11th March

Finally, first estimate for Heritage Hotel done, $354,600 just for the plants at the rear, without looking at the frontage. So much for their $100,000 allocation. Add labour costs into that, $500,000 easily.

That’s what happens here when things get left to the last minute. Everyone knows they need the plants, all my suppliers know I need them, so the prices have gone up. I’m paying $450 each for 2 metre coconut palms, and I need 150 for Heritage. They’ve been working on the site, or developing it now, for 5 years, 3 months to go before opening, “oh, that’s right, throw some plants around here please”

Musa, Carica, Cocos nucifera, grow like weeds here, and get chopped down mercilessly, until someone wants them, then you start negotiating $’s

I’m past caring actually, it’s been a headache dealing with Heritage, and my suppliers, and I’ve fallen behind with what I’m actually meant to be doing here

Talked over the possibility of getting the Botanic Gardens declared a National Heritage Area with Steve again today. I’m probably getting close to the boundary of my advisors role here, but given the Councils attitude towards the Gardens, the lack of co-operation, and the constant encroachment into the edges of the Gardens, I think it is the only way for the Botanic Gardens to have any real long term future. Steve is going ahead with arranging a meeting with the Minister for the Environment for next week

We’re having constant power cuts here this week, one of the 3 diesel generators that supply Honiara, hem bugarup, and the replacement is a week away coming from Japan. I went for another track walk through the Gardens for a couple of hours. Found more Cycas bougainvillea, they are supposed to be rare here. I keep tripping over the things now. Cycas circinalis are all in seed, Sago cycas, I’m hoping that the seed is viable, and we’ll propagate as many as possible.

Found a lot of dendrobium orchid flowers on the track, yellow brown speckled throat, they are so high up in the canopy, I’ll need one of the good tree climbers in the crew to go look for them. I can’t find it in any reference book yet, a few close to it, but not close enough to say for definite which variety. Considering there are an estimated 230+ varieties of Dendrobiums in the Solomons, and Bulbiferums, one that isn’t in any reference book isn’t unusual.

We had a Botanist from Germany here last year for 3 months, a year later, he still hasn’t finished cataloguing, naming or describing the plants within the Botanic gardens.

I’m constantly wandering through the tracks, plucking leaves, flowers, going through reference books, catching seed heads as they float down from the tops, a few of the trees I’ve managed to identify are classed as endangered in the wild, due to the logging that is being done in the Solomons and Bouganville, Papua New Guinea. Even more reason to have the Botanic Gardens declared a National Heritage Area.

We’ve got the post barrier erected across the lawn edge. Cut the trees from the Nursery into 800mm sections, about 350mm diameter, and buried 400mm deep.
It was only acacia, but heavy!. 2 person lift for each section, once it was on your shoulder, ok, you could walk with it, but you didn’t want to be dropping it.

And of course, no one came and tried to drive up on the grass. I was hoping to catch someone, I’ll wait.

The swimming hole restoration is progressing well. 2 more layers of tyres and it will be up to the ground level, and finished, then we start on the dam reconstruction. So far we’ve had a few floods down the river without losing any tyres, so the steel pins are working, with the double tyres tied in behind and back filled with river gravel. The crew working on it are happy, now they want to see if my idea of sloping the dam wall back will work, instead of a barrier.

My work permit finally got approved today, so I’m here working legally now. My job description on it reads,’Advisory Position Botanic Gardens” so I’m having fun with Tiffany and Shirleyta over what I do from now on. I’m going to scan it into OCR tomorrow night and re-word it so it reads, “Studying ecological systems and impact on offshore reef structure” as my excuse to get 3 days a week out fishing.

Having seen hardly any geckos for a week, there are now 7 inside here with me tonight. There’s a small 50mm one doing laps up and down the door frame, up one side, across, down, then it runs across the floor, and climbs back up. 3 or 4 times since I first noticed it tonight.

Arrrgh, it’s 10.30pm, I spent 3 ½ hours tonight writing up the Heritage estimate, I’ve spent close to 35 hours outside of work on it, no wonder I’m sick of it.

I’ve been here a month now, and only been once to the beach. When Rosalee gets here, I’m taking a long weekend and we’ll go to Savo Island resort for 3 days. Or 4

10th March

Spent the morning with Adrian. He’s Australian. From Queensland. His work method with the crew is to shout, if they don’t understand, he shouts louder.

