Hilltop School's Pollinator Paradise
Lizzie and Pipi are two of our student leadership team members who attend Hilltop School. They came to us and asked us to help them revamp their school ‘Bee Garden’ which needed a bit of TLC. Shortly after this, Ruud Kleinpaste AKA ‘The Bug Man’ visited their science class to talk about Aotearoa’s interesting bugs. They took him to the area and shared their dreams of having wētā living there. He gave them lots of ideas on how to create a wētā habitat. We had taken one of our stick insects in to school to show them, so they decided to add a stick insect habitat too. Then we discussed bees and we explained that there are also New Zealand native bees that are important pollinators of our native flowers. In fact, there are lots of other important native pollinators such as copper and red admiral butterflies, native flies, beetles, moths, geckos, and even nectar drinking birds.
Kids Greening Taupō coordinators went back into their science class and did a presentation about native pollinators and why they are so important for our native biodiversity. The decision was made by the class to plant native plants and the garden planning began! Lizzie and Pipi researched using our resources Make a Butterfly/Moth garden and Learn about our Pollinators and then they sent us a list of plants that they wanted. They asked the caretaker to cut some bamboo for making wētā hotels. and the students in their class sanded it down and attached it to trees in the wētā area.
Bamboo for wētā hotels
We headed into school armed with lots of plants, thanks to funding from The Possum Trail Run. Amongst them we had flowering hebes for butterflies, mānuka for bees, kōhūhū for moths, and kōtukutuku, ngutukākā and kōwhai for nectar drinking birds. We also had putaputāwētā, māhoe and karamū for the wētā area and mini toetoe to plant under feijoa trees for the stick insects. A class planting session allowed us to teach about each of the native plants before the students had a planting demonstration from Lizzie and Pipi and got into the planting.
The students also asked the community to donate rotten logs for bug habitat and the bug hotel has started to take shape. We transplanted 5 stick insects to their new home in the toetoe. Lizzie’s ‘Bug Hotel- Whare Ngāngara’ sign that she had designed with other student leaders, was kindly printed and donated by Quality Print. This was perfect to put in the ground to tell visitors from other classes what the area was for.
The students mulched the area and added some more hebes to provide nectar for our native insects.
Next, the plan is to plant introduced fruit/veggies in the planter boxes for the honeybees. Local artist Sue Graham helped the students to make murals showing native pollinators to add to the honeybee ones that are around the garden.
