Robert Smith and Michelle Hicks are determined to rid Hawke's Bay of the moth plant - one pod at a time. Video / Warren Buckland
Robert Smith is armed with gloves, secateurs, plastic bags and an extension pole sporting a claw.
He’s on a mission - to free Hawke’s Bay of the moth plant.
Four years ago he found a vine of the invasive weed growing over a fence from his neighbour’s property. He knewit wasn’t a good plant and pulled it out.
And so began a journey to rid Hawke’s Bay of a “pretty nasty thing”, a pest that slowly strangles shrubs and trees.
Moth plants have distinctive green pods that dry out and upon opening, release thousands of seeds that are captured by the wind and can grow almost anywhere.
Its stems contain a poisonous milky sap that irritates skin.
Native to South America, the plant (Asclepiadaceae Araujia Hortorum) was brought to New Zealand as an ornamental species during the 1880s. The weed is supposed to trap codling moths, the number one pest for apples and pears, which is how the plant got its name.
Robert Smith removes a distinctive, and potentially destructive, moth plant pod in Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
Moth plants are butterfly killers too, Smith says. Drawn to the plant by its pretty flowers, the butterflies can get stuck in the sap, dehydrate and die.
Seeing dead monarch butterflies under a moth plant next door was enough for Michelle Hicks to want to do something about it.
“People think that caterpillars like them and can eat them, but they can’t. It clogs up their systems.”
Hicks knew Smith’s passion to rid Hawke’s Bay of the dreaded moth plant and made contact with an offer of help.
Robert Smith and Michelle Hicks are on a mission to eradicate the moth plant and its pods. Photo / Warren Buckland
When the pair find a vine, the seed pods are pulled off.
“They can’t be composted. We put the pods into a plastic bag supplied by Hastings District Council and they go into landfill. Then we find where the root is and either pull it out or poison it.”
Smith says from a seedling, the weed could be making seed pods within a year. He says he has go back to the same place he pulled a plant out of as often as four times a year.
Though Smith says they are confident they can eradicate the pest in Hawke’s Bay, his parting quip sums up the struggle.
