BUSH COMES BACK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 156, 30 December 1944, Page 8

BUSH COMES BACK

TOUGH NATIVE FLORA

HUTT ROAD'S LESSON

There is, on the hillside along the Hutt. Road, as convincing a demonstration as anyone could ask of the : readiness and luxuriant,enthusiasm of New Zealand natives to come back and reclothe rough country with bush beauty, if given the chance they need. : New Zealand'flora is very tough indeed. The general idea is that gorse, broom, and the rubbish that curse so much of the rough land about Wellington are tougher again, and that once they are in nothing but the grubber and fire (and fire is so much ' cheaper) will shift them. In fact, by proof of the Hutt Road hillsides, New Zealand natives, given their chance, can knock back that sort of rubbishy growth. The chance is to be left alone, with the birds, for a few years; then the gorse and the rest give up and go for good. Is there a single instance of gorse [ ovei-running a patch of native gz-owth : protected from stock" and from fire? There are plenty of instances of , natives strangling old man gorse bush. This reclothing of hillsides goes on in many places about Wellington, but the Hutt Road, if not the most complete, is the handiest as an objectlesson. The hillside is worth looking at on that Sunday,: Monday, Tuesday car srun that a few thousand people will make this weekend.; ■ THE BIRD—No. 1 PLANTER. ! It was never bare of native bush, ! for there were patches here and there, between Ngahauranga and Petbne particularly, but there was, a few years ago, far more rubbish than native growth. A certain amount of planting has: been done by the Beautifying Society and on Arbor Days from time to time, but the really successful planters have been the birds; they have planted a thousand assorted to each ' one of the society's selected—which is not decrying the Beautifying Society's good work, but is a fair appreciation !of the birds' careless: or natural habits. ' i They don't mean to scatter seeds widely and; generously^-they' just can't help it. : ; ■/ '^ff::'/ ' .'■■ . ■ ' ■ S Think vback to the Hutt Road before jit was .paved. The hillside was ; smothered-in dust, which may or may • hot have discouraged good growth, j Along the roadside the roadman shovi elled the water channels clear, boiled |up the billy between shovelling—and up went the hillside above him in smoke and; flame. r Every so often a grand burn-off was a legitimate part of the day's work. Year after year the hillsides were burned off in one way or another. -Less often they were lin part grubbed. Either suited gorse and broom. ; There is no water channel cleaning, to speak of nowadays, no grubbing whatever. Then years ago the natives began to take hold in a small way, and faster and faster they have gone ahead with each year. The stock that occasionally fell down the steep slopes on to the road also seems to have gone; everything has been right for the natives. They are'clean, alongside a dustless road, and -where they have completely recovered the hillside they are truly beautiful—useless timber, of course (tutu, konini, soft wood like that) except to please the eye. Most spectacular:is the comeback, about half-way between Ngahauranga and Petone, where; just a very few years ago, a rock quarry left a bare rock slide to the top of the hill; now that high and wide slide is completely hidden with a dense covering of tutu and other first returning natives; there is nothing to show that a quarry was ever there, except the rock bins on. the flat. The same thing is gathering pace in another quarry nearer Petone. Not even gorse could take hold on ground as uninviting-as that, but the natives do splendidly. MORE EXAMPLES. For more complete examples of natural reafforestation one must go a bit further. There are outstanding examples in the Hutt Valley, as to the west of the big Government, housing block, where nothing but gorse and rubbish grew years' ago. There are imnumbered faces in the Water Board's area where, the country is being left to the good offices of the bird planters in the certainty that in a few years' time it will be reclothed in the light growth that, in more years, will nurse along real tree growth into forest. In the Wainui water reserve, below the old dam, is a face so reclothed with.natives that those who did not know it ten years ago take much convincing that then it was one spread of old.man gorse: all that was done was to keep stock, goats, and assorted animals, and fire, out of it. Leave gorse long enough to grow big enough and.it thins out, to let light and air in and give native seedlings their chance; it provides, in fact, a nurse cover for the young growth. It is generally believed that nothing will grow under pine trees. Those who think that should, if they can get permission (as.is possible to serious investigators), visit the Karori waterworks reserve, where an old pine plantation is being cut out, to the tune of a million or more feet of heavy timber. The floor of that plantation is densely covered with natives, some of them fifteen and twenty feet high, and within a year or so after completion of logging no sign will be left that ever pine trees grew there or that a match stick has been cut out. When, some years ago, reference was made to natives under pines a certain leading tree lover expressed scorn and derision at such a statement—but seeing convinces. The fact is that New Zealand natives are properly tough, except against fire and stock. THE CITY FIRE RISK PROBLEM. To return to the Hutt Road. There is one steep face at the top of which are several houses. If gorse and rubbish on the face get out of hand a real fire risk will arise, so each year they catch it early, a nice, safe burn-' off. The birds carry on with their good work of seed spreading, but nothing happens; native seedlings stand no chance, though the gorse gets away every spring. That is Wellington's Town Belt and rough hillside and roadside problem in so many places. Gorse near houses cannot be left to run its full course until the natives come in and strangle it: the fire risk is too great altogether. So the word has gone out that fire is the cure, orderly fire, under local association and perhaps fire brigade supervision. It will be a great pity if. this help-your-own-district fire-pro-tection-by-fire campaign runs wild on faces where gorse and broom may safely be left to the birds and the tough natives to deal with, finally and very beautifully. .