Restoration Planting at Hilltop-Greening Taupō Day Competition winners.

Hilltop School Taupo won this year's Greening Taupō Day school competition. Thanks to Contact Energy they won a $1000 restoration planting. The junior classes had already been planning a project to improve biodiversity in their junior playground, so yesterday our coordinators turned up at their school to present a certificate and plant 140 plants with 8 classes of children. Most plants went in on the large bank by the junior playground, providing an understory to the large native trees there already. These plants replaced the cotoneaster weed trees that we removed earlier in the year, and will help to stabilise the bank. Other plants were put in around the school too. The butterfly and moth garden, planted last year was extended to a new area, with more plants put in to provide habitat for native butterflies and moths.

The Kids Greening Taupo student leaders from the school helped out all day, showing all of the other tamariki how to plant. They were awesome!