[masklinn]

Oh it's not a "lime police", NZ has nothing against limes specifically, there is no special treatment.

It's just gardens in general which are illegal (without a license, obviously) https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/2nem47/can_you_...

If limes (or anything else, like grass, or strawberries, or potatoes, or mint, ...) happen to grow on your property it's fine and you can collect them, but if you tend to them or there's evidence you planted them it's gardening, and the penalties can be steep.

And police don't look kindly on non-native tasty edibles[0] which "just happen" to grow on the properties of unlicensed owners, as often as not the owner is assumed at fault and fined (though of course the harshest penalties like prison require positive evidence of guilt).

[0] and NZ has very few native or pre-european plant edibles at all, let alone tasty ones: https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/plants-edible-native

[michaelt]

  It's just gardens in general which are illegal

I'm afraid you've fallen for a hoax [1]. Gardening is a legal and popular pastime in New Zealand [2].

[1] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/new-zealand-gardening-law-hoax [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/new-zealand-gardening-...

[masklinn]

> I'm afraid you've fallen for a hoax

Whereas I'm reasonably convinced you're a joyless shitpail[0] who manages to "well, actually"[1] a joke.

[0] https://www.oglaf.com/roguearsenal/

[1] http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1116378-starter-packs

[dang]

Good grief. Personal attacks will get you banned here. Really, please don't do that, regardless of how nitpicky another comment was or how annoyed you feel.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[natecavanaugh]

Is there some sort of water or soil restrictions that warrant the licensing requirement?

I know NZ can be resource limited for a couple of reasons, but I'm trying to imagine why growing things would present enough danger to warrant the law being involved.

[pjc50]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/new-zealand-gardening-... ?

[masklinn]

Don't believe that article people, it's the Huffington Post, everyone knows they're full of shite.