As our city continues to grow upwards and outwards we need to balance the need for housing with impacts on the environment. Paul Roper-Gee of Canopy Landscape Architects tells us about bringing back the plants (and the birds).

Restoring urban areas with native planting is one way to address our impact. More and more people are taking action individually and collectively to make this happen.

Piece by piece through appropriate native plantings in private gardens, commercial properties, along roads, rivers and in public spaces, we can establish a network of plant communities that will provide a link between the urban environment and the native remnants on the Canterbury Plains and Banks Peninsula. This will increase the area that native birds, invertebrates and lizards can live in.

If you are undertaking your own restoration project at home or on a bare site, consider starting with ‘colonising plants’ like silver tussock, flax, kānuka and coprosma. These natives are naturally more inclined to do well in poorer soil conditions and will tolerate more dryness and wind exposure. After a few years when the colonising plants have made themselves at home, they will provide a good environment for establishing ‘enrichment’ plant species – natives that need a little more shelter to get going. Enrichment species are often plants that are regionally unique but less often planted – in Canterbury you can try ferns, tree fuchsia, mataī and hīnau.

There are regular community planting days held throughout autumn and winter each year that you can get involved with. One group on this scene is Trees for Canterbury – a not-for-profit community organisation that over the last 30 years has planted more than a million native plants in Christchurch, and is now well on its way towards a second million. Check out the Trees for Canterbury website for planting day dates and information.

Here at Canopy Landscape Architects we are looking forward to the day when tūī and bellbirds become a common sight in our Christchurch gardens.

canopy.co.nz