Weed Control & Native planting

WEED CONTROL

Lot 29 has its fair share of the 300+ invasive weed species Auckland is known for, holding the title of being the ‘Weediest Capital of the World’. We started our mission back in January 2018 with two groups of neighbours helping out to start clearing the two largest areas. We had Woolley Nightshade, Gorse, Privet, Wattle, Moth Plant, Arum Lily, Blackberry, Jasmine, Inkweed, Queen of the Night, Monkey Apple, Japanese Honeysuckle, Wild Ginger, Chinese Privet, Madeira Vine, and Agapanthus just to name a few. Depending on what weed it is, will depend on what you will need to do to eliminate the invasive weed.

Weedbusters is a great website to refer to. It has pictures of the weed so it will help you identify the weed, and also it tells you the necessary steps to take. Here is the link: https://www.weedbusters.org.nz/what-are-weeds/weed-list/. The best place to buy any CutnPaste gels is direct through this website here: https://www.cutnpaste.co.nz/

Blackberry surrounds the Nikau Palms

Gorse grown to 3m high (Far Left) Gorse stump (Left)

Nikau Palms freed with careful spraying

Common weeds

Below are some basic information on common weeds as well as the before and after pictures of plantings after weed tackling efforts in the Lot 29 neighbourhood.

Madeira Vine; 1st photo – rhizomes growing on the vine; 2nd photo – rhizomes; 3rd photo – leaves and vines; 4th photo – the flowers

The Madeira Vine shown above is one of the hardest weeds to get rid of. Notice the rhizomes on the vines, it only takes a little piece to fall off and it will sprout

Climbing Asparagus Fern

A fern that can easily takeover quite quickly if left, climbing up trees and smothering young plants

Alligator Weed

This was a new weed in Lot 29. We made the mistake of leaving it a bit too long before spraying, so instead of being a relatively small job, it became a big job needing two sprays so far to control it. This weed certainly grows and spreads rapidly and is definitely troublesome. If it was on a terrestrial site then we could add metsulfuron, but as it is not, we can only use glyphosate 20ml / litre. We will be doing the fifth spray of glyphosate and then will be placing weed mat down to cover the site for the next few months.

There is a biocontrol insect for Alligator Weed, called Alligator Weed Beetle which has been released in Auckland a Northland to help control Alligator Weed. Again, unfortunately not a good prospect for this area due to stormwater running over in heavy rain would wash the beetles away.

NATIVE PLANTING

Once we had removed the invasive weeds, we then planted the cleared and prepared areas with natives during the autumn seasons. Our first planting of 534 plants was in 2019, this was funded privately by the Lot 29 neighbours. Our second planting in 2020, a total of 1,220 plants were planted. These native plants were funded by a Howick Local Board grant. Our third, and final planting, we were grateful to have received a second Howick Local Board grant, a total of 552 native plants, which brought the total number of natives planted to 2,306. Our planting date was planned for the 20th August 2021, but due to Auckland going into level 4 lockdown, we were able to postpone the planting until Autumn 2022.