Apparently the Trees that Count scheme is a bit of a scam. It's really a way for govt to count planting trees as part of their bean count process and get people to plant loads of trees for nothing, but only if they've already planted loads of trees which they will then have to source themselves and look after, I doubt that they actually will give people any trees to plant. And they say you need to plant a minimum of 50.
Why can't it be a voucher system whereby every New Zealander is given a voucher to plant a native tree, that needs to be redeemed say this year. They can register their names and plant on behalf of other people. The thing is most people don't have access to land where they could plant 50 trees. Each park that is open to trees being planted can then pledge space for x amount of trees so you could match up a voucher to a park and go there to plant it. With the voucher there can be full instructions on how to care and look after your tree, and maybe a tree journal that goes with it so you could take a photo every year beside your tree and measure how big it's grown.
I don't know. I'm always the one with stupid grand ideas that everyone says won't work because other people have better, ideas that are much less easy to put into practice.
Like planting a roundabout with native flaxes after I pulled out a green bin load of cineraria, months later leaving empty space. The flaxes were already there, but needed dividing. So I just spread them around. Silly idea, we are buying brand new plants and why didn't you just tidy up the existing ones. Well excuse me for gardening. If we buy brand new plants, who's to say they won't be hacked back again like the cinerarias were. And what do I do with the extra flax that has kindly decided to grow more? Chuck them in the bin?
After that I decided I don't know anything about gardening except the people who are trying to make a buck from it. It's like when it's your birthday and you're told to buy your own gift and they will reimburse you. Or when someone invites you over to their party but says you must bring your own food. And on top of that, buy tupperware.
Bring on the cashless economy, where, if you want to plant a tree, you are actually given a tree to plant. And wouldn't be nice if, instead of buying stuff that's shipped and gassed from halfway around the world you could just make things or grow things here instead.