I’m not impressed. After 4 hours with him, I felt exhausted. Everything here gets done at a pace that doesn’t suit him, the heat and humidity have a lot of influence, you don’t run here, especially in the middle of the day or afternoon, and even more so when you’re wearing overalls, work boots and working in the middle of a tarseal road with traffic, and no shade. He has or seems to have no regard for the crew taking a few minutes off to grab a quick rest under some shade when they’re doing the median strips, or the garden edgings in town. Add in the constant “Don’t do anything unless I tell you” commands, I’m fighting an uphill battle if I hope to get most of the crew to be self sufficient and working for themselves in 2 years.

I’m still working on the Heritage Hotel landscape plan. It’s a nightmare of a thing. We needed a years notice to bulk up plants, now I’m having to source good size specimens from another Kastom Nursery west of Honiara, who have Native land title, and pull the plants out of the bush, and charge accordingly. $450 and up for 1.8 – 2.4 metre palms and trees. Keithie isn’t impressed, she doesn’t want me dealing with them, or more to the point, she doesn’t want the other nursery getting any of the income.

I’m working on it till this Friday, submitting my plans, sketches, prices, and letting it go. I’m falling behind in what I’m meant to be doing, with the Gardens and the Nursery here.

Steve called in today, well, late this afternoon. I’ve finally got covers for the foam squabs for the chairs and 2 seater wooden couch. He’s had them sitting at his house for a month, after getting cleaned.

I’ve found what to use to clean the trees up in the Memorial Gardens, white spirit, or paint thinners. It’s going to be interesting, we’ll have to wash the thinners off the trees with detergent, and lots of water, before we can start grafting. The heat will be evaporating the thinners quickly, so I’m picking there will be a few dizzy people with me there. The ant barrier glue was meant to have been applied over a separate plastic or builders felt layer, to allow the tree to grow. An expensive lesson for all. But good grafting practise for the students.

Steve is setting up a meeting with the Minister for the Environment later in the week, or early next week for me. It is frustrating trying to get answers and decisions about the Gardens with so many different groups involved. The Honiara Council have title, the Forestry Commission are meant to be overseeing, the SEB are the ones taking care on a voluntary basis. The Council don’t want to know, we’re just a bunch of tree hugging lentil munching hippies as far as they are concerned, the Forestry Commission would love to clear fell the entire Gardens, after which the Council could put houses on the land. I’ll try to convince the Minister to have the Botanic Gardens put into Government ownership, we may not get any money from it, but it will solve the disputes and ambiguity.

It’s a bit like making an omelette, you have to beak a few eggs to get something good.

I had 2 hours with XXXXXXX and XXXXXXX, I’m not going to be able to put up with the patronising attitude for long. It’s almost as though they can’t accept that “these people” may have different aspirations, or abilities and may have different ways of working things out, or have other ideas about what they want.

Adrian wants me to go to the Yacht Club with him and meet the “important” people in town. I’m putting it off as much as I can, from what he’s said, they are the people who have “the white mans burden” attitude to the people I work with. After a couple of drinks I’m just as liable to start making a few remarks of my own.

It’s going to be funny reading back over this in a year or so, looking back at the problems that are here now, and I’m wondering what it will look like further along the track.

Planted out my silverbeet, chillies tonight in the rain, I got soaked coming in from the truck to the house, so carried on and dug over a new patch of soil, cleared the grass off, broke the soil up, and planted 10 of each.

Everything else is growing well, a bit leggy, I may have to try a new place, although I’ve not got a lot of ground to choose from. The mango trees shade everywhere, it’s a choice between fresh mangoes, and sunlight. Still, better than not being able to plant anything and having to wait for warm weather.

Pic is of a Delonix regia with a Carallia brachiata growing through

9th March

Here’s a bit of a geography lesson. The Solomon Islands consist of 9 provinces, with a land area of 28083.646 sq Kms. Total area governed by the Solomon Island Government is over 400,000sq kms in size, sea and land area.

The provinces from West to East are Western, which butts up against the eastern side of Bouganville, Choiseul, slightly to the north of Western Province, Ysabel, or Isabel, to the north of Central Province, Guadacanal, south of Central, Rennel and Bellona south of Guadacanal, Malaita to the east of Central and Ysabel, Makira/Ulawa to the east and south of Guadacanal, and Temotu, about 400kms to the east of Makira/Ulawa

Each Island group has its’ own culture, language, some have several languages, flora and fauna. Some are volcanic in origin, some are coral based atolls. The people themselves all have different appearances, Malaitans have dark skins, blonde or reddish hair, very easy to tell where they come from, other island groups have coal black skins, asian features, or Polynesian in appearance. I’m working on recognition. Guadacanal, where I am based is a mix of coral reefs uplifted by earthquakes on the northern side, and volcanic rock on the southern side. Savu Island about a 45 min canoe ride north of Honiara is an active volcanic island, the Savu Island resort, the cheapest in the Solomons, offers a 45 min walk to the lower crater, or a 3 hour trek to the top of the main crater, where you have the dubious pleasure of standing inside an active volcano.

