Greening Taupōs 2025 planting season wraps up: Spa Park🌳Hipapatua🌳Whakaipō Bay

What an incredible end to the planting season! Over the past few months, our community, partners, and volunteers have come together for three awesome Greening Taupō plantings to wrap up the season at Spa Park, Hipapatua, and Whakaipo Bay, each one helping to restore and connect our native habitats across Taupō.

Spa Park

Supported by our awesome partners Taupō District Council, this planting was a fantastic morning with over 120 volunteers getting 1,600 native plants in the ground. Massive shout out to our amazing Greening Taupō supporters who helped with holes, layout, and setup. We made Hutch sweat a bit on this one and we wouldn't have had such a successful day without his limitless energy of getting holes in the ground! MB Century once again fired up the BBQ (their third one this season!) they have it down to a fine art and all volunteers were well fed. Together, we’re improving another one of the entrances into Spa Park, creating a greener and more welcoming space for everyone to enjoy.

Hipapatua Planting Waikato Awa

Funding from the Wairakei Ahi Tāmou Rōpū, which includes Contact Energy and local hāpu, enabled the clearance of extensive blackberry and woody weeds. The area was mulched by Land Clear and managed by Marshall Eco, ensuring weeds didn’t return. Plants were supplied by Trees That Count and Corrections, setting the stage for a great community planting day on 16 August.

The community turned out in force. We’ve now planted over 15,000 natives at Hipapatua since 2017, including many magnificent kahikatea, Aotearoa’s tallest native tree. The Taupō First Credit Union whānau put on a brilliant BBQ for our hardworking volunteers, and the weather held out just long enough to get everything planted before the rain arrived to water it all in!

Huge thanks to Contact Energy, Trees That Count, Wairakei Ahi Tāmou Rōpū, and everyone who helped make this day such a success, including Hutch for getting another 1800 holes in, the Wicked Weeders and Kids Greening Taupō student leaders. Our dedicated weeders and Te Korowai Roopū Tautoko returned post-planting to mulch, stake, and tidyup the site during Conservation Week — a real team effort!

Whakaipō Bay

We held our final planting day of the 2025 season at the beautiful Whakaipō Bay on Saturday, this time at a brand-new site! Thanks to a new fence line and continued support from the John Nankervis Estate, we’re able to start restoring another special area of the bay and ensure it’s well protected for the future.

It was incredible to see so many people come along, with over 2,000 native plants in the ground in just an hour! Huge thanks to the Department of Conservation Taupō and Tūrangi team and the Wicked Weeders for braving the rain the day before to set up the site, and to MyNoke for donating vermicast to give each plant the best start.

We had a fantastic turnout from the community, the Girl Guides, and the amazing Kids Greening Taupō student leaders were super helpful. As always, Denise and Nicole from the Girl Guides expertly ran the barbecue, making sure everyone enjoyed a well-deserved sausage sizzle. It’s a pleasure to have their continued support at Whakaipō Bay each year

A massive thank you to everyone who joined us or supported the day and the season. We’re so grateful for everyone's support and aroha for our environment. What a wonderful way to wrap up another big year of planting for Greening Taupo and Kids Greening Taupo!

We can’t wait to see you all back out planting with us in 2026!