Marie Taylor, protecting our native flora 

Ask ecologist Marie Taylor what the most important ecological issue is facing Hawke’s Bay and her reply is quick, “habitat”. 

“I am all about habitat and habitat protection,” she says. 

“We are losing high-ecological value landscapes and original forest, stick by stick every day, and it’s happening very rapidly.”

From 1980s to early 2000s, the Department of Conservation’s Protected Natural Areas Programme identified representative examples of the full range of indigenous biodiversity in Hawke’s Bay – many on private land. 

“We have to protect what we have left of these,” says Marie. “They are going to disappear if they are not protected.” 

And she should know. The founding owner of Plant Hawke’s Bay, a commercial nursery specialising in selling local native plants, Marie was the part-time regional rep for the QEII National Trust in Hawke’s Bay for 13 years during the 1990s/early 2000s. She got to know the local landscape intimately then and today she is increasingly renowned for her work eco-sourcing seed from plants native to Hawke’s Bay by making regular forays out into our natural environment. 

“Next to the Canterbury Plains, Hawke’s Bay has the least amount of native vegetation left, and I don’t think we treasure it enough yet,” says Marie.

“Our natural landscapes are over-run by pests; not just the predator species of possums, cats, and mustelids, but also feral deer, pigs and goats. For example, in the last 20 years feral deer have spread right across the landscape and are found almost everywhere.” (One red hind, she points out, will eat as much as 2.2 sheep.) 

“The big challenge is to get wider recognition that we have to fence browsing animals out of our bush remnants. It’s expensive, she admits, “but if we don’t do it, we will lose all the biodiversity – the plants and animals – from parts of the landscape that help define local areas.

“It also seems outrageous to me that people are still allowed to cut down mature native trees for firewood. Trees hundreds of years old are disappearing from our landscapes really rapidly, and no-one is accountable. That kind of thing is criminal.

“On the other hand we need to recognise and reward the landowners who are making a positive contribution to protection, and that might encourage more landowners to carry out more protection work.” 

One good example of protection work is the 130-hectare private Puahanui Bush remnant in Tikokino. Marie is an independent ecologist and secretary on the Guavas/Puahanui Charitable Trust and says it shows what can be done when the focus is on protecting habitat.

On-going pest control, deer and pig fencing, and restoration work led by Project Manager Kay Griffiths of the Conservation Company means Puahanui is probably the largest remnant of regenerating dry lowland podocarp forest in New Zealand. It boasts totara, matai, kahikatea and is home to at least two colonies of native long-tailed bats as well as bush falcon, large numbers of tui and kereru, forest gecko and a range of unusual invertebrates.

Contribution honoured

Marie Taylor grew up in Southland and has a Horticulture degree from Lincoln University and a journalism degree from Canterbury. She worked as a rural journalist for many years until repetitive strain injury (RSI) forced her to stop. After the QII National Trust role, she was living in Bay View and eco-sourcing plants for a steep slope, when she hatched the idea for her business Plant Hawke’s Bay. Since its inception in 2005, she has identified and collected seed from 78 local plant species, and is now in partnership with Rob and Coral Buddo. The business this year will grow 500,000 native HB plants “to enhance our environment”. Commercial buyers, mainly farmers, will buy up to a 1,000 plants per time. 

“Local plant species are adaptive to this environment so it makes sense to grow and sell them for the local market.”

Marie’s approach has earned her numerous accolades: she has twice won “The love of land” section at the NZI Rural Women Business Awards, and is also a winner of the supreme award. In 2020 she was awarded a QSM for her work eco-sourcing local seed, and last year she won the 2021 Hawke’s Bay Primary Sector Laurie Dowling Memorial Award for her contribution to local agriculture. “Her knowledge and experience are incredibly valued by rural Hawke’s Bay,” said the judges.

It is a damp, grey winter’s day when I pull up at Plant Hawke’s Bay’s 11-hectare nursery in Omarunui Road in Taradale. Marie is waiting near the entrance to greet me. I follow her through a large shed, pausing as she explains how one of the company’s state-of-the-art automatic potting machines works. Her office is in the tearoom and as we sit down, workers gather up cups and plates from lunch and slowly leave. A couple pause to ask Marie a question on their way out. 

As we talk, I am curious as to why she doesn’t have a better office. I don’t ask the question of her, but as soon as we leave the computer behind and walk out into the nursery, I get it. “I love being out here when I can,” she says. “Let’s go and look at some plants.”

