Land has been cleared for human use ever since we began to occupy earth. Now, there’s not nearly enough wild forests, wetlands, or plains to provide necessary climate functions and wildlife habitat. We can change this though, by planting it back in with patterns of what wildness still remains. To decide which natives to plant, just look at nearby wildlife zones and mimic the designs!

After some ecology lessons we each got to practice native re-design of a different area (ie fire prone, wetlands, bird habitat).

My riparian restoration zone has umbrella and spike sedges as the rhizosphere, NZ Iris and mata water fern for the ground cover, which is intermixed with flax, mikimiki and koromiko shrubs. Manuka and cabbage trees make up the sub-canopy, and the canopy is a few big kanuka trees.