s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

We have elm trees ! Big, beautiful healthy elm trees ! I don’t think I’ve ever *seen* a mature elm tree before. But I did some googling (prompted by the now barely-legible “Elmwood” sign on our front gate) and determined that those huge old trees in the front are, in fact elms. Probably English elms. How cool is that ? We’re going to point them out to the guy from the Regional Council when we have him out, and see if we ought to have them checked — NZ had an outbreak of Dutch Elm Disease in the Auckland area 10 years ago, and another, smaller one in Napier more recently, but heavy-duty culling and beetle control tactics by MAF means they’re very close to being able to declare they’ve eradicated DED in NZ altogether.

Elms !