Seed gatherer

Our first stop is a group of about 25 thriving kākābeak – Marie’s personal favourite, and featured in fulsome red on her business card. 

Kākābeak naturally occur in the wild from Shine Falls near Lake Tutira up to the East Cape. With its bright-red flowers shaped like a parrot’s beak, kākābeak (also called ngutukākā), is one of New Zealand’s most critically endangered species. 

“There’s only 108 kākābeak populations left in the wild and that’s very worrying,” says Marie. “It puts it on a par with kakapo [our rare, nocturnal flightless parrot] in terms of our threatened species.” Earlier we had looked at a map on her computer showing the distribution of the 108 species. 

A member of the kowhai family, kākābeak are good for our environment. They are legumes and are high in nitrogen. They are also a source of food for native birds and their seed pods were once a source of food for early Māori.

Marie is helping other local efforts to save kākābeak by growing plants from seed or cuttings and propagating them. “We‘ll take cuttings from each of these,” she says as we walk. “We won’t collect the seeds here though as they are growing close together and could crossbreed.”

Marie has a ‘Seed Collecting’ permit from DoC and says her favourite thing to do is gather seed “because it’s peaceful. 

“You have to be out there looking all the time,” she adds. “And you have to be careful about where you get your seed from and make sure it is from the source. Mostly I collect directly off a tree, or seeds from the ground underneath a tree, otherwise I collect leaf litter, in which case it is a mystery and you have to wait for things to germinate. That’s part of the magic!”

As we leave the kākābeak and walk through the nursery she points out plants: “That’s ribbonwood grown from seed collected from Central Hawke’s Bay, and that’s manuka from Hawke’s Bay and this is whau – which is good fun to grow. “She touches the expansive green leaf. It’s common in other places but not Hawke’s Bay.” 

The Hawke’s Bay whau looks exactly like whau I have seen in Auckland. 

“Some species are significantly different from region to region and some are very similar,” Marie tells me. “A good example would be Pittosporum tennuifolium which varies considerably around NZ.” 

We stop at a brown fuzzy looking tussock plant. “Feel this,” she says bending down and touching the grass. It feels sturdy as I run my fingers slowly through it.

“This is Hawke’s Bay Carex comans and it has a good story. In fact every plant has a good story,” she says. “I was out seed collecting up on Te Waka Range past Patoka when I found the Carex. I was with a friend and we took a whole plant and brought it back to the nursery and got it identified. I like the challenge of growing this now and getting it back out into the landscape.” 

Another good story is Pimelea mimosa – found only on Te Mata Peak.

“When I was working for the QEII National Trust one of my colleagues in Wellington had some Pimelea plants (a bluey-green sand daphne with white flowers) in her garden. She used to work in rare and endangered plants at Percy Reserve in Petone and the Pimelea Mimosa had been collected from Te Mata Peak in the 1970s by Norman Elder, [a teacher at Hereworth and skilled botanist] and grown at the reserve.”

Marie’s colleague sent her 400 seeds and with help from the local Friends of Te Mata Peak and its founder Mike Lusk, the Pimelea were planted on a number of sites, including at Giant’s head and the peak’s highest cliff systems, in the mid-2000s.

“They needed full sun, but it was a terrible summer that year and 200 died,” remembers Marie. 

The story has a happy ending though: the other two hundred Pimelea Mimosa survived and are thriving on the peak today and flowering almost all year round. Some are very easy to find, growing just below the main carpark and adjacent to the Rongoa Garden.

“I was out seed collecting up on Te Waka Range past Patoka when I found the Carex. I was with a friend and we took a whole plant and brought it back to the nursery and got it identified. I like the challenge of growing this now and getting it back out into the landscape.” 

“It’s exciting because Te Mata peak is the only place in the world the Pimelea Mimosa is found growing naturally,” says Mike Lusk. Eventually he hopes educational signage will inform visitors about the Pimelea and other HB natives that have been planted – many supplied by Marie’s business. “She grows beautiful plants,” he adds.

Another of Marie’s plant stories and perhaps one even more intriguing is about Te Taha, colloquially known as the Gap at Westshore – “a cool little project that probably challenges people’s views of what natives are like”.

