Busy winter working bees
- Admin
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Winter is not the time to hibernate for the many care groups at Ohiwa Harbour. The busy planting season was kicked offf by the Hurike Care Group on 6 July 2025 at the eastern banks of the harbour. Jim and Nikki Robinson's Trees That Count (TTC) project has been running for six years across their own and neighbouring properties, all adjacent to the Hurike Care Group area. This year's planting took place on the property at the corner of Reeves Road/Ohiwa Loop Road and Reeves Road Extension. About 1,000 TTC trees and trees from Jim's nursery were planted on the hillside.
Just over the hill from Hurike Ruatuna-Pukeruru Care Group member Carol recently spotted a Matuku-hūrepo, or Bittern, on Ōhiwa Loop Road. This is the first time a Bittern has been spotted there in five years and so a very exciting occasion. The large, endangered birds inhabit wetlands throughout New Zealand. Bittern have an unusual behaviour of freezing in an upright posture when disturbed, including on roads. Therefore, they are prone to injury by cars. A sign was erected to warn motorists to watch out for the Bittern.
The Ōhiwa Headland Sanctuary Trust (OHST) had 2,000 plants to dig into the ground in a recently fenced area of native forest, known as Greenwell Farms. The plants were available thanks to the support from Trees That Count and Toi Moana Bay of Plenty Regional Council. Over 40 people assisted with the planting on 20 July 2025 which covered three different sites (including wetland habitat) within the Ōhiwa Headland project area. This included volunteers from the local community, St Cuthbert's students and teachers, as well as members of the OHST operations team.
Walking up through the Ōhiwa Domain one emerges out of the bush to a magnificent view of the harbour. This is also the location of the Ōhiwa Reserves Care Group’s rare coastal plant collection. Coastlands Native Plant Nursery recently donated one new plant to the collection, Rauhuia, the New Zealand Linen Flax (Linum Monogynum), a low growing woody subshrub, and replaced four other shrub species. There are now over 20 different species represented within the rare plant collection. The group was also involved in this year’s Ōhiwa Matariki night walk which was well attended on a beautiful still starlit night. Hemi Barsdell gave a talk over hot chocolate about the constellations at the rare coastal plant collection.
The last phase of the care group’s wetland regeneration project, started a few years ago, was completed with the planting of approx. 120 Kahikatea at the top end of the wetland. These are growing well and in 100 years will return to a magnificent Kahikatea forest.
Another grove of Kahikatea was started on the eastern side of the headland a few years ago. This winter almost 30 volunteers got stuck in at Onekawa Te Mawhai Regional Park and planted about 500 more Kahikatea in a few hours. Most of the volunteers were from the Bryans Beach community keen to help complete the last major chunk of afforestation at the Regional Park, returning a wet lowland paddock back to a forest of Kahikatea and Manuka. Going forward more plants will go into the ground, particularly in places where pest plants have been removed.
Across to Ōhope the Ōhope Harbourside Walkway Care Group held their annual planting day on 26 July 2025. In just about 1.5 hours 16 volunteers managed to plant 215 plants, including manuka, flax, coastal tree daisy, hebe, ti kouka, karamu, coastal five finger and taupata. Most of the volunteers were Rotary Club members. They welcomed a group of ‘Interact’ students from Trident High School helping out with the planting as well. This year’s planting was held at Otao Reserve next to the harbourside trail.
For more information on the care groups at Ōhiwa Harbour and how to get involved, see here.
