Matt Morris Photo: book cover, Otago University Press
Matt Morris's passion for sustainability and gardening served as the catalyst for a PhD on Christchurch's extensive and proud green-fingered history.
He has now broadened that out in his new book Common Ground - garden histories of Aotearoa, which explores the ways in which cultural meanings have been embedded in the land through the way New Zealanders have gardened over the centuries.
This includes tales of the earliest Polynesian settlers bringing with them seeds and cuttings, 'Dig for Victory' efforts, and how home gardening has fared across the decades.
His focus is on land, planted and cultivated and maintained by ordinary people, rather than the gardens of the wealthy.
