By Wes Porter ——Bio and Archives--September 1, 2014
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Black Thumb? He was so dumb he thought Rambling Rose was a country and western singer
A European ruling could force gardeners with ride-on mowers to take out motor insurance against accidents on private land, according to media reports. It is said that in Hell the police are German, the cooks English, the politicians French and now, indubitably we known that the bungleaucrats are from Brussels.Just as we are being urged to plant oaks and maples among other native trees to replace ash devastated by the alien Asian emerald ash borer, scientists report they too may be threatened by exploding populations of scale insect pests. Researchers from North Carolina State University reported in the journal Global Change Biology that centuries-old museum specimens hold clues to how global climate change will affect scale insects that can weaken and kill trees. Already increasingly warm urban conditions are favouring this pest and its incidence. This, the scientists suggest, will continue to expand over coming decades.
A 1902 one-and-a-half-ton Ransome driveable lawn mower has been lovingly restored in all it’s massive masterpiece by Andrew Hall, 54, a gardener from Ilminister, Somerset, who took four years on the task. The forerunner of modern motor mowers in its heyday day cost £137 – the equivalent today of £15,000 – and was first purchased by Cadbury’s for use in their Bournville model village.The Saskatoon berry gets a name change when it crosses the border into some U.S. states CBC News is amazed to learn. Actually, in Eastern Canada Amelanchier is also known as serviceberry or, as in Michigan and Minnesota juneberry, quite logically since that is the month it ripens to a tasty purple-black. Researchers at Cornell University found that Americans loved the taste of Saskatoon berries, but the name didn’t resonate as well as juneberry. To capitalize on their thirst for the small purple berries, some U.S. marketers are asking Canadian growers to change their labelling, revealed the national broadcaster. It is claimed that a couple of American visitors lost while driving through the prairie province encountered a native. Replying to their enquiry as to where they were, he told them, “Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.” “Drive on,’ the woman commanded her husband, “and find someone who speaks English.”
Your houseplants could reveal the secrets you’d rather not have broadcast. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a way to turn inanimate objects like crisp packets and pot plants into ‘visual microphones’, which can pick up conversations even in a sealed room, writes Sarah Knapton in The Daily Telegraph. The team at MIT found they could record noise by videotaping the miniscule vibrations that sound waves cerate in inanimate objects. By focusing on a pot plant or a crisp packet in a sealed room, they were able to record the tiniest movements and convert it back into the sound that created it. The research was presented at the computer graphics conference Siggraph in Vancouver, Canada in the second week of August.Looking for something to celebrate? Various U.S. organizations have made it their business to proclaim September to be National Chicken Month, National Honey Month, National Mushroom Month, National Papaya Month, National Potato Month, National Rice Month, National Wild Rice Month and California Wine Month, to name but a few. Oh yes, and 3rd September is National Welsh Rarebit Day. If all this is enough to make you feel down in the mouth, in China, 20th September is known as Love Your Teeth Day.
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Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.