Sunny Heights: Ecological restoration and streetscaping services for Orewa residential development.
Dempsey Wood has contracted two divisions from The Plant People to contribute environmental and landscaping services towards Stage 1 of the Sunny Heights development.
Peaking at 250 sunshine hours during the summer months, and sitting comfortably above the nationwide average, Orewa is truly one of New Zealand’s hotspots for great beach-going weather. Nestled on the hillside just inland from the main Orewa township, you’ll find the aptly named new development of Sunny Heights.
A mixed density residential development under construction by Dempsey Wood, Sunny Heights will introduce 570 new homes to help alleviate Auckland’s insatiable demand for housing.
Ecological Restoration
Our environmental team is providing strategic and systematic noxious weed control and native bush revegetation/regeneration to a significant ecological area central to the 42Ha subdivision. Part of the Alice Eaves Scenic Reserve, this parcel of native bushland features a number of streams running through the native bush. A walking track will wind its way through the bush and will form part of Sunny Heights’ outdoor recreation area.
Right now, and like so much of New Zealand’s native forest, the area has been infiltrated by weeds, including gorse and the noxious Woolly nightshade (pictured below). So to facilitate Sunny Heights’ vision of natural splendour, our team has been working to eradicate these invasive plant species.
The gallery below provides a snapshot of the weed control work we’ve undertaken to date. We will revisit the area once the revegetation work has been established to showcase the transformation achieved by this native bush revegetation/regeneration project.
Streetscaping
While our environmental team wrestles with weeds, our Commercial Landscaping division is working shoulder-to-shoulder installing high-quality streetscaping as Sunny Heights starts to take shape.
Iconic Kowhai trees, as well as the dense and leafy Karaka and Puriri trees, are highlights of the streetscape planting at Sunny Heights. Elsewhere, Pohutukawa trees are underplanted with Arthropodium bifurcatum (Renga renga lily) and Coprosma acerosa (Coprosma red rocks).
These varieties perfectly compliment the natural coastal environment and will offer a welcome green lining to the streets of this development.
The photo gallery below highlights our progress at around the midway point of the landscaping project. We will update this page at the end of the planting season to showcase our progress.
