Matai

Emergency blip from the garden again tonight, this time it’s not you’re usual herbaceous plant sitting pretty in a border. This giant matai stands scarily close to our house - within 10 metres - but I’m not too worried about it coming down. At over 30 metres tall it’s an old old tree that’s probably seen its fair share of Nor’Westers, storms and blizzards.

It’s age is writ across its flaky bark; like a reptile it sheds its scaly outer revealing a beautiful smooth hammer-bark inner layer. Once prized for it’s hard timber - known as black pine - many of its cousins once covered the lowlands of Canterbury and Banks Peninsula, only to be cut down for housing, especially floorboards.

No such future awaits this tree, sitting under our protection in our little bit of bush.