Some days you plant a few hundred trees and call it a win. This season, one team planted their way into the record books twice over in a single afternoon. Here's how the 2026 planting season went.

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The record: Lowe & Co, Mangaroa Farms

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Together, Lowe & Co planted 2,213 native seedlings in a day – the most trees ever planted at a single CarbonInvoice Planting Action Day, anywhere in the country. It beat the national record of 1,341 (Tracksuit, 2025) and the Wellington record of 856 (Sharesies, 2025) in one go.

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It's the latest step in a run that's been building for three years:

• 2024, Belmont – 601 seedlings
• 2025, Catchpool Valley – 708 seedlings
• 2026, Mangaroa Farms – 2,213 seedlings

The trees are going into old dairy farmland that Mangaroa Farms Charitable Trust is turning back into forest – sedges and harakeke down in the wetland, tōtara, karamū and rewerewa up on the drier banks. Over time they'll clean up the waterways, bring the birdlife back, and pull carbon out of the air for decades.

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Second year running: Farrow Jamieson, Papakura Stream

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This is the second year Farrow Jamieson has brought a client out to plant trees together instead of taking them to lunch.

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They were back on the hillside above the Papakura Stream with Ricoh New Zealand – 25 people, spades in hand, at the Chamberlins Property, where the upper stream runs out of the valley. Between them they got 1,857 native seedlings into the ground: mānuka, kānuka, harakeke, ngaio and sedges, tucked in under mature mānuka and a stand of teenage tōtara, rimu, mātai and kahikatea. It was seventeen degrees to start, then the rain rolled through and cooled everyone off.

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This site has hosted a run of Planting Action Days now, and the difference is starting to show. Earlier plantings are already holding the stream banks. Fantails were working the slope alongside the group. Over time these trees will filter the sediment that would otherwise reach the Manukau Harbour, and keep bringing the birdlife back.

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It was muddy, wet, and genuinely good fun – and for a few people on the day, it was the first tree they'd ever planted.

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The season in numbers

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• 4,070 native seedlings across these two days alone
• 2 records broken in one afternoon at Mangaroa Farms
• 2 sites – one brand new, one with three seasons of growth already visible

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Why it matters

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These aren't fast-rotation plantation trees – they're natives, going into permanent restoration sites on land being handed back to forest for good. Over time they rebuild habitat, stabilise soil, clean up waterways, and lock up carbon that stays locked up. It's climate action your team can see, stand in, and go back and visit.

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That's a wrap on the 2026 season. Thanks to everyone who swapped the office for a hillside with us this year.

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Want your team on a hillside next season?

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A Planting Action Day is a few hours out of the office that turns into a story your team tells for years – good for the culture, good for your sustainability goals, and a lot more fun than another lunch.

Get in touch to lock in your date for 2027 →

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