The Gap – the size of ten house sites – is a protected zone that forms part of the airport’s cross runway, established in the 1960’s and owned by Napier City and Hastings District Councils.

Restrictions on the height of buildings and plants on the prime waterfront site has meant it has been left to its own devices. Ironically it’s because it hasn’t been touched for so long, that the 8000m2 plot is now identified by the Napier City Council as a Significant Natural Area (SNA) and referred to officially as ‘Esplanade Herbfield’. 

One day Marie was walking on the coast, probably with her seed collecting and ecologist eyes firmly on, when she found among exotic species like the yellow ghanzia daisy and ubiquitous agapantha, one of New Zealand’s nationally vulnerable coastal plant species Pimelea Xenica clinging to life on the barren landscape. 

“Most of our coastline, particularly in Hawke’s Bay has been modified by housing, engineering, damaged by quad bikes and vehicles, stock and feral animals,” says Marie. “This is a rare chance to restore a shingle ecosystem.” 

She took the Pimelea Xenica seeds home and began growing plants from seed. Now Biodiversity Hawke’s Bay, Te Taiwhenua o Te Whanganui ā Orotu, Napier and Hastings councils, Westshore locals plus others have got behind the project to develop The Gap’s unique biodiversity. As well as the Pimelea Xenica, Marie is growing extremely rare coastal natives for the site, such as nationally threatened Muehlenbeckia ephedroides (Leafless pohuehue), and the “at risk” Coprosma acerosa (Sand Coprosma). 

Charles Daugherty, Chair of the Biodiversity Hawke’s Bay Trust and long-time conservationist, says Marie is a local treasure playing a unique and essential role in ecological restoration in HB. “Many people have directly benefitted from her work.”

He says we have national and international obligations to care for our species and if we value the real ecological restoration of our HB landscape and its history, then eco-sourcing is critical. 

“We need to use eco-sourced plants because these are the seeds best genetically adapted to HB. Marie is the ‘go to’ person for this. She knows which plants belong where and she is knowledgeable and committed to getting it right.”

Eco-sourcing is not for amateurs, he adds. The identities of plants can be quite difficult. For example something like kanuka may look the same across a large landscape but it may be made up of many genetically different species.

“Eco-sourcing is the foundational element of ecological restoration. Otherwise it’s just another form of planting.” 

Protecting habitat

As Marie and I finish our tour of Plant Hawke’s Bay’s nursery, our conversation winds back to protecting habitat.

“You need scale to solve problems,” she says. “You have to produce plants at scale. That’s my driver here. My clients are mostly farmers. They might be doing riparian stuff or they might be taking out pine trees and replacing them with natives.

“But no,” she says, “I don’t think we should be getting rid of all our Pinus radiata blocks. A good landscape needs a mix of everything and we could do with a lot more pine trees in our landscape. If you have 10 or 15 per cent in pines you have a succession plan. This conflict between pine trees and everything else is manufactured, I think, basically by people who don’t like pine trees.” 

Marie suggests HB would benefit enormously from having a crowd-funding website where people can put their money into high ecological-value projects. “I’d really like to see this. A way for people to contribute. We need enduring long-term results. 

“I like to take the 100-year view of a project and think about how we want the landscape to look in the future. What should it be like; what could it be like; how do we plan for that to happen?

“Even though the Hawke’s Bay landscape has been given a pretty severe beating in the last 180 years by farmers, engineers and pests, it still contains lots of clues to how we can look after it better.

“In a forest if we want to create really good habitat working at every level, we first plant primary species that are tough and hardy, and then you go back and put in the longer-term species like titoki, podocarp and other broadleaf species. If you plant a titoki at the start, it will be beaten up by the wind and sun. When hardy plants are as big as a person that’s when you put in the special plants and create a permanent canopy in the forest and feed birds over a long period. 

“So it takes a bit of time. There are clues in the landscape and we know the kinds of plants that should be going back but they won’t survive if they’re not fenced. 

“One of my things is that with eco-sourcing we don’t want HB landscapes to look like the rest of the country. They’re quite different so we need to respect our landscape by augmenting it in a respectful way, by eco-sourcing its native plants and trees. And we need to get more of our local species back into the landscape because it is pretty skinned out. We have a lovely suite of plants and we should be using them more.

“And we need to protect habitat. What’s the price of losing a species? How do we price that?

“Every species we have here in Hawke’s Bay deserves our respect.” 

Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air