Volunteers branch out on Arbor Day

The bedding down of native plants in Greytown on Saturday sealed a series of Arbor Day 2012 events in the town, which was the first in New Zealand to mark the occasion.

The first Arbor Day planting in New Zealand was held in Greytown on July 3, 1890.

At O'Connor's Bush in Soldiers Memorial Park on Saturday the Friends of the Park group and other volunteers dug in a collection of 100 native plants, including white-flowering New Zealand clematis for the archway to the area, said Friends spokeswoman Kay Gray.

Mrs Gray said more than 20 people were involved in Saturday's planting, which was the climax of a series of events this year to mark Arbor Day.

A display that ran until last week had opened at the Greytown Town Centre on June 29, she said, and was supported by Friends of the Park, Department of Conservation, Greytown Primary School, and the New Zealand Tree Crops Association.

Award-winning botanist and author Philip Simpson gave a public presentation in the centre and led a tour focused on trees at O'Connor's Bush and the Greytown park camping ground.

Mr Simpson was a founding trustee of Project Crimson, which aims to protect pohutukawa and rata, and in 1999 was appointed as South Island advisor for the project after 20 years with the Department of Conservation.

He wrote Pohutukawa and Rata: New Zealand's Iron Hearted Trees and Dancing Leaves: the story of New Zealand's Cabbage Tree, Ti Kouka.

Mrs Gray said weather had forced the postponement of a Matariki planting on June 29 although the next day there had been an Arbor Day planting of apple trees in Stella Bull Park in the town.

Kuranui College pupils had dug holes at O'Connor's Bush before the holiday break and had eased the lot for workers, she said, who completed the planting in about an hour on Saturday.