Protecting waterways for the future

The Willcox family in Taranaki have spent the past 17 years fencing and planting their waterways. Jackie Harrigan paid them a visit to see firsthand the value of their time and investment.

The Willcox family of Rahotu in Taranaki have been fencing and planting their waterways for the past 17 years, but Rob Willcox can still remember the feelings he had when the new rules were laid out in the late 1990s.

“I was reluctant to start with - no one wants to be told what to do on their own farm.”

“It was a huge and overwhelming job to think about - all of the paddocks on our coastal Taranaki farm had a stream running through them.”

The 158ha farm milking 450 cows has been in the Willcox family for five generations with his daughter Tina Worthington currently managing the herd, supported by Rob on the development and Gwen in the calf shed, since Tina swapped out her chef’s career for farming 13 years ago.

“I was vocal in my opposition (to fencing and planting),” admits Rob.

“I was alarmed to think about how much land might be lost and worried about the logistics of fencing along the side of the numerous lahars in the paddocks where they are close to the stream.”

It took a few years for Rob to get his head around the whole job, but he readily admits he started seeing benefits of fencing off waterways as soon as he started to develop and plant the stream margins on the farm in 2004.

“Because each paddock basically had a stream in it, we essentially had to refence the whole farm, which gave us the opportunity to plan all of the paddocks.”

It helped that Rob is the ‘developer’ of the farming partnership - well equipped with his own digger and well-worn post rammer - and he says he took the chance to research what size the paddocks should be and basically carved the farm up into 25

“It was a huge overwhelming job to think about - all of the paddocks on our coastal Taranaki farm had a stream running through them.”

Left: Fencing and planting a family legacy on their Rahotu dairy farm has had the happy side effect of making farm management much easier, safer and more enjoyable. Right: Gwen Willcox has propagated thousands of native plants for the riparian planting in ‘Nan’s Nursery’ and has plants waiting in pots all over her garden. Her workhorse yellow spade’s blade has now worn away to half of its original length. “It’s my favourite spade - I don’t want to do away with it - I want it made into a garden ornament when I am finished with it.”

new paddocks out of the old 36 paddocks using the streams as boundaries.

The Pungarere stream and two smaller unnamed streams run off Mount Taranaki and down to the Okahu River before reaching the Tasman sea, and they were a constant source of frustration with cows getting stuck in them in the days before exclusion, says Gwen Willcox.

Management of the cow herd is much improved now with cows not getting lost falling off lahars into streams or getting bogged at the stream margins and no more pugging of the margins means the stonybottomed creeks run clear all the way through the farm.

NIWA have recently installed a temperature logger in one of the streams and surveyed invertebrate life - and were thrilled with the results.

“They found heaps of life in our streams.”

The health and safety aspect of fenced-off creeks is huge too, says Tina, as streams are only crossed now over culverts or bridges.

“It’s much safer for everyone, for people and on motorbikes and the cows can’t get into the spots that they are not meant to be anymore.”

She says that the whole family wants to work towards leaving the land better than when they took it on. The Willcox’s have five generations of heritage and ashes of former guardians of the land scattered on the ‘Big Hill’ with plaques commemorating their lives.

“The farm has improved out of sight since the streams have been excluded and now that the plantings have grown.”

Proving shelter and shade for the cows has been a great bonus and even though they have retired land they haven’t dropped cow numbers or lost any production, Tina said.

The bird life has made the farm a very pleasant place to be, with tuis, waxeyes and fantails abounding in the riparian plantings.

“We have birdlife like tui’s here that we have never had before,” Rob said.

Once Rob had planned the new paddocks, he spent time recontouring some of the margins so that a fence could be run along the streams - benching around the sides of lahars and taking the tops off hills with his digger.

Fencing was next, driving posts and putting on electric wires.

“It all depended on the angles - I just put the fence where it looked right - I started fencing as close to the stream as I could, and I have since shifted some fences back, and made corners bigger for more planting.”

The margins were sprayed out to give the plantings the best chance to establish and then the family planting team took over with the riparian planting.

