Theresa Vujcich, one of a team of around 15 volunteers who work weekly in Kerikeri’s Shade House.
A self-funding volunteer community group in Kerikeri called The Shade House has just celebrated 25 years since its inception.
The social services enterprise grows plants and seedlings for rehabilitation projects from landcare groups to private groups and farmers wanting to plant in riparian areas. The scope of the enterprise covers the Far North, Whangaroa and Russell.
They operate from a 50-year-old relic of the Lands and Survey (L&S) Department building but L&S never propagated plants there because nurseries were not the department’s core business.
A small volunteer group under Selwyn O’Kell grew a limited number of plants and species which contributed to early planting on Motupapa Island. In May 2000, when Rod Brown (who is still the Shade House co-ordinator) started the Shade House with Jo Hill as the propagator, even that minimal activity had ceased.
A group of about 10 people was formed and a learning process commenced. In the first year they managed to distribute 3700 plants.
The strongly built Shade House structure remains intact after about 50 years but every aspect is now much modified. It is a team environment with the dedicated team members having a long-term commitment, many for more than 10 years.
Everything is done without power on the site. They rely on batteries for watering 25,000 plants each year. Some plants take a year, season to season, before being planted out, it depends on the species, while with others it can be up to three years.
They are all ecologically sourced, there are a few seed collectors – people bring the seeds in – and the Shade House prefers to collect from forest growing trees not backyard trees and from areas where they know there are original species.
The powerhouse of the operation is the seed house and its diversity is huge, spanning about 65 different species from coastal sand dune species right through to the tall trees such as pūriri.
Kauri has a short germination period for such a massive tree and karaka can be held over for a couple of years.
One sample came from “Gorse Island” in the Bay of Islands. In this instance, gorse does not refer to a specific island in the bay but, rather, to the gorse plant (Ulex europaeus), an invasive European species that is found on many islands and coastlines in the area, including the Bay of Islands.
Gorse was introduced to New Zealand by settlers but became a widespread problem because of its ability to invade and spread rapidly through the landscape.
While it is often seen as a pest, its flowers also provide valuable early pollen for beekeepers and gorse can contribute to native forest regeneration.
When the samples arrive at the Shade House, they are recorded, labelled with their place of origin, the eco district is noted and who collected it and there’s a collection calendar that shows when to collect the seeds. They are then taken outside to harden up under a Clearlite plastic roof before being bagged for distribution.
There is a crew of about 15 volunteers to call on. They come in every Thursday for about four hours a day, nothing is particularly regulated and the volunteers seem to find their own place within the system.
A quarter of a century ago the Shade House fundraised like every other volunteer group with support from DoC and an annual grant from Project Crimson. They gave plants away for free.
Today they place a value on the work of growing high-quality plants wanted by customers at a low price. This freed the volunteer team from the grind of fundraising and the risk that threatens most volunteer organisations, that of going out of business.
Since they began charging modestly for the plants, there is a steady revenue stream and they have invested annually in capital and operating improvements.
In the last 25 years the Shade House team have supported 104 separate restoration projects in Northland, distributed 415,500 native plants and have so far donated $89,500 to other needy community conservation groups.
Russell waterfront gets new seats
Recently The Strand along Russell’s waterfront has acquired several new seats.
In a collaboration between the local Menz Shed, which did the work, and Little Lots, Far North Holdings and Placemakers Seating Group, two more seats were installed last week.
The new seats were the result of the pop-up consultation process with the community over the past year. New seating was one of the top requests to emerge from that procedure.
An audit was taken of existing seats, which are in a variety of styles, including an assortment of benches and Victorian-style seats with slats and decorative metal frames. Many of the seats needed cleaning and some of the slabs by the wharf were rotten.
The Menz Shed committee decided they didn’t want to add another new style of seating to The Strand, they wanted seats that would use natural materials and be as visually low-key as possible. They wanted them to be readily used by those with disabilities and above all, there was a limited budget.
New wooden slabs or benches are now in place, including a new “Old Man’s Seat”. They all have cleverly designed “feet”, which have been created to account for the various slopes on which they sit.
The two new seats had a pair of the original slabs from seats by the wharf, which had been reconditioned and cleaned. They add to the five new seats already installed along The Strand.
The large concrete slabs under some of the other old seats were determined to be a safety hazard with their high edges, and not attractive. There will eventually be landscaping, soil, and grassing around these to make them safer and so they blend in more sympathetically.
The benches will not present the splinter risk that required a plastic warning sign attached to them by the Lyttelton Coastguard building that writer Joe Bennett mused on recently.
“One’s first thought, naturally, is that a series of the old, the young, the infirm and so on have sat on one or other of the offending benches, felt a sudden exquisite pain, leapt from the bench clutching a gently bleeding buttock …” he wrote.
The Russell Menz Shed committee consisted of David McKenzie, Brett Avery, Caroline Hicks, Bob Drey, David Lester and several other volunteer workers.