Cabbage tree leaves

Many native plants are not difficult to grow from seeds or cuttings. If you have the time and room for some basic nursery facilities, growing your own plants can be a rewarding aspect of a restoration project.

There is plenty of information available on how to propagate and grow on native plants. In particular, check out www.bush.org.nz or the book Native Forest Restoration: a Practical Guide for Landowners (1993) by Tim Porteous, published by Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust.

For many restoration projects, it’s likely that plants will be purchased from a nursery. Greater Wellington encourages the use of eco-sourced plants. It’s often not possible to buy eco-sourced plants ‘off the shelf,’ especially from garden centres and retail nurseries, so you may need to plan well ahead. However, there are a number of specialist native nurseries that do supply eco-sourced plants.

It is worth considering entering into a contract with a specialist native nursery to supply all the plants for the duration of your project. While this takes a bit of planning, it often reduces the unit cost per plant. You can either supply the nursery with the seeds (or cuttings) of the plants you want, or in many cases the nursery can handle the seed collection aspect as well.

Whatever plant sourcing method you use, you will need 12 to 18 months lead time before your plants are ready to plant. This gives you plenty of time to sort out fencing and control plant and animal pests so that your plants can get off to the best possible start in their new home.