SOSSI and Tuesday volunteers have completed a major upgrade of the Sossi nursery, with financial support from Auckland Council and Pub Charity.
New hopperThis has created a more efficient production unit for pricking out and bagging on new young seedlings as they arrive from the Botanic Gardens who are doing the seed propagation work for us. A new hopper has been constructed to feed potting mix directly onto the work table, saving time and reducing the back stress on volunteers. This work area is also now covered by a retractable canopy to protect from rain and sun. Nursery shadehouse A shade cloth covering for the “old nursery” area has also been built. This will give the newly bagged seedlings an initial good growing environment to settle down prior to being moved to the new standing out area where they will grow on until planting days next autumn.
We have committed to producing around 10,000 plants every year for re-vegetation planting so there is lots of work to be done, and new volunteers would be most welcome to help.
During the past year we have had automatic cameras doing a number of jobs or us – watching the pest-proof fence for any unwanted visitors, watching the seabird nesting boxes and watching some special sites for bell-birds. The photo right shows some recent activity near the seabird sites – a pair of fluttering shearwaters showing…
STOP PRESS: one more day to go, 17th August Thanks to the hard work of the teams at the SOSSI nursery and Botanic Gardens, we have about 19,000 plants to go in this year. This is about twice as many as last year so we need lots more volunteers to help to plant them….
While some types of ginger can look nice in your garden you’ll regret having any of the ‘wild’ gingers. Yellow ginger and kahili ginger were both introduced as garden plants but they quickly form dense and impenetrable mats of rhizomes which smother anything else. In the wild these can grow to a metre deep and…
There has been a significant incursion of Norway rats inside the Sanctuary in the last few months. Following the capture of an adult rat near the campground at the end of May, a series of juveniles was caught there and in the swampy gully nearby and toward Pink Beach. A standard pest incursion response was…
SOSSI founding Chairman Allan Parker passed away this Auckland Anniversary weekend. SOSSI management committee and Auckland Council representatives reflect on his involvement with Shakespear Open Sanctuary. Allan and Elaine Parker purchased a property on Everard Avenue adjoining the newly formed Shakespear Regional Park in the early 1970’s. At that stage the park was little but…
We now have North Island Robins at Shakespear Open Sanctuary. Many happy volunteers and Sossi members watched 20 robins released on Friday 8th April. This represented the end of the first stage of the translocation of North Island Robins to Shakespear Open Sanctuary. These robins were translocated from Mangatutu in the central North Island. This …