Despite all the languages, toktok pijin is spoken throughout the islands, and in most provinces there will be people who can speak english

Savu Island also has the Megapode bird, a bit like a bantam with long crow like feet, which buries its eggs in the hot sand, and lets the volcano do the incubating.

I’m hoping during the next two years to visit every province, as part of the Botanic Gardens upgrade, to gather endemic plants to propagate and plant in the Gardens.

David is out of hospital finally, his arm will be several weeks, if not months before he is able to use it fully. We had a very good talk together this morning, what he would like for the Gardens to do or be, what I would like to see happen. What I’ve learnt in the past few weeks here, is there may be a lot of talking done, but it is always going towards a conclusion. I’ve been making decisions more or less on my own, to get things started, luckily, they have been in line with what David sees as the Botanic Gardens eventual place in the Solomons.

We both agree that the Nursery needs to be expanded, upgraded, and improved, and more staff training over the next 2 years. I feel better having made those decisions without consultation that they have been in line with what everyone wants to see happen as well.

I think I surprised him with some of the things I mentioned, and how I speak of the Gardens as being **ours**. While we were talking outside, a local drove up, and over onto the lawn area by the stream, in a 4WD, and ate lunch, then dropped the takeaway cartons out of the truck window into the stream. I got to them before they floated away, and had great pleasure in putting them back into the truck while the woman was reversing out over MY lawn, and telling her not to park on OUR lawn, and not to drop her rubbish in MY Gardens. David was laughing so much by the time I got back to him, he took a few minutes to catch up again. We’re putting a post and rail low fence around the parking area this week, using the trees we cut out of the Nursery for the posts and cutting rails as well.

Something that really annoyed me last Friday at the Memorial Gardens, and it’s taken me all weekend to be able to put it in a way David understood, when the tourists arrive there, every wood and stone carver on Guadacanal arrives, sets up their blankets and carvings on the footpath inside the garden, then starts pestering the tourists with **Hello, you like to Buy**

Most of the tourists on Friday were either American or Australian, in their late 60’s, and from the ones I spoke to, were at the Memorial Garden to remember uncles, elder brothers, or just because they had served at a later time in the US Marines or Navy, and wanted to remember various Units that had served on Guadacanal in WW2. The trees there have plaques denoting different Marine Units, Ships, Air force, individuals, who served and died on Guadacanal, all donated by different people and Services Units.

I explained to David that in our eyes, the Memorial Gardens were a Sacred Site, a place for Remembrance, and peace, and to have traders pestering people to buy carvings detracted from it. I used the Tabu Sites here in the Solomons as an example, how would he feel if I went to a Solomon Island Sacred Site, and set up a stall selling whatever I could find?

We’re getting signage made, and the traders will be allowed to sell there, but only on the road verge outside the Memorial Garden, not inside

Small steps, but I think important ones.

I walked over the ridge track to the Kastom Village today, we had a power cut at work again, so I had some time to fill in. Met John, the Village Chief, explained who I was, and that we were starting to get the tourist cruise ships back, and he is calling a village meeting tomorrow, and all the village will be upgraded and spruced up over the next few weeks. Once I get another camera I’ll get pics. The Kastom Village is a small group of people who fled into the Botanic Gardens during the troubles, all from different provinces, and built typical province houses like the ones I’ve been posting.

When my predecessor Eric found them, they’d been living quite happily there for a few years, with no-one being any wiser. Instead of evicting them, Eric hammered out a co-operative deal with the Council, Forestry, Botanic Gardens Trust, and the villagers, so they could stay, on the condition that the houses be retained in Kastom Style, no charge would be made on any tourists coming through, and the villagers themselves were made honorary park rangers, and took responsibility to keep the village area clean, tidy. I was pleased when I got there, it looks like an idyllic setting, river and waterfalls, gardens, some of the houses are a bit tatty, but as I found out, several families have returned to their home province, and there are only 21 people living there now. Chief John will get the area tidied up, house thatch redone, in time I hope for the next cruise ship.

