by Mark Roberts | Oct 15, 2024 | Nature, selective attention, Trees
For quite some time I despaired at the public’s lack of knowledge of trees. I failed to understand why they couldn’t tell one tree from the other. Just the common ones, I didn’t want everyone to be a closet dendrologist. I felt that it was reasonable for most people...
by robertsandtrees | Sep 17, 2024 | Nature, Trees
Botanical Provenance; Culture and origin Provenance (prɒv(ə)nəns) noun: the place of origin or earliest known history of something. With provenance comes authenticity, you know what it is, where it came from and where it’s been. When choosing plants it is important to...
by Mark Roberts | Mar 12, 2023 | Nature, Trees
There is a tree that I drive past on my way to work. I call it my tree, but that’s a stretch and calling it a tree isn’t much better. A green blob would be a more accurate description – a blob maybe 4m tall, khaki in colour with a crusty beige brown trunk. Hardly a...
by Mark Roberts | Sep 7, 2021 | Nature, Trees
As you read this you are probably sitting in a room that is hollow; a building with walls and empty internal spaces, rooms. You could be in your work vehicle; a hollow structure with outside walls and an inside space, the cab. You may well be drinking from a cup, can...
by Mark Roberts | May 22, 2021 | Nature, Trees
Recently I have had cause to rue the age of the arboriculture industry here in New Zealand; rue not being word one normally would or indeed should use, but it seemed better than bewail or lament. Anyway, I was feeling a bit stink about the arboricultural industry in...
by Mark Roberts | Mar 22, 2021 | Nature, Soil and soil science, Trees
When I was a young horticulturalist each and every soils teacher seemed to say something along the lines of ‘soil is soil and dirt is what you get under your fingernails’, some of them would go on to say that they were taught that, but it ‘reflected...
