4
March 2014
NORTHERN FARMING LIFESTYLES
BY CYNTHIA MATTHEWS
Tui and Riroriro call from trees at the Waima River, Hokianga, where Jan and Kevin O’Boyle are developing a wildlife habitat while living self sufficiently.
T
hey’re gaining satisfaction from returning land to forest and reestablishing a generative wetland. Looking through poplars to young kauri, Jan admits, “Some days we ask ourselves, did we do all this?� The O’Boyles would visit Hokianga on holidays. “We kept coming back here. We were looking for 10 acres and ended up with 30 — but it had everything we wanted,� Jan explains. They bought their land in 1990. Their home — a moved on
60-year-old Browns Bay beach house — fits in well in its Waima Valley surrounds. The couple faced paddocks of gorse, kikuyu and blackberry and eaten out bush — ‘ground zero’ as described by Kevin. The fences were down and horses and cattle roamed through the valley. An earlier owner had tried establishing an orchard in the 1980s and the land had gone back. The O’Boyles first ring fenced the property to keep out straying stock.
Existing shelter belts of macrocarpa and cypress were pruned and the Rescue horses began grazing down the kikuyu in the paddocks. “We spot spray, plant to the environment and, trap,� says
“Some days we ask ourselves, did we do all this?�
Kevin. “A good neighbour has helped with shooting.� Pestoff bait stations and fur trappers in surrounding forests have helped lower rat and possum numbers. The O’Boyles planted three blocks of poplars on their river flats which behave like a high canopy for birds and are generating an understory. The variety Kawa makes good timber. “The trees are ankle deep in water for part of the year,� Jan says. Over eight years the trees were pruned bi-annually until pruned to six metres — Kawa will grow to 50m. Kevin explains Kawa has
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