Class today was easy, we went over grafting once more, then I put my 2 volume set of Flora out on the bench, and said they could all have a browse through them. 6 people clustered around each volume, turning the pages one by one, and talking constantly. They would have been there all day if I’d let them. Whenever they found a plant they knew from here, there was a collective gasp, that one of their plants was in the book.

I found some tree geckos in the forest, a lot of lizards, or skinks, there are cuscus living in there, but we think they may have been poached out, no one has seen any for some time. Also, there is a snake living around the lily pond, no doubt eating quite well off the frogs there. I asked if it was a poisonous one, but the only description I got was that it was a Lazy Snake, it rarely moves much in daytime, and the crew know it is there, so work around it when they come across it. There are green tree snakes in the forest, but I’m thinking they will be high up where the bird and animal life is, rather than down at ground level.

Our compost heap from last week is heating up very well, there was a thick cloud of steam coming off it this morning, and it is too hot to put your hand into it very far.
I have chilli, silverbeet, tomatoes to plant out this weekend, my beans, zucchini and cucumber are growing well. Scattered some coriander and capsicum seeds in as well to try.

Pic is a house from Western Province.

8th March

I didn’t get away this weekend, spent Saturday morning at Heritage Hotel measuring the areas for planting, over 500 metres of paths to be edge and bulk planted. There’s no way we’ll have enough plants ready for June, if we’d had some warning, we could have been bulking up stock a year ago, but to propagate, transplant, sufficient stock in 3 months?

Add in the mature palms and trees they want for bits and pieces around the pool area, it’s going to be expensive if we have to get them from the bush farms.

We’ve got Adrian back with us. His wife works for RAMSI, he’s Australian. He’s a freebie volunteer, we got him because his wife is a friend of Keithies, and they thought he’d be useful at the Gardens. I’ve got him involved looking after the Rove Prison Training. A good few months there will be good for him, and us

It’s been one of those weekends when nothing seems to get done. Lost electricity yesterday afternoon till nearly 8pm, then had the usual water problem, and again today for most of the day.

The people up the top of me, seem to be woodcarvers. They started hammering away Friday afternoon, inside the house, so it echoes around the neighbourhood, till midnight Friday, then started again 9am Saturday morning, till 11pm, I finally went up there at 11pm, and asked them if they could possibly leave it till daytime. Lot’s of embarrassed grins and “Sori, sori, sori” Nice people, but just getting carried away with the creative spirit

I’ve decided that buying fish is a real haphazard process here, other than going to the shops in Honiara that charge considerably more for the privilege. It’s close to 30C all the time, today feels like 90% humidity, clothes just go limp in minutes, and the fish at Kukum Market are out on tables with a basic shade screen, and people waving sticks with rags keeping the flies moving. I really felt like a good feed of fish, but changed my mind. It’s a pity, some of the tuna and kingfish are a really good size, and probably looked really good several hours ago, before they sat in the sun all day.

None of the fish are cleaned, gilled or gutted, so you buy the whole fish, then have to clean it. It would be ok, if they’d been kept cold on ice, but in the bottom of a canoe, then on a table in the sun?
I’ve got lesson plans to write up for this week, and I’ll try to have at least 2 assessments ready for them by Friday.

Pic is of the Museum Grounds and the Kastom Houses

6th March

I’m a bit like Sam Vimes*, when I hear the phrase **these people** I start looking for sharp bladed objects. No names, I had to put up with closed lips for a while this morning while someone who probably doesn’t know any better talked about everyone I work with. Or more likely, doesn’t want to know any better.
I’ve had no trouble getting anyone at work to do stuff, there is a bit of male/female bias, I mentioned it a few days back, where the women do the majority of the work, the men do just sit around expecting to be waited on, I’ve got one or two men doing the course that I’m working on about that, but I’ll do it my way. I won’t be told that **these people** only work if you shout at them and you have to watch them all the time. Bit like Dwarves, the little buggers are everywhere, and you never see their women. Shiftless lazy lot, working all day and night, quaffing** and fighting all the time.

Yesterday was chaotic, the class in the morning was fun, we did grafting, using branches from a few hibiscus that were cut out, Sandy constantly amazes me. He never says much, he watches, listens, reads my propagation manual, then just goes and does beautiful grafts and splice grafts. Then comes up after class at lunchtime with questions that are so far above a Level 2 certificate. I need more gardening magazines, horticulture books, anything to do with gardening! Everyone here is so hungry for learning.

