We are undertaking some grassing jobs and being July, we are using PGG Wrightson Sports Oval seed which contains three elite winter-active and hard wearing perennial rye grasses. We will monitor the germination and strike rate and report back. Seed sown 6th July

Lawn as at 26th July

We have recently installed 5 Vanguard wheelstops in a parking lot to help prevent vehicles driving into the concrete block wall. In recent years the top layer of blocks had been pushed out by up to 50mm by vehicles.

Maintenance work removing flaxes and trimming up the palm trees. Flaxes relocated to a nearby reserve rather than being disposed of.

Lomandra ‘Lime Tuff’ planted in stone garden adjacent to the house.

Ecolynx now offers a chipping service where we can chip your woody shrub and tree waste on an hourly rate. Stuart, Craig and Richard have their chainsaw certificates so we can undertake the cutting out work as well as chipping.

Where dedicated arboring work is required we have sub-contractors we use

Mignonette vine (also known as madeira vine) is a threat to native plants. It kills them by smothering them and blocking out available light. This vine is starting to spread in the Waikato region. It was originally introduced as an ornamental plant, but is now a ‘containment’ pest. This requires the removal of all mignonette vine plants.

We have been working with the Hamilton City Council at various sites in the city to firstly contain, by removing the vine or spraying it, and now to manage regrowth through spraying and collecting up any of the nodules we find on the ground.

Over the past month there has been an explosion of regrowth with some of the tendrils growing over a metre in length in just one month. Some of the vines we have cut out have been as thick as your wrist.

If you have this in your garden or neighbouring gully, please let us know. The nodules will grow when they drop to the gound.

In the wet again. This time it was pulling out reeds from Turtle Lake.

Whilst some of these were easy to pull up, many had to be dug out from the sandy base of the lake.  Now trying to keep the boat steady, and work with the spade handle at times under the surface of the water WAS A CHALLENGE. One of those types of difficult job scenarios that no-one else wants to do!

The local duck population took an avid interest in what we were doing.

Planting at Horsham Downs

Take a steep bank, line it with black weedmat, add some periods of light rain and clay and you have what at times seems like an ice skating rink. 3m below there is a soft landing – at least for as long as the ground below is wet!

We spent 4 days planting out 630 flaxes at Horsham Downs and wiring down the weedmat whilst tied off to our anchor points at the top of the embankment.

To help give the plants a positive start, we backfilled the planting holes with compost to which we had mixed in ‘Crystal Rain’. This is a moisture retention crystal which acts like a water reservoir that the plant can draw once the ground drys out.

We will be keeping a close watch on this project to assess the growing rate of the plants relative to others planted in close proximity.

Steps under construction

Dave, Richard and Craig worked with Tim Newton (Gully Restoration, Hamilton City Council) and others to build some steps from the Hamilton East Primary School down to one of the walkways through the adjacent gully.  This was a community project to improve access to the school grounds from the gully.

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Craig Cameron designed and built this garden in Trinidad Place. It has developed well since being planted despite being vandalised soon after planting. The lawn is tall fescue supplied from Rolawn north of Huntly.

We were also involved in a second design and build project in the same street and this garden has also developed well.

A mix of native plants has been used with Phormium cookianum and purpurea being used to help give stability to the bank down to the neighbouring property.
The area has been weed matted using a polypropylene weedmat from Industrial Textiles and mulched with bark mulch from NZ Peat. This bark mulch holds together particularly well – even on a steep embankment such as this.

During the autumn planting season we have been tending to our stock of eco-sourced plants. Most plants are propagated from cuttings collected from reserves within the city and out as far as the 4 Brothers Reserve on the Raglan Deviation.

We had been building up good stocks of Coprosma robusta, Hebe stricta and Leptospermum scoparium. We also have Knightia excelsa, Melicytus ramiflorus and Dacrycarpus dacrydioidies. Most of these have now been planted out and we have begun the process of propagating new cuttings.

It is really great to se these planted out and doing well.

We are now just finishing off the landscaping of the street upgrade at Leamington. The landscape design was undertaken by Opus and the civil works by Civil Construction Services.

The majority of plants have been supplied locally from Annton Nurseries, trees from Blackbridge Nursery and the Cordyline Red Fountains from Seaview Nursery. The frost though has affected many of the plants which we hope will bud away now that we are into the warmer weather of spring.

During the later stages of 2010 we had a job of building a 45m2 deck. This involved digging out a bank, digging 900mm deep holes for the piles, fitting the 200×50 bearers and 150×50 joists – then running out all the decking timber. The deck drawings were prepared by Jim Wilson and the bifold doors fitted by CREE8 Construction.

All timber had to be carried up from the front of the section.The final stage was building the fence around the southern edges of the deck.

The deck has been well used since completion and in December hosted a wedding reception. More often than not it is the meeting place for the balloonists after flying at the weekends.

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