Arbor Day at Waiwhakareke

On Friday the 2nd June a group of about 22 students, some parent helpers and a teacher gathered their spades, gum boots and rain coats and drove out to Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park to get involved in planting trees for Arbor day 2017.

Waiwhakareke is a 60 hectare ecological restoration project and every year on Arbor day, hundreds of people gather to help plant trees to restore the area to a flourishing natural forest, wetland and lake eco system. 

At Hamilton East School we are very proud to be a part of this project. We learnt how to dig the right shape hole and carefully put the sapling tree into the ground. We covered the roots back up and gave the sapling a strength test with a little push from side to side.


The rain held off for the planting but it was EXTREMELY muddy (and very fun)!!

Morning tea

Morning tea

Taking the plant out of the pot

Digging holes

Putting in the plant

Thanks to all our parent helpers who dug so many holes and pulled students out of the mud,  and to Dugan for driving us there!
For more information about Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage park have a look at this site

Plum Tree

Today Mrs Leeson gave Hamilton East School a plum tree to plant in the Kitchen Garden. 

We planted it behind the dental clinic because one day this could be a great orchard area.

 

Look at the roots of the plum tree.

 

Thankfully Dugan had dug a hole for us earlier. We put fertiliser in when we planted it. This will help it grow faster. Then we piled more soil in the hole.

Mrs Leeson had thought of everything, not only, did she have fertiliser she also had worm juice. We mixed this in with the water to help the plum tree grow stronger.

Look at gorgeous Room 14 with the new plum tree for our school.

Here is a vimeo of Room 14 helping to plant the tree.

Plum Tree from Ham East on Vimeo.

Kowhai Tree

This is a blabberize of the spade Room 12 used to plant the kowhai tree.
Please help us look after our tree.

Arbor Day - Tree Planting

Some children from Kauri Team went to help the Hamilton City Council with tree planting at Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park. They helped plant over 30,000 trees.

The "Big Dig In" event even made the news on TV3. 

Here is the link to see it if you missed it - 

 http://www.3news.co.nz/Hamilton-gets-pre-Arbor-Day-gift/tabid/1160/articleID/213823/Default.aspx

It is great to be able to help in our local community.

Here is the website for Waiwhakareke if you would like to find out more.

www.waiwhakareke.co.nz

Mr Bull's Tree Planting Day

When Mr Bull retired as principal of Hamilton East School he gifted the school native trees to plant on our Nature Trail. 

Anna had a group of expert tree planters to help teach other children how to plant the trees.

Mr Bull gave us kahikatea, makomako, mahoe and kowhai trees to plant. 

Birds love these trees.

When you had taken the tree out of the pot you had to tease out the roots so it was ready to plant.