April 2, 2016
While it is fall down here on the underside of the ball we live on, and while these are kind of pretty, they’re not fall colors…
Much of the Marlborough Sounds are great big timber farms. Seeds from these farmed, non-native trees spread as they are designed to do. These runaway trees are called wilding pines.
In an effort to restore or maintain native vegetation, these wilding pines are poisoned and left to die off. When we first saw it, we lamented the disease that must have infected these trees. Now we know the disease is us – either in their spreading in the first place or their deliberate distruction. Oh well, the colors are pretty for a while. -Rich
