Tree Planting in Makara Peak

As you will recall, our house is right next to a huge mountain bike park and nature reserve, called Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park. It is a beautiful place to ride, although most of the trails involve much too much risk of bodily harm for my taste. We enjoy hiking in it, however, and are deeply appreciative of its role in providing a wonderful ecosystem for native plants and birds. Several of our neighbours are very involved in keeping Makara Peak as pristine, inviting, and healhty as possible, and this Sunday, they invited other neighbourhood helpful-types to come and plant some baby trees. J and I decided that we could be helpful-types for a bit, and headed up the Rimu Track, which starts right next to our house, and then onto the Miro Track, where the planting was focused. 

More skilled helpful-types than us were working with a digger, although I confess that I got distracted and didn't actually ask what they were doing with it. I know that they're creating a brand new path somewhere in the park, so perhaps it's to do with that?

Heading out to find some seedlings that need planting.

First we planted some Northern Rata, a native tree that we actually read about not too long ago, after having realized that many people (including us unless recently) call all trees with bright red starburst flowers Pōhutakawa trees, but actually many of them around here are Northern or Southern Rata. The Northern Rata is actually the one that is native to Wellington, so it's the natural choice to plant here.

This is what that cute little baby tree will look like all grown up.

Next, we planted some Miro trees (hence the name of the track, although we'd gone on past it by then), and some Kohekohe trees.

(Sorry for the blurry picture. These trees like shadier spots, and this was a great one for them, but not ideal for clear pictures.)

A grown-up Miro...

... and a grown-up Kohekohe.

The soil was very rocky (or it might be more accurate to say that there was some soil between the rocks), so J had his work cut out for him digging holes big enough for the baby trees.

But what lovely little additions to the woods they are once we get them in! We'll have to keep visiting them over the next few months and years and see how they grow!

Kudos to everyone who works so hard to keep this park the incredible natural space that it is. We just barely dipped our feet into the colossal amount of work that goes on, and we're truly appreciative of everyone who does it regularly. We'll be up for more tree-planting next time!