Wills called in after lunch. He’s one of the people here that work with Aid agencies writing up Funding proposals, to be submitted to the different countries and organizations that provide aid here. He can write sentences like

**It is envisaged that the positive outcomes derived from the input of capital will enable the indigenous people to determine and ascertain independence, and that the infrastructure of the governing bodies will enable all stakeholders to be active participants in determining positive and ongoing future developments that will ensure equality without race or gender affecting the ideal predetermined input and outcomes that will provide for employment opportunities available to every stakeholder.**

I just wrote that and I haven’t a clue what it means either, but it looks good on the proposals, and the UN and Euro Aid, etc all love it.

I’d have written,

**Give us some money so we can get organised and get everyone working, and stop bloody well interfering**

Anyway, I had to write up my wish list for the Nursery by tomorrow, with reasons for purchase and how I thought the equipment would increase both the ability of the Nursery to produce plants efficiently, and also how the equipment would give more skills and work opportunities to everyone here.

It was fairly brief, 4 pages of explanation about what we have now, with the ladies hand rubbing coconut husk through a hand sieve as an example, and how a heavy duty mulcher would speed the process up, and also help remove waste from the Honiara township.

Then a page of equipment, from mulchers, to water systems, pumps, hand tools, training manuals and educational aides.

So about 1am this morning I had it finally edited and printed out.

2pm we had King George VI School 6th form students arrive for a guided tour of the gardens, emphasis on the ecology, preservation, native plants, rain forest habitat. 40 of them, all with a list of questions they wanted answering. I was pleased to get away from them at 4pm, not that they were a nuisance, but my head was spinning with having to think so fast about everything they asked.

Thursday

We finally got our compost made today. About 2 cu. metres of it, layers of wood chippings, with chicken manure in between. I worked with the ladies for the morning, they’re a lot more fun to work with anyway, always laughing and working steadily. We had to bag the wood chips, and carry them a few metres to where we made the heap, still no wheelbarrow, they worked steadily at the heap with rakes and shovels, carried the bags over, I got the easy bit, shovelling chicken manure between the layers with Jennifer and Doris.

I had the men down the river, digging out river gravel and spreading it around the pathways in the Nursery, so we won’t be walking in mud when it rains.

There is a War Memorial Garden by Henderson Field Airport that we are responsible for. About 250 Carallia brachiata trees, beautiful trees, they grow straight with weeping branches.

About a year ago someone got the idea to try to prevent the bull ants that are everywhere here from getting into the trees, and they obtained some form of tar/glue that is meant to deter ants. I haven’t been able to find what yet, or even the tins of it, but it is constricting the tree trunks, and has killed 26 trees so far in the Garden, some are surviving by growing adventitious roots out above the glue, others have inarched over the glue. I’m trying to find out how to either wash it off, which is the ideal solution, or else I’ll be there with the students cutting branches and they can practise inarch grafting on about 100 trees.

If it works well and good, if it doesn’t the trees will die anway.

Shirleyta at work, her brother is looking after one of the numerous cousins boat, while the cousin is working in Australia, and she is trying to find out when they can organise a fishing trip. I am definitely going to Turtle Beach this weekend, probably Sunday, shopping Sat, and Kukum Market on my way home Sunday.

I might not catch anything, but it looks better to be sitting there with a fishing rod, than just staring out over the water, and gives me something to do, I have a very low boredom threshold.

*Sam Vimes, read Night Watch, or Men at Arms, Guards Guards, from the Discworld series, Terry Pratchett is a brilliant writer
** Quaffing is like swilling, but you spill more.

Pic is the USA War Memorial Skyline Drive

5th March

My apologies, I was up till 1am this morning writing up a funding and equipment list to be presented to the Japanese Grass Roots Agency.

And now I'm at work and out of time to write anything

I'll catch up tonight.

3rd March

I had one of the most pleasant surprises today at work. Annie arrived and gave me a necklace of Malaitan shell bead money as a present. Brown shells, with red and white bands. One of the nicest presents I’ve had in a long time. I’ll have to try harder with the classes, even more incentive to do the best I can for everyone here.

Heritage Hotels have got a ridiculous figure allocated for the landscaping, under $100,000 Solomon, about $20,000 Australian. I’ve done landscaping in Australia that cost that much just for a house, let alone a 3 acre hotel site. Oh well, I’ll have to really sell my ideas to them. If I can make it sound good, there will be more money allocated. I’m basing the general garden area on $50 per running metre for the fill plants, Helliconia, Ginger etc, each Hibiscus will be $75, palms that we have, oil palms mainly for a quick fill, about $90 each, and the larger ones up to $500. All in Solomon Dollars.

