much later, usually mid May, they were not affected so much by the weather and were absolutely stunning. It is something to bear in mind for future planting programs, choosing species that colour up later in the season there by missing that unsettled weather we tend to get in April.
I am also pleased to say that Stage 1 of our collection review (the mapping of all specimen trees shrubs and climbers in the arboretum) is finished. The Native Reserve proved to be our 'Everest' with a combination of steep slopes, thick undergrowth and vague records of plantings meant progress was slow and even went backwards sometimes!!! We ended up mapping a total of just under 12,500 trees in the arboretum, with a breakdown of 4,443 young, 3,120 semi-mature, 4,339 mature and 303 over-mature trees.
The next stage of the review program is an evaluation program which will entail going back through the collection and scoring each and every tree on a number of different criteria to establish which trees are worth retaining and which can and should be removed. As with the mapping I don't envisage completing this stage any time soon!
One of the highlights this year has been the successful rearing of an injured native wood pigeon, which we found with a broken wing in late February. It is happily flying around the Homestead Garden although doesn't venture too far as it gets hassled by other wood pigeons, magpies and the odd hawk. It has also been great to involve our local school showing the children a wood pigeon close, telling them why they are so important to our native bush being one of the only birds left which can eat the larger seeds of plants like the karaka, tawa, taraire and puriri and what we can do to help them.
Paul Wynen
Curator
Photo Section
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- Paul Kenny measuring trees to enter on the mapping program.
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- Getting up close and personal with kuku.
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- Children heading off on the Code Breaker Trail on the Family Fun Day held in April.
- The Japanes maple may be a common tree but it is a tree that never fails to inspire.