Trees make up a large part of our approach to land management on this challenging 5.1 hectare property. We plant trees to prevent erosion. We plant trees to protect stream banks. We plant trees for fruit. We plant trees for stock fodder. We plant nurse trees to protect other trees. We plant native trees for biodiversity. We plant trees for shade. We plant trees to bees.

In a nutshell, we love planting trees. Oh wait, we plant trees for nuts too!

Winter is when we plant most of our trees and this year is no exception. We’ve been planting native trees on the valley sides above Purua Stream. Here is a bucket of trees ready to be planted.

Of course I also brought along a little treat for my helpers. Our kune kune pigs eat much of the grass around the trees we plant so they won’t get covered by the fast growing grass come springtime.

When the pigs came to find the scraps I had thrown for them a small flock of piwakawaka appeared. They eat flying insects that were disturbed by the pigs and I.

Here is an image for some trees in the nursery waiting to be planted out.

On a shelf above the stream I’ve planted a small avocado orchard where there is some well drained soil. When young the avos need protection from high winds, frosts and sunburn, so I planted tagasaste as nurse trees, which also add nitrogen to the soil.

Here you can see a small avo tree under larger tagasastes.

We also need to protect the avocado trees from possums.

As the avocado trees get older they are more frost and sun tolerant. While they grow upward I can selectively prune tagasaste branches, which are taken in winter to the goats as a treat. They love it!

See below an image of the valley before we started our native and orchard plantings. Notice the shed on the left and the large manuka on the right, as well as the tree stump in the foreground.

I’ve marked those same landmarks in the image below so you can see the difference.

Here is a reverse angle looking back up the hillside. It may be hard to pic out the trees as most of them are small – and my camera is not very good.

We’ve planted a lot of trees over the nine years we’ve been on the farm and we seem to just keep planting more!

Kia Kaha!