Wiremū St Reserve- Tūrangi

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Kids Greening Taupō received funding from Waikato Regional Council in 2024, which allowed us to begin working in Tūrangi. We were excited to start making Tūrangi even more beautiful for people and wildlife! In September 2024 we joined Brenna from Taupō District Council and worked with tamariki from Te Kura O Hirangi and Tongariro School to put almost 150 native plants in the ground in the Wiremū St Reserve. Our coordinator, Rachel taught the students about some of our special native plants, their traditional uses, and how they fit into the ecosystem. The students also enjoyed taking out some big invasive weeds - broom, gorse, cotoneaster, blackberry, and flowering cherries and then having an ice-cream for their hard work!

It was a fun day with a great group of enthusiastic young people. In fact, the tamariki and kaiako from Te Kura o Hirangi were so enthusiastic, that they contacted us a short time later to organise another planting day, this time at their kura.

Then, in Term 4, we all met up again to mulch around the plants to give them a better chance of surviving the spring weed growth and the summer weather. Our coordinators explained to them how mulch helps by smothering weeds, keeping moisture in, and providing nutrients to the plants as it decomposes.

The students enjoyed clearing the weeds around the planting site too. They used loppers to cut down broom, flowering cherry trees, cotoneaster, and other weedy trees. They also pulled out huge amounts of montbretia bulbs that were beginning to smother their plants. The learnt about how garden plants can ‘escape’ by birds eating their berries and pooping them out in native forests, by seeds being spread on the wind, or by garden waste being thrown into reserves. They could see how quickly these plants could take over the space that their native plants needed.

It is so fantastic to see these young people becoming the kaitiaki of this space. Through their mahi they are learning about the importance of our native plants, and about the introduced plants that compete with them.

2025

In 2025 the fun continued! We checked on the plants each term, weeding, mulching and infill planting. It was great to see the almost 100% survival rate for these plants! The students have done an awesome job of keeping the many weeds around the edges away from the plants, and it was great to see lots of self seeded native plants popping up in the site. The tamariki truly have become kaitiaki of this area.

In Term 4 it was wonderful to see the students run excitedly to see their ‘babies’ - the plants that they planted last year. They checked on them, carefully weeded around them and then mulched a protective blanket around them. The tamariki from Te Kura o Hirangi and Tongariro School were also excited to reconnect with each other. They worked together to pull flowering cherry seedlings, then move two huge piles of mulch, one bucket at a time to their planting area. The mulch blanket suppresses weeds in the spring, locks in moisture for the summer, keeps the plant warm in the winter and provides nutrition for the plant all year round. It is very magical stuff!

After their hard work was done, they were rewarded with an ice cream, scooped by Shannon from TDC. Our coordinators shared stories about the pīpīwharauroa (shining cuckoo) that they could hear calling, and the spittle bugs that they found all around them. It was a fun day of learning, nature connection, and improving the local environment.