So Long New Zealand and Thanks For All the Sheep. Part 2.

Any European botanist arriving in New Zealand for the first time might just as well be landing on a different planet - so extraordinarily is the plant life on these South Pacific islands. It took four or five years to see any positive results when trying to establish our native New Zealand garden. The one thing that grew easily was flax, and this was encouraging, because I'd seen nectar feeding birds visiting flax flowers elsewhere - so, it wasn't difficult to join up the dots... soon I was dividing and planting out as many locally grown flax as I could…

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Is Every Rotten Tree in the Forest Really Out to Get You?

The modern world has noticeably changed. We all have rights now; should a tree fall upon us somebody else will almost certainly be  responsible, and if an appropriate scapegoat can't be found we can at least expect to sue our local authority. There is very little left in the developed world for which we are responsible - becoming fat, having too many children, getting run over when jogging across a busy intersection whilst listening to a stereo system plugged into our ears; even spilling hot coffee over ourselves in a public place clearly has nothing to do with us. Read the…

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