Parks
This is a new planting alongside the Brian Mayo Reserve. It is on land used for cropping hay and silage, and is designed to link up with the rimu and totara groves. Unlike them, it incorporates a variety of species, including grasses and flaxes. There is a suburban power line running above the land, and we have to plant low-growing species under it.
A good deal of effort went into the planning. The team was led by Jane Moodie, and she and her team spent many hours over their kitchen tables laying out planting schemes before settling on the one being used.
Today's effort, 5th July 2022, was just the start.
Comes the beginning of August, and we have the chance, in between showers, to finish the job, or at least stage 1. Jane already has her eye on stage 2. The ground is very soft after all the rain, so we could take only a light truck near the site.
This year, in 2023, we finished the job. Several trees did not survive the mid-Spring frost of October 2022 and we replaced them. Then we went to the western side of the Totara Grove and extended the planting, using bigger trees this time to avoid having to spray first. We had to clear the long grass and weeds from a corner that the silage-maker's mower hadn't been able to reach, and we sprayed that after we'd used our brushcutters. The area turned out to be surprisingly large, and it took us 2 sessions to finish the planting.
Here are some photos:
This track leads to Party Central. 4 sofas and a recliner chair, with carpet on the floor. The local teenagers have done themselves proud. The furniture was removed later. We don't know who by.
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Lake Karapiro has been the home of high-performance rowing for decades. Recently, canoeing has built a facility there and waka ama and triathletes use the facilities as well. The yacht club also has new premises. Earthworks for the new buildings involved left a bank which is too steep for safe mowing, so we were asked to plant it. This we did, over a couple of Tuesday mornings, with more to come when the additional area is cleared. Maintenance will be by the facility's ground staff, and will be mostly done by mulching the areas.
The canoeists building is fairly recent, and there are some banks which are difficult or even impossible to mow. We have been asked to plant them in an attempt to suppress weed growth. The job has grown since we started, like the plants. We have to plant small plants to maintain the view of the lake and the activity on it during events.
This railway is in the Leamington Domain, which is a large area of flat grass on the corner of Wordsworth and Scott streets. It has a 2-storey heritage band rotunda, but its real claim to fame is the miniature railway run by the Cambridge-Rotorua Live Steamers. This video shows the opening day, 1.12.2012.
Check the website below for dates, times and fares.
Cambridge Model Engineering Society
This isn't anything to do with the Tree Trustl. It's just a nice community facility that we're happy to publicise.
In 2019, the Steamers put in a tunnel to add interest to the ride. We gave them some plants to cover it.
This little park was used for grazing sheep until September 2016, so all we did was plant a few trees there. Now the sheep have gone and Waipa District Council is opening it up for the public to use. It adjoins the Resthaven retirement village, and will be a useful adjunct to their land. Some of it has been planted in daffodils, and those the sheep left have multiplied, though they're a bit scrappy at the moment. There are two good displays though. One inside the roadside fence and one is outside it, by the road.
Arbor Day 1998 marked the planting of Daffodils around the town. With support from Council and Tree Trust Volunteers a number of areas were planted out around town at this time. Hamilton Road on the main approach to Cambridge and the eastern approaches to the town, by the Karapiro Stream Bridge.
Other plantings have been made from time to time, as CTT members go around the town and find a suitable place for bulbs. There are on-going problems with mowing, but the daffodils seem to survive.
Other photos show the park as it is at 23.9.2016, before work starts on its development.
Cyclone Dovi
On 13th February, 2022, Cyclone Dovi blew through Cambridge wreaking havoc on the town's trees. Our plantings were not exempt, and here are some photos of the work we did cleaning up the debris. It was well concealed from the road, and escaped the Council contractor's attention. We did the job in less than an hour.
This project arose because the new Waikato Expressway cut off a large piece of land which had been used for grazing. The Waipa District Council incorporated it into the adjoining Brian Mayo Reserve, and one of our members, Jane Moodie, came up with the idea of a maple arboretum similar to the older oak arboretum nearby. The Council's Parks Dept. approved, so areas were marked out, sprayed to clear, and mulched. Jane, with Jan Todd, then set about selecting plants for stage 1.
In the winter of 2015, we planted the first section. We put rabbit protection around the saplings and staked them. They're growing well.
There is a long stretch of parkland between the road and the houses which we have developed along the same lines. We will have to be careful here, as the trees are much closer to the houses. In stage 1, we have graded the trees, with the smaller ones closest to the houses, and we have left large spaces between plantings for ease of mowing with a tractor-mounted mower.
We have to acknowledge gifts of posts from Mitre 10 and stainless steel plates for labels from Cambridge Sheet Metals. Engraving was done by a company in Te Rapa at a very favourable price.
11 January, 2022. Blitzkrieg!
Tuesday April 19th 2022.
We found some more weeds. We thought we'd done this job earlier, but the weeds thought not, so we had to come back. A dozen of us pulled out 3 truckloads in 2 hours. We surprised even ourselves. We are going to show some of these photos to Council staff, who are doubtful of our ability.
While we were doing this weeding, we noticed 3 areas where the trees had not thrived and nor had the rengarenga planted under them. We knew that the soil in those places was of poor quality, but hoped it was good enough. It wasn't. We have some thinking to do. The site is beside the Waikato Expressway, and anything could have been put there during the roadbuilding.
The idea came from two Cambridge women who made a casual comment to our Chairman, Don Willoughby, that it would be nice to have a loop track around the end of the hill where bluegums had been felled, and leading up to the level ground at the top.
This was a lot harder to do than it looked. The higher ground is very steep, and needed stairs. Water run-off is a problem too. There is a depression at the top which collects a lot of rainwater and sends it down a channel in the soft sandy hillside. It wasn't impossible, though, and provides a nice short walk with views of the lake and some of the countryside. Eventually, when the trees grow, it will be a bush walk. The red lines in the photos are our markers.
By August 2021, the depression mentioned above had been largely filled in by Lakewood's developer. The trees on the opposite side of the fill have grown very well, and the run-off that sent water cascading down the hillside just after our first planting in 2015 has been closed off by the developer's fill. The plants there are large now, and will probably hold firm.
The Cambridge Tree Trust was registered with the Charities Commission as a Charitable Entity under the Charities Act 2005 on 16 August 2007. Registration No: CC10859
