{"id":338377,"date":"2026-03-20T01:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/338377\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T01:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:45:09","slug":"gisborne-resident-calls-grant-rd-reserve-planting-an-unmitigated-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/338377\/","title":{"rendered":"Gisborne resident calls Grant Rd reserve planting an \u2018unmitigated disaster\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The council agreed that the kikuyu growth at Grant Rd was \u201cvigorous\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the council spokesperson said that the dense planting of roughly 4000 plants should eventually shade out the kikuyu once canopy closure occurs, which can take three to four years.<\/p>\n

\"AA section of the reserve, sheltered by a tree, was less affected by the kikuyu weed and showed the spacing of the plants, which resident Mark Sceats said had been planted too close together. Photo \/ Zita Campbell<\/p>\n

Sceats is a retired barrister and solicitor and was also a deputy town clerk, in charge of reserves for a few years in the 1980s, he said. <\/p>\n

Writing reserve management plans was part of his role, and the council needed to \u201cget the basics right from the start\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the council had put weed mat down and then mulch on top, but did not spray the weeds, which meant the site was now covered.<\/p>\n

The native plants were \u201cprobably very expensive\u201d and were at risk of being lost.<\/p>\n

To remove the weeds would probably mean \u201cmany hours\u201d of somebody manually clearing them.<\/p>\n

While the planting was good, the council had created a lot of work and expense to maintain it, he added.<\/p>\n

\" Kikuyu weed at Grant Road reserve. Photo \/ Zita Campbell<\/p>\n

Sceats said the council mowed the reserves\u2019 lawns, and in the past week or so, had sprayed some areas, including on the riverbank and had used a weed-eater.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have thought that the riverbank like this would have been something that they would want to protect and that this would have been one of the initial places that you would have done some planting on to protect the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council director of liveable communities Michele Frey said the council planned to plant the riverbank this year.<\/p>\n

Roughly 4000 plants were planted last year. They were primarily harakeke (flax), t\u012b k\u014duka (cabbage tree) and carex grasses.<\/p>\n

Council were \u201cunable to supply costs\u201d but noted that the planting was 50% funded through the Ministry for the Environment\u2019s Freshwater Improvement Fund.<\/p>\n

To prepare for the planting, the kikuyu grass was scrub cut but not sprayed before laying wool matting, Frey said.<\/p>\n

The dense planting and wool matting were designed to \u201cpromote vigorous growth of the native plants and provide faster weed suppression\u201d.<\/p>\n

The council had success with this method at another site; however, \u201ceach site has its own challenges, and the kikuyu growth at Grant Rd is vigorous\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plants have been manually released and sprayed,\u201d Frey said. \u201cThe perimeter has been sprayed, and weeds have been pulled.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council agreed that the kikuyu growth at Grant Rd was \u201cvigorous\u201d. But the council spokesperson said that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8831,115,7558,48803,7557,12506,2347,42,126,43,79503,2642,10665,10710,1314,312,1361,40,38,41,39,181123],"class_list":["post-338377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an","tag-calls","tag-councils","tag-disaster","tag-district","tag-gisborne","tag-grant","tag-headlines","tag-native","tag-news","tag-planting","tag-rd","tag-reserve","tag-resident","tag-road","tag-says","tag-that","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-unmitigated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}