03/06/2026
Patience is the first thing a seed asks of you.
22 years ago, Robert McGowan - known to many as Pā - of Tiwaiwaka Aotearoa pressed kauri seeds into the ground, placing faith in thinking in generations rather than seasons.
Recently he shared a moment that stopped us: standing beneath the canopy of those same trees he planted, Pā gathered a new harvest of seed pods (above), soon to become hundreds more seedlings, many gifted and planted locally.
Kauri - Agathis australis - are among the most ancient presences in Aotearoa's landscape. They grow slowly, rise up to fifty metres, and live for thousands of years, drawing water and nutrients through a vast underground network that sustains the whole forest. They are community builders, asking nothing but to be left alone long enough to do their work.
As kauri dieback (pictured) has reminded us, to lose them is to lose something irreplaceable.
What Pā describes is beyond gardening, beyond even conservation. Kaitiakitanga [guardianship] is rooted in obligation: to receive what the land offers, and to ensure there is something still offering when the next generation arrives to ask.
As a respected Rongoā Māori practitioner, Pā is known for restoring traditional knowledge of native plants and medicines - co-founding Tāne's Tree Trust in the 90's, and for the kaupapa [philosophy] of Tiwaiwaka which rests on a single understanding:"Ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tangata. When the land is well, the people are well."
His grove is both ecological restoration and cultural transmission. The seeds he gathers carry the genetics of an ancient tree, the patience to wait, and the relationship between a person and whenua [land].
That is the patience of seeds: the faith to tend something whose full flourishing you may never see, trusting the land, and the next generation, to carry it on.
Read the latest newsletter at https://biometrust.earth/blog/the-patience-of-seeds
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