A team of volunteers have been propagating native plants from locally gathered seed since 2006. Over the first ten years our focus has been on the production of colonising species, including mahoe, kanuka, manuka, cabbage tree, karamu together with a few canopy species for a bit of a challenge.

Now that older plantings are maturing, and conditions changing in favour of the re-establishment of more canopy trees, we are exploring catchment tributaries for good specimen trees to gather seed from. Many tributaries have very few canopy trees, and re-establishment of pockets of ‘forest’ trees are essential to kick start the ecological succession process. They also provide additional food sources for birds, woody debris for streams and many other ecosystem services.