A Trailer Full of Possibility: How a Community Nursery is Helping Turn a Paddock into a Forest
Hamish Bennett drove away from Dovedale last weekend with a full trailer and a big smile on his face. In the back: over 300 native seedlings, ready to transform a mown paddock in Lower Moutere into a thriving native forest.
The plants came from the Dovedale Community Nursery — one of several community nurseries operating across the Motueka catchment — and they represent something that is quietly happening across our region: ordinary people deciding to do something lasting with their land.
“The previous owner of our place planted heaps of natives around the boundaries of the paddock,” Hamish says. “We don’t need this paddock, and it’s taking me time to mow it. So my plan is to create a larger bush area.”
It’s a simple idea with a long time horizon — and exactly the kind of thinking MCC loves to support.
The right plants for the right places
The mix Hamish collected reflects the different conditions on the Bennett property. Alongside their stream, riparian species will stabilise banks and provide habitat — grasses, sedges, and other plants that thrive with their roots near water.
Further into the paddock, species like ribbonwood, kānuka, tōtara, kahikatea, and cabbage trees will begin the slow work of building a canopy, providing habitat, and connecting the existing plantings around the boundary into something larger and more resilient.
Getting the right species for the right conditions is one of the things community nurseries do well — drawing on local knowledge about what grows where, and growing plants that are eco-sourced from the local area, meaning they are genetically suited to the conditions they’ll be planted into.
The nursery behind the plants
The Dovedale Community Nursery has been quietly supplying local residents with free native plants for years — wetland species, coastal plants, drought-tolerant species, and everything in between. What makes it unusual is that it isn’t run by a team of volunteers rotating through weekend shifts. It is managed, largely, by one person.
Bill McKinlay puts in the hours — the pricking out, the potting up, the watering, the weeding, the organising — that keep a nursery running through every season. It is unglamorous, time-consuming work, and it is the reason that people like Hamish can turn up with a trailer and drive away with 300 healthy, locally-sourced plants.
As fellow Dovedale resident and restoration project participant Fin Deeley puts it simply: “Bill is a legend.”
What community nurseries like Dovedale’s really represent is a solution to one of the most common barriers to restoration: access. Native plants can be expensive to buy, and restoration projects — especially larger ones — require a lot of them. A community nursery lowers that barrier significantly, making it possible for landowners like Hamish to take on a project they might otherwise have found daunting.
Community nurseries and commercial nurseries: both matter
Community nurseries are a valuable part of the restoration ecosystem — but they are not the whole picture. The volume and consistency of output that comes from commercial nurseries is something community operations simply cannot match at scale. Westbank Natives, for example, plays a crucial role in supplying the larger volumes needed for significant restoration projects across the region — providing professional-grade plants in the quantities that make ambitious planting targets achievable.
The two complement each other well. Community nurseries build local knowledge, connection, and access for smaller projects and individual landowners. Commercial nurseries provide the scale and reliability needed when ambitions grow larger. Together, they are helping to put more natives in the ground across the catchment — one trailer load at a time.
Want to know more?
If you’re thinking about a restoration project on your property — big or small — MCC can help connect you with the right resources, plants, and people. Contact dana@motuekacatchment.org.nz or visit motuekacatchment.org.nz.
