Repost 22 May 2007: Wollemi Pine

Some hand-wringing over the ethics of buying a Wollemi pine. And a bit of excitement over the Chelsea Flower Show. I'm making plans to go again this year, but my London-based friends are too busy. I might be able to go along with workmates again, although neither of them share my taste for the exotic.

I've got a ticket for the Chelsea Flower Show on Thursday. I'm going with two of my workmates. I'm really excited. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Jurassic garden and the display of Wollemi Pines, and yes - I am tempted. I think there's a reasonably high probability that I will attempt to buy one at the weekend.

The pepper spray appears to have worked so far, but I won't be happy until the frond that's currently unfurling on my Dicksonia has fully opened. But I think I can keep Bubba the squirrel under control with it. And really, these guys had to be able to survive huge sauropods munching away on them, so a small rodent shouldn't have much effect. With that in mind, I think I'm ready. And I think I'll put it in my Aunty Bee Bee's old terracotta pot, which Mum gave me a couple of weeks ago.

But I have a little bit of an ethical dilemma. The money I pay for the Wollemi Pine will go towards the conservation effort, and by growing my own, I'm helping to propagate the species (they're extremely rare in the wild). This is A Good Thing. Plus, as water becomes scarcer, plants that are drought-tolerant, drought-loving even, will be easier to grow, and will help to conserve precious water resources. But unless the plant has been grown from seeds, or from cuttings of existing trees, then the plant has travelled thousands of miles and already has a big carbon footprint. Plus, we should really be trying to grow British plants in British gardens - I'm concerned about introducing a plant that may have no natural predators, and would certainly not want to be responsible for a plant growing unchecked, like Rhododendron or Leylandii.

So what do I do?

Had no responses to this one, but I realised I was making a bit of a fuss over nothing, not least because I'd already brought in a Dicksonia antarctica, and ascertained that it did indeed have natural predators (squirrel, see above). And any residual worries about growing non-native plants have totally evaporated now.