A successful 2026 Matariki community tree planting season

Aug 26
5 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

With spring right around the corner, what signs of the seasonal transition are you fondly noticing, or anticipating? Lately I have been seeing more kererū perching on power lines near the base of Takarunga, and in the coastal fringe trees along the inner estuary at Wakakura and Jutland Reserves. I look forward to a kōwhai in full bright colour with tūī calling frenetically and feeding in the branches. Insect life is now more active and more visible, and I will be on the lookout for a mokomoko, perhaps a copper skink, warming itself in a sunny patch of forest!

This time of year we also notice that a new cycle has started in the nursery. Very few large seedlings remain, because most of them have been planted! Spring means the end of the planting season and the beginning of a new cycle: growing more seedlings, identifying new restoration projects (and maintaining the sixty or so active project areas!), devising new planting plans that go through a review process with our community park ranger and various Auckland Council specialists, and consulting maramaraka, preparing calendars and gathering materials for the 2027 planting season. It is also a time to reflect on the season that has been.

Matariki: the season in numbers

Well over 4,000 native plant seedlings have been planted across 25 restoration planting projects.

More than half of those were tree species, covering some 35 species. Another 700 seedlings or so were woody shrubs across 11 species, and the remainder were the important sedges, grasses, forbs, ferns and woody lianas that knit a young forest, protect edges or stream banks, and restore wetlands.

Some are pioneer species such as mānuka, kānuka and koromiko, as you would expect. But we deliberately, and optimistically, use as wide a variety of plant species as the ecological conditions suggest, in the hope of jump-starting biodiversity. Often we are starting from diversity-poor mown lawn, so every species we add is a step away from where the site began.

This year we planted 13 pōhutukawa alongside other characteristic species of our coastal pūriri forests. We have only recently been able to plant and sell pōhutukawa from our nursery, thanks to Plant Pass certification, which helps ensure our seedlings do not carry myrtle rust into the reserves.

Enrichment planting

Alongside the new planting areas, we carry out continuous enrichment planting: adding tree species such as mataī, porokaiwhiri, towai, tawa and patē into existing bush reserves and into restoration projects that are already established. Enrichment planting is slower and quieter work than a big community planting day, but it is how a young restoration site gradually gains the structure and species mix of a mature forest.

A few of this season’s more special plantings:

• 13 neinei

• 8 kotukutuku

• tawapou, tūrepo, kūmarahou, mingimingi, kohia, parapara, patē, and more

Community planting days

Our community planting days over Matariki were a real success. Not only did we have enthusiastic volunteers taking part, many of them new to the kaupapa, but for the most part we had lovely weather. We finished each planting with tasty soup and bread, generously made by RTH staff and donated by Daily Bread. Enjoying kai together is part of our tikanga, and it brings real warmth and a sense of wellbeing and community to a morning’s work.

A highlight for many of us was our uru harakeke planting overlooking the Oneoneroa Repo Project at Philomel Reserve. We got special permission to remove harakeke “pups” from the plants on Maungaūika from Mana Whenua through the Tūpuna Maunga Authority. These are very special varieties from pa sites around the region, under the guidance of our raranga weaving specialist kuia Jan Mason, with tīkanga support from our kaumatua Danny Watson. After a beautiful day of planting, the volunteers were welcomed onto He Manu Hopukia Marae with beautiful kai afterwards in the whare kai.

We have welcomed many of those Matariki volunteers onto our regular weekday volunteer gatherings, both on the eco-corridors and at the nursery.

Team, school, corporate, and added Hauraki planting days

Two mornings and one afternoon each week, our eco-corridor teams were hard at work with infill and enrichment planting, or finishing off work begun on the community planting days. These amazing volunteers are the true heroes of our eco-corridor restoration work!

Increasing the leadership for these teams is community from our volunteer leaders like Helen Ryan, Kathy Farguhar, Jed Tapp, and, of course, our long-time eco-corridor champion Anne McMillan. As usual, we had several schools participate in our tree planting season.

Several corporate and community teams, including a group from Babcock and Engeo, helped with stream restoration and infill planting at Jutland Reserve.

Planting and other teamwork in Hauraki, including Jutland and Charles Reserves, is developing. We seek a regular team there to keep up with the restoration projects in that area!

Nursery seedlings go beyond the peninsula

Of course, our nursery team meeting three times each week is also key to our restoration successes. So much growing and learning happens around Ngau-te-ringaringa Community Nursery and our newly built education space (more on that soon!). Sunday sessions from 10am to 12pm are completely volunteer-led, allowing more people than would otherwise be able to participate. Zane and the nursery team have delivered trees from our nursery to planting projects around the region, including for our friends and collaborators at the Pupuke Birdsong Project and the Tūpuna Maunga Authority. I participated in a tree planting event at Maungarei (Mt Wellington) - so exciting to see some of our nursery seedings planted at that special place! It’s also been great having the Pupuke Birdsong team coming and going from the nursery over the planting season and knowing their volunteer teams are also busy planting trees!

Looking ahead

So as spring arrives, the RTH teams find ourselves in transition from the tree planting season into a new cycle of planning and other eco-restoration work.

Do you know of an area that could support a restored forest ecosystem on the peninsula? We would be delighted to consider broad possibilities as we build our understanding of the process of local ecological restoration, monitoring, and building community learning.

As more and more people take part, both at our community days, regular team events each week and as local guardians, we are better able to keep up with restoration planting and maintenance, and we will increasingly see te taiao, our local wildlife and ecosystems, flourish.

Let us know if you want to get involved with planning and preparations for next year! And get ready to dig in with us when the next planting season rolls around in May 2027. In the meantime, don’t wait that long, get involved this spring! www.rth.org/events