A woman rang me last autumn about a row of dead-looking pittosporum along her fence line in Island Bay. She was certain it was disease. I drove down after finishing a job further round the coast, had a look, and it wasn’t disease at all — it was salt burn, the result of a solid…

There’s a particular morning every autumn, usually down at a friend’s place in St Clair when the first proper southerly has stripped the last leaves off her old plum tree, that tells me the season’s turned and it’s time to get stuck in. I’m Rob, and I’ve spent the better part of twenty years with…