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Conference
2014
"Roots Deep in Northland"
Pre-conference tour 3 April 2014
- Liz Morrow’s Omaio Garden
- Colin and Jean Sanders Nymet Garden
- Whangarei Quarry Gardens
- Kate and Roger Ballard’s garden.
Conference in Northland 4–6 April 2014
Two-day tour to:
- Butler Point
- Monto Garden
- Wharepuke Sub-Tropical Garden
- Palmco Display Gardens
- Wairiki Point and Kokinga Pa
- Ngahuha.
There was a variety of experts who spoke on a wide range of topics, including:
- David Muir, horticulturist, Whangarei: "The Jim Finlay Camellias – a Horticultural Detective Story"
- David Mules, WWF-New Zealand, Northland: "Reconnecting Northland”
- Jill Malcolm, professional writer/editor: "Garden Write”
- Richard Hart, Landscape Architect, Tauranga: "A Garden Assessor’s View”
- Russell Fransham, plant collector, nurseryman and author, Northland: Some New Subtropicals for Gardeners”
- Dinner speaker: Caroline Fitzgerald, Science Communicator, Dunedin.
RNZIH
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The 2014 Annual General Meeting was held in Auckland along with the 2014 RNZIH Awards and the Banks Memorial Lecture.
Venue: Rattray Function Room, Mt Albert Community Recreation Centre, 773 New North Rd, Mt Albert.
Date: Thursday, 8 May 2014.
Time: 6.00 pm.
Agenda:
- Apologies / In Memoriam
- Minutes of the 2013 Annual General Meeting
- Matters arising from the Minutes of the 2013 AGM
- Chairman’s Report
- Statement of Accounts for 2013 and Budget for 2014
- Branch Reports
- Election of Officers
- General Business
8.1 Subscriptions
8.2 RNZIH NZ Gardens Trust
8.3 NZ Notable Trees Trust
8.4 RNZIH Education Trust
8.5 NZ Plant Collection Register
8.6 Publications and website
8.7 Other business.
RNZIH Award Presentations: 6.45 pm.
BANKS MEMORIAL LECTURE (a free public lecture)
Auckland’s Remarkable Urban Forest
By Dr Mike Wilcox
 The Banks Memorial Lecture
is a free lecture open to the public. It commemorates Sir
Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook's first voyage to New Zealand.
During a later distinguished scientific career, he was Director
of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London.
Venue: Rattray Function Room, Mt Albert Community Recreation Centre, 773 New North Rd, Mt Albert.
Date: Thursday 8 May 2014.
Time: 7.00-8.00 pm.
Cost: Free.
Abstract:
In this lecture, Mike Wilcox gave an account of the different kinds of forest that make up the urban greenery of Auckland. The main forest types are natural remnants of native bush, native forest restoration plantings, various kinds of exotic woodlands (such as pines, eucalypts, wattles, and willows), street trees, home garden trees, and the very important trees planted on larger sites such as parks, cemeteries and campuses. This classification of urban forest types will be relevant to other cities in New Zealand. The botanical diversity of trees planted in Auckland is impressive, but there is a core group of large trees which give Auckland its special character. The benefits of the urban forest are numerous, but Auckland would benefit by having better management of its urban forest, backed up by research.
Biography:
Mike Wilcox is a retired forestry consultant and scientist. He is considerably involved in Auckland’s botany, including being an Honorary Research Associate at the Auckland Museum, and a member of the Auckland Botanical Society, Friends of the Auckland Botanic Gardens, International Dendrology Society, Forest & Bird, Auckland Tree Council, and New Zealand Institute of Forestry. He also serves as a tree guide at Cornwall Park. As well as this overview of Auckland’s urban forest, he has done more detailed assessments of the tree flora in many of Auckland’s parks and campuses, including the Domain, Cornwall Park / One Tree Hill, Monte Cecilia, and Unitec, and also of Rangitoto Island. He is currently working on a full record of the plants in West Lynn Garden, New Lynn and an account of the native and naturalised plants in the Ahipara-Kaitaia area in Northland. Not content with forests of the land, he is also engaged in a survey of the flora of Auckland’s ‘forests of the sea’ – the seaweeds.
Mike has a BSc in Botany from Auckland University, an MA in Forestry from Oxford University, and a PhD from North Carolina State University where he did research on the genetics of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), leading to a career in quantitative genetic research and plant breeding of forest trees at the Forest Research Institute (now Scion) in Rotorua. In his international consulting work, Mike undertook numerous assignments in China, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Fiji, Samoa, Vietnam, Spain, Turkey, and South Africa, specialising in forestry plantations.
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