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...
by Mark Roberts | Dec 13, 2020 | Trees, Uncategorized
A journeyman is an old-school term for a worker who is skilled in a given trade, someone that had completed an apprenticeship but had not yet mastered their craft. A journeyman was someone who had spent enough time working on their craft to have gained a qualification...
by Mark Roberts | Aug 23, 2020 | Nature, Trees
I have a wisteria that grows and grows, but where it goes nobody knows. I train it and shape it to follow a plan but it still it grows to follow its nose… and I don’t know why. As a self-respecting arborist, I dislike vines – with the exception of grapevines and...
by Mark Roberts | Jun 21, 2020 | Trees
New Zealand Arborists can’t prune. For some, a generic sweeping statement like that will be offensive, but some will agree. If you’re a kiwi arborist, and you’re offended, it’s probably because you can’t prune – this, you may well find offensive, yet others will...