“We did a section at a time - and followed the Taranaki Regional Council guidelines and farm planting plan,” said Gwen.

“The Council has been very helpful and they supply plants at cost so each year we put in an order for at least 3000 plants.”

In addition, Gwen has propagated at least 800 plants each year at her potting bench in her garden - fondly named Nan’s Nursery.

Gwen and Tina are the chief planters - and the two of them have spent countless hours planting the riparian strips over the past 15 years.

These days they take Tina’s two children along as well as their cousins and friends. They aim to get it all done during the weekends in June when Tina’s children are home from boarding school and Queen’s Birthday weekend when there are a few cousins around.

“We spend one day digging the holes and the next day we take the plants over and fire them in - and I mean literally chucking the plants over the fence to each other - and seeing how many we can get in.”

“We make it fun and once the holes are dug we can get really fast at filling them.”

Gwen Willcox and her daughter Tina are both ‘mad-keen gardeners’ and the planting of riparian margins on their coastal Taranaki farm has been a labour of love. Gwen has been planting for the past 17 years and has worn her favourite yellowhandled spade down to half its original length.

“The planting project has been my baby - I have thoroughly enjoyed it.”

She appreciates how Rob gets the area all

ready to plant each year and then she and TIna and the grandchildren get stuck in and get each area planted.

The riverbed fencing and planting are all completed and Rob says there is just one piece of wet land on the 157ha farm left to go - although the family have just purchased the farm next door so the planting will carry on for a few years yet.

“It’s our family legacy, and when the areas are all planted we will still have to be filling in gaps - particularly along one stream which tends to flood and plants get removed by the floodwaters,” Gwen said.

Not only does Gwen muck in to dig the holes and plant the four rows of plants along the margin - she spends the rest of the year propagating plants and stashes them in pots all over her garden at home, ready for the planting season.

“We call it Nan’s nursery,” Tina says, adding it’s a source of mirth for the family who laugh at Gwen’s propensity to be collecting seeds and plants for her nursery wherever she goes.

“No plant or seedling is left behind - Mum’s always carting along a plastic bag to pick up any wee seedling or seeds she sees.”

She also has a couple of friends who collect seeds and seedlings for her and family and friends know big flaxes are always welcome at the Willcox’s when they are clearing out clumps in their gardens.

Gwen used to release the small trees from grass growth but over the years she has learnt that if she plants them thick enough they don’t lose many.

“And we can fill in any gaps.”

More is better as far as Gwen works with plants.

“I never plant just one row - I believe that’s a waste of time - so we stagger three or four rows of plants away from the stream.”

“We randomly mix them up but plant the tree species further back from the stream - we do love the trees.”

“We have learnt lots as we have gone along.”

Planting them thickly has also saved follow-up jobs - but the family have noticed blackberry starting to invade the margins so spraying that out will be a job for the future. Now that all the fencing is done Rob is busy shifting fences - making more room for native trees in bits of paddocks where grazing is not needed nor is best use of the land.

“We will plant more of the bigger species in woodlots - karaka, totara, rimu and miro - I love that one because my mum’s name is Miro,” he added.

He also has one wet piece of the farm left to develop and plans to drain and recontour one piece and create a wetland alongside, if he can get the council to agree.

“They are in a bit of a holding pattern with the advent of the new National Environmental Standards for Freshwater rules - they can’t give me an answer.”

The digger is his friend: Rob specialises in development - handling the fencing, cultivation of crop and regrassing, and draining and recontouring and paddocks.

planting liSt:

… Flaxes, grasses, toitoi, griselinia, hebes, fuschias, kowhai, whiteywoods, karaka, pohutukawa, cabbage trees, ponga, pittosporum, lemonwood, rimu, coprosma, wineberry, lacebark and olearia. … Ake ake are the only natives taken off the planting list as they tend to split in the westerly winds. … Care is taken over the placement of the large flaxes, as after 20 years they have grown really big and tend to short out fences if they are too close.

Left: A newly established riparian stream planting alongside an established one.