The changing gully

Welcome to a blog by an unlikely blogger.  This took several months to hatch into these words.  In fact the next few blogs were written on scraps of paper or the back of a notebook ready for when I could face the fear of blogging and do this thing.  So here goes, with the help of a patient and generous digital marketing expert and friend, and  some problem-solving from a teenage daughter who undid some crazy things I did in the first few seconds clicking on the wrong thing, I bring you "The Changing Gully".

7th November 2024
First day restoring a backyard gully.  Most gullies have a house at the top and a garden with the gully falling away below.  We (our team of two) started by raking Tradescantia (a common gully weed) and Jasmine along the bottom of the gully slope and making it into piles.  Pulled up seedling Karaka trees as they aren’t a natural dweller of this Riverlea gully.  There’s a huge Karaka tree next door that drops 1000 of seeds , mostly near the tree but some have wandered into this gully, completely ignoring the boundaries that are clearly marked on the Land Information NZ plan.

With the foot-slope clear, it was then raking from the top, rolling the weeds down like a long sausage.  In the steepest places we dug shallow trenches to place logs in and staked the logs so they won't roll down the hill.  These are horizontal logs (well that's what I call them) and they are to make  small terraces for standing on so you can reach above for easy weeding.  

Our gully has some nice mature trees, a Rimu, a Matai, Nikau, silver ferns, and a Kowhai up the top in the garden.  There’s another mature Nikau next door and between the two, a lot of Nikau seeds have started growing into seedlings.  We put a marker stick in the ground by each one to alert us to where the seedlings are.  That’s so that we can keep an eye on any weeds that might smother them, and to keep from stepping on them accidentally.

We worked with the constant sound of Tui today.  A few months ago during winter we saw two Kereru in this gully.  A first for me to see one in Hamilton (I’ve been here since 2000) .  We will be planting trees in the winter that will be desirable to the Kereru.  Not that they will be fodder until the trees form berries.  Mind you, I planted a wineberry (Makomako) in my home garden in 2020 and it has berries already this spring.

Often in a gully we will find treasure.  Today didn’t disappoint.  I found a large strawberry wrapped in Gladwrap, 3 unopened muesli bars, a breadroll and some crackers.  Someone didn’t like all their school lunch!  While having our teabreak, we watched a ginormous rat emerge from the bank, run through the area we had just cleared and return to it’s lair with a mealmate.  The rat trap will be set tonight!

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2 weeks later,

Another beautiful day in this gully, and weeds have been having a blast with all the warm weather and some rain.  Our focus this time was taking out some heavy concrete pavers that made an uneven set of steps running from the garden down the gully slope.  We are creating a gentle zig zag down the slope and placing logs on the bottom edge of the path.  Being able to easily walk down in the gully is a high priority.  It makes it much more inviting to take a stroll and chop the odd returning vine that could strangle the new natives (when we reach the stage of planting next winter).  
Did I mention logs???  We have a wonderful pile of logs in varying sizes, the result of a tree-felling that was completed by Jeremy from Honest Tree Work ( a great arborist whom I recommend).  This was a large Japanese Walnut that was causing a lot of shade and dropping vast numbers of inedible walnuts that, while not even being edible, would grow hundreds of seedlings each year.  These would compete with our new natives.  Not happening!  It was an exercise in coordinating our arborist with results of a 2 day bat sensor that was installed by Trevor the ecologist from Titoki Landcare.  The bat sensor was to ensure there weren't bats nesting in the walnut tree.  Fortunately there weren’t any, but a bat was detected doing a fly-by, probably foraging for food.  So exciting to discover this.  

7th December 2024
Today the gully owner worked with me.  It was the graft of raking or pulling up the tangled jasmine vines covering the ground, creating a ball and rolling it down the slope to a weed-free area.  Piles (not too big) are left to decompose, making sure the ground around each pile is also free of weeds.  Every month or so a walk through the gully before starting more clearing, involves a brief visit to the piles and stomping them down or rolling them a bit further down the slope.  This speeds up the composting process and you can also make sure no regrowth is happening.  Today I cleared a patch between two trees and dug a small trench along the lower side.  In there went some logs and sticks so it made an edge to stop a weed pile rolling further down.  We also cut any jasmine growing up trees, leaving it to die......

Later in December 2024
Today I met with the Hamilton City Council Gully Advisor, in the gully.  This is a free service which can be accessed by any gully owners within the city.  There are some rules about how much area can be cleared  in one year and the Gully Advisor can send you information about this.  I find it helpful talking  with someone to clarify some of the information which can seem very daunting.  The other benefit of having a Gully Advisor visit your gully is that the HCC nursery grows gully plants!!  They are free.  For this gully we have been allocated 65 plants, a mixture of trees, shrubs, grasses and sedges that will all be suited to the property.  A fantastic service.