I’m going to put some pawpaw and breadfruit trees as well, if I can source pineapple plants to go in, even better. If people are staying here, they’ll see how lush everything is, and I know if they see pawpaw growing outside their room, that is one of the things they will remember.

I’ve had a couple of people that read this ask if there is anything I’d like sent, no doubt from my bit of a bitch session about the quality of stuff here. I personally don’t need anything. My sis is coming up in April, hopefully with a replacement camera and a few bits and pieces, so I’m perfectly happy.

What we do need is a good heavy duty petrol driven garden mulcher, to chop up the coconut husks. If your Church or Returned Services Branch, I don’t know what the equivalent is in America, ex marines and ex-navy organizations, would like a good Aid project to help with, contact me for more details.

I’m only here for 2 years, I can make do, the people that live here need something to carry on with, to improve their lives and employment prospects.

I saw our garden crew in action earlier today, while I was waiting for Tiffany in town. Our island stretch convertible chauffeur driven transport (flatbed truck) pulled up, the road cones came off the side, 12 people jumped off, weedtrimmers, rakes, brooms, shovels at the ready, and started cleaning up around the Telekom roundaroundabout, (I know, it’s not how it is in English, it is in toktok though). 30 minutes later the roundabout was swept clean, the median strip plants had been trimmed, everything was swept up, all the rubbish from the planted circle was picked up, and they were off to the next one. The guys wear their t-shirts tucked over their heads, with an eyeslit, or big bandannas, they look like every mothers nightmare. Add in the betel nut stained teeth, the big grins, great people to work with
.
We got a shipment of overalls today, from New Zealand, one of the previous volunteers had organised it with a company in New Zealand to donate used overalls for us. Everyone was like a kid in a clothing shop. We’re getting SEB (Solo Enviro Board) stencilled on them, everyone really takes pride in working for the Botanic Gardens, and they really want to make Hoinara look and appear better.

It’s a very infectious feeling, I’ve been here 3 weeks now, and I’m talking about our place, our islands, our culture, our town. I can almost distinguish where everyone comes from, the Malaitans are easy, ginger or blonde hair, or so I thought. Then I found out that there are separate islands in the Central Province where the differences are not so apparent. I’m going to be a while yet till I know where everyone is from.

I’m becoming addicted to iced coffee. I have to have my morning hot coffee still, but for the rest of the day, iced coffee, with coffee ice cubes.

William in class is brilliant, ok, I know, they all are, but he seems to be able to ask the questions everyone else is too shy to ask yet. I’ll have to work harder with them to get them to realise that I’d appreciate questions, rather than wait till too late and find out they didn’t understand something. He was asking why all the books we have, (2) always say to store seeds in dark glass jars. Did I ever have to rack my brain for the answers. The best I could come up with off the top of my head was to keep sunlight off seeds that may need light to germinate, like a few Alaskan and Canadian flowers, and so you could check the seeds without having to open the jars. I’ve actually forgotten, it’s one of those things you learn, then do forever after without any more thought. I’ve got research to do

We covered seed raising again, I know it’s only Level 2 we are doing, but they kept asking questions, so we got into a lot of technical stuff with different ways of making seeds react and germinate, like Eucalyptus and Acacia, Callistemon, Banksia. All need fire to break the seed capsule, and or smoke and water. So there went an hour describing smoked water treatment, scarifying, burning sheets of paper around the seed capsule. Selecting the right time for getting seeds, it doesn’t seem to matter how technical I get, so long as I can break it down to things they relate to, the knowledge sinks in.

We’re doing grafting for the rest of the week, hibiscus and bougainvillea.

If anyone collects stamps, the Solomon Island stamps are really beautiful. I’ll get a selection and scan and post here

I finally found out what we pay the staff today, we have several trees on the Heritage Hotel site to remove. Tiffany and I have been working out a price for them, the labour cost for 4 guys for 12 days came to SBD$6,000, $125 each person per day, about US$11, AUD$24, or NZ$28

We charge more for the equipment than the labour.

Then there is tax to be taken off that as well

It’s why the Hort Certificates are so highly prized here, it gets them better pay, a guarantee of work, and a real sense of achievement.

I’m determined to get away soon for a days fishing, I’ll have to stop saying yes to everything people ask me to help with. We have King George IV School 6th form students arriving tomorrow afternoon for a field trip to the gardens to study the ecology and habitat. Tiffany volunteered me for it. She is not being invited to my birthday party.

Pic is of a traditional house from Ysabel Province