Kuranui students tackle horticulture

Kuranui College students are planting trees and bedding down gardens at an industrial park across from their school as part of a joint project with City Care and Greytown Trust Lands Trust.

Gary Hall, Kuranui College deputy principal and horticulture teacher, said about 13 students last week started planting ornamental low maintenance flowering gardens at the Athol Ross premises at the Bidwells Cutting Road site.

The garden work will be shared with a roster of Year 11 and Year 12 classmates as building progresses at the industrial park.

The stretches of mulch bark gardens boast magnolia black tulip and magnolia little gem trees and dietes grandiflora plants, and students from the college will water, fertilise and care for the trees.

Participating students also will gain an NCEA standard in Level 2 Horticulture - Planting Trees and Shrubs, Mr Hall said, and the project is one of several that partners the school and Greytown Trust Lands Trust.

The trees are expected to survive for up to 40 years and the plants for up to half that period. Year 11 student Finn Fowlds-Hartley, 15, said he was looking forward to pointing out his work to his own children in years to come.

"It'll be good to watch them change and grow and I can tell my own kids 'I was a part of that'."

College principal Geoff Shepherd said the school was "giving real consideration" to an offer from the trust of having a kitchen classroom or a trades workshop for Kuranui College students at the park that would also need to involve tertiary education.