Revegetation
services
| Forest Floor is a New Zealand leader in revegetation.
With our vast experience in horticulture, forestry, landscaping and
ecology, we can guarantee success in achieving the goal of revegetation -
canopy closure.
From the best local seed stocks, seedlings are raised using world class
forestry propagation methods.
At the right time of year, when less well prepared teams are in a panic,
Forest Floor planting teams can be found calmly covering the
hectares. 
We believe in using energy-efficient methods to
carry out any job, significantly reducing costs for the client. In other
words we get more trees in the ground. Later we will return several times to follow the progress
of the trees we have planted. We are experts in achieving
canopy closure and native forest self-regenerating systems in this
fashion.
Myccorhizal friendly plants
are essential to establishing native forest.
Unlike most pioneers, which support one type of
mycorrhizal fungi, manuka supports the two
main sorts of myccorhizal fungi, EM and AM.
It must have very special root structure to be so special.
It is a superplant, one of the most sophisticated pioneers that
exist in nature.
In Northland, where plants grow year round, it can be difficult to beat
the weeds. Forest Floor have developed natural methods to establish
forests. We are the most efficient complete project managers in the
country. We do not spend money on glossy reports and back office
theorising. Tim and Simon both believe in leading from where the
action is, putting the client's needs first.
We write reports in black and white, no-nonsense
language. Forest Floor
consultants are experienced in efficiently obtaining consents for
buildings or subdivisions that are dependent on environmental
mitigation. We have a range of professionals on call for specialised
needs such as engineering.
Forest Floor have successfully grown over 3 million native tree
seedlings. We have done it by paying attention to detail.
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The most common plant to be seen in
New Zealand is Manuka.
In planting projects on which we have
been associated, where rugged coastal hillsides that are cliff faces in
places have been planted up with trees, we found the best plants were the
toughest. Anything else
planted cost more to grow in the nursery, was often harder to collect the
seed and did not necessarily provide the result for which we were aiming
when they were planted. Such
species made up a small portion of the planting plan.
Every job we do, we find more species that do succeed in different
situations but the number one pioneer we have found to succeed in New
Zealand is Manuka. 
Now we have found out that
manuka is especially good at encouraging myccorhizal fungi.
It is a rare plant in the world in the respect that it supports both main
types of myccorhizal fungi, which trees use to graduate to more efficient
complete multi-canopy ecosystems.
Since colonisation of New Zealand, Manuka or more commonly called “Tea-Tree”, has been felled for
firewood, for clearing for pasture and the wood has been largely burnt and
destroyed, leaving erosion, much pasture and less Manuka. Nevertheless,
the plant is still tough. There
is a lot of it out there. Manuka contributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to our
economy in the form of firewood and fuel, retention of soil on the land,
retention of nutrients, brushwood for fencing, honey from bees, medicines.
There are many uses for Manuka including some which are not commercial at present, such as
sawn timber and furniture. There
is even more potential if we look at its near relative, a similar plant, Kanuka.
I started out in the nursery thinking
that Manuka was the last thing I
wanted to grow. Initially it
certainly was one of the hardest to sell.
It was only through perseverance in my beliefs that we should copy
nature that led me to persist in growing Manuka
and finding new ways of growing it and finding that it was very tough in
some ways and weak in others. Every
plant has its weakness and sometimes the weakness is that it is difficult
to grow in the nursery and difficult to get people to plant them.
But we persevered and, through applying ourselves, found out how to
grow Manuka. We also grew flaxes, cabbage trees and lots of plants that a
few years ago did not sell. People
did not want to pay for plants that grew wild.
They thought these plants were everywhere but, when they started to
look closely, they found Manuka
were not as common as thought. Sometimes
they are actually quite rare.
To encourage Manuka
to regenerate, allowing it to go on for many years, blocking out weeds
underneath such as Kikuya and
establishing a forest cover and building up the soil is THE most important
part of our answer for New Zealand. I
believe, Manuka is our saviour.
We need these tough plants. Some
very tough weeds and some very rugged situations need to be fought out
there. We are left with very
poor soils with little money and we have to use our intelligence to try to
get more trees in the ground.
When we look to growing shelter, we
look to something that is going to survive in a hard spot.
There are many plant species which can do this but we have found Manuka
to be the best single species.
We
use something that comes from as nearby as possible, something that grows
vigorously and well as a pioneer. Something
prolifically seeding. Something
self-regenerating.
P
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