Brightwater School’s 300-plant planting day

Brightwater School’s annual tree planting event at Snowden’s Bush, organised in collaboration with Friends of Snowden’s Bush, saw the school mark its third consecutive participation with 300 plants being placed in the ground.

“We were fortunate to have parents come along and help us by digging holes. The ground was not as wet as it has been in the past, which made for slightly harder hole digging,” deputy principal Aimee Sinclair says.

This year, many children could rattle off the top of their heads what pests the green plant protective guards protect the plants from - knowledge which they had recalled from previous years plantings.

“This year, some of the children planted the border of the new path that Mitre10 Helping Hands and Department of Conservation trainee rangers have recently put in. Many children were delighted to see the plants they had planted in previous years, some now towering over them,” Aimee says.

Evie Binion-Cooper, 5, says she “liked putting the bark around the plants”.

“We used to go to planting at Snowden’s Bush with kindy and now we get to go with school. I love planting trees because you get to look after them and make them grow. I like visiting them because they get bigger.”