NGAROMA Native nursery owners Matt and Keri Taylor have branched into pest control as a way of protecting the full life cycle of their native trees and giving back to the bush.
WHAT started as a means to an end for Ngaroma parents Keri and Matt Taylor has quickly turned into a passion for nurturing the environment. Less than three years after starting nursery Ngaroma Natives, the couple have expanded into pest trapping as a way of helping protect the area they live in. And they want the rest of the community to get on board.
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION Keri believes stronger environmental education is needed for Ōtorohanga kids, starting with those in her own backyard. “I work closely with Arohena School because this stuff is important. We need to get these kids learning about the bush, learning about planting trees.” The school has a bush block on its grounds, which Keri said is heavily affected by the suffocating groundcover weed tradescantia. After a referral to Waikato Regional Council (WRC), Keri said they got their hands on a fungus that is hoped to infect and thin out the weed in coming years so seedlings can thrive. “At the moment we’ve got very minimal undergrowth, so once these big beautiful trees start falling over, there’s nothing to replace them. “The seedlings are there. Once you pull the tradescantia back you can see the little ones popping up but they just won’t get any bigger.” The fungus was doing important work to help the block, but without any immediate results, it was difficult to get students engaged. Back on the home farm, Keri and Matt had been working hard with the support of funding from WRC’s Small Scale Initiative Fund, some DOC200 traps and second-hand bait stations to protect a block of bush on their property. “On the back of the farm is a 70 hectare bush block which is a chunk out of the Pureora Forest.
HUGE UPTAKE “We thought well we love the bush, the whole family, so let’s do something.” Keri said there had always been beautiful birdlife in the block so they did not think there would be many pests in it. “But the uptake of bait was huge. All the kids have really got into it.” In what transpired as a combination of many of her passions, Keri decided to start making her own traps using the same mechanism as the Department of Conservation ones. “I thought ‘surely I could build these’. “My dad’s a builder by trade and he said he would help, but I told him I needed to do it myself. “We had a shed that was being piled up with crap, and now that’s my work bench.” Keri has a vision of donating a couple of traps a month, and the first were delivered to Arohena School in September. “It’s all about protecting the bush and what’s our restoration plan for the next X amount of years? How are we going to protect this wonderful resource we have?
ON BOARD “The kids are so on board with the pest control because there’s that instant gratification. “They are getting rats, they are getting possums and it has just been really cool.” Keri said she thought it was priceless what building and donating the traps was going to do in terms of helping the environment, teaching the next generation, and connecting her with like-minded people. Matt said it was about giving back to the bush. “We take the seeds so we’ve got to protect the trees.”
EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY It was an opportunity to educate children, too, which Matt said he thought was the best way to see a positive change toward protecting the environment. “Their generation is is how you’ll get change because most of the older generation has already made their mind up. “If they can start learning about it now then they’ve never known any different.” “You’ve got to teach them there’s no point in planting new trees if you’re not going to protect the birds that are going to poop out the seeds and grow new trees,” Keri said. “Then you’ve got to protect the new trees from possums so they don’t get eaten.” And when it’s time to plant new trees at Arohena School, Ngaroma Natives would have some ready to put in. Keri said it was mainly Matt’s ‘fault’ they got into growing native trees. They had four kids – two at school and two pre-schoolers – and needed more income. But living in Ngaroma meant there wasn’t an abundance of options flexible enough to suit the family’s needs. “Being so isolated, if I went to town to pick up work, the kids would be in daycare, who would be home to get the school kids at three o’clock? “If I was working out here, who’s looking after my kids?” Matt suggested growing natives could be the solution and got on the phone to friend and nursery owner Charlie Smart, who backed the idea. “He reckons there could be a handful more native tree nurseries in the King Country because he is in high demand for his natives.” With his support, the couple got started in 2019. The first lockdown they gathered their first lot of seeds and germinated them in spring 2020. The following year was their first selling season and they have just concluded their second. “And it has worked perfectly,” Keri said. If the weather was good her children could play outside, they watched TV when it was wet and had mum just a yell away if they needed anything. “It has worked really well and we’ve enjoyed it so much more than we thought we would.”
