WhatFinger


Wes Porter

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.

Most Recent Articles by Wes Porter:

Questions We're Often Asked: Easter Lilies

Christian legend has it that when a perspiring Christ went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before his execution. From his sweat sprang the lily, ever since a symbol to Christians of the Resurrection. 
- Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Follow Up: The King's Vegetable Garden

The French Sun King's Potager du Roi at Versailles organic shift has left it in sick bed, according to The Times of London last November. It is seen by some, said the esteemed newspaper, as a  symbol of French decay. Critics say the fruit trees have been allowed to wither, the walls to crumble and the weeds to spread in an affront to the French heritage of symmetrical gardening and impeccable tidiness as it embraces organic methods. 
- Monday, March 30, 2020

Flowering Tobacco Plants Make Scents

Not all species of tobacco are banished. Some are even decorative. At least one is scented. "The cool air. The scent of growing things. That is a tobacco plant which you can smell, sir," P. G. Wodehouse observed in Joy in the Morning (1947). Yes, the original white blooming Nicotiana alta from South America is scented when it bloomed at night. Unfortunately, plant breeders have intervened and created more vivid coloured, day-blooming selections lacking scent.
- Sunday, March 29, 2020

Mary Emily Eaton, English Botanical Artist

Declared by United Nations in 1977, International Women's Day falls on Sunday, 8th March this year. A good time to look at the work of English botanical artist par excellence Mary Emily Eaton, active in the early 20th century.
- Sunday, March 22, 2020

Tiger Lilies

A charming tale from Korea tells of how the Tiger Lily spread. Badly wounded by a hunter's arrow, a tiger sought the help of a hermit. The arrow was successfully removed,  and the wounded animal recovered. The tiger and the hermit became fast friends. When the big cat felt death was nigh, he requested the hermit to use his powers to continue their friendship in the afterlife.
- Sunday, March 15, 2020

Dig That Garden!

"There are things that have to be done, ma'am." Gary Cooper: The Plainsman (1936) Old gardeners, it is said, never die. They just spade away. Those who have never used one may call it an instrument for the inversion of soil. Here, however, a spade will be called a spade. 
- Sunday, March 8, 2020

Composted Manure May Contain Antibiotics

"Cold is the ogre which drives all beautiful things into hiding. Below the surface of a frost-bound garden there lurk hidden bulbs which are only biding their time to burst forth in a riot of laughing colour (unless the gardener has planted them upside down), but shivering Nature dare not put forth her flowers till the ogre has gone," wrote P. G. Wodehouse as far back as 1915 in his novel Something Fresh.
- Sunday, March 1, 2020

Questions We're Often Asked: Snowdrops

Harbingers of spring, banishers of winter, snowdrops are welcomed perhaps as no other garden flower, emerging to signal the dark, dismal days are drawing to a close. While the bulbs are available at retailers every fall, specialists in Galanthus agree that the better time to plant is in early spring. In fact, move, they say, when still blooming and the leaves are green. 
- Friday, February 28, 2020

Follow Up . . . A Room with a Coo

In what must be something of an understatement, the Roger Tory Peterson Guide to Birds lists the pigeon, Columba livia, as being "familiar to city dwellers." It is, this invaluable book notes, of "old world origin" but "worldwide in domestication."
- Wednesday, February 26, 2020

The Fabulous Upas Tree: Fact and Fiction

The Upas Tree, Antiaris toxicaria, is truly a dendrological wonder. One claim has that the effluviant can kill a man at fifteen miles. Yet the wood is valued for veneers and the fruit, soft and edible, has been spread by humans since antiquity. Nevertheless, it is unlikely you will want it as a houseplant or in your conservatory. No, not because of its fatal vapours. 'Upas' is from a Javanese word for 'poison.' The sap is just that, highly poisonous containing cardiac glycoside. For eons it has been utilized to anoint arrows, darts and blow darts with fatal results to the recipients. 
- Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Cape Primrose

Many a strange tale has been told of the plants we enjoy. Not all of these may be exactly truthful. Not even having the tale published in books may make them so. Take that delightful South African Gesneriad Streptocarpus rexii, perhaps slipping easier off the tongue when referred to as the Cape Primrose. Even fanciers of these flowers are apt to know them simply as 'Streps.' 
- Saturday, February 22, 2020

Puzzling Pansies and Violas

The Ontario city of Cornwall's garden club innocently suggested that their community become known as the 'City of Pansies.' More in tune advice prevailed. But why a delightful garden flower become associated by homosexuality is something of a mystery. The usage has been dated to the 1920s, as a variation on the earlier 'nancy.' In turn, this itself dated back a further century to the 1820s 'Miss Nancy.'
- Saturday, February 15, 2020

50th Anniversary Edition of the Richters Catalogue

It has always been a pleasure to review Richters annual herb catalogue of plants and seeds. That it also includes a fascinating selection of gourmet vegetable seeds makes the experience even more rewarding. This is the 50th year since the renown catalogue was first issued in 1970. Alas, founders Waltraut and Otto Richter are no longer with us, but son Conrad continues the heritage. 
- Saturday, February 8, 2020

Start Summer Bulbs Indoors

A group of European scientists propose that we could all live in gigantic fungus buildings. An entire city, from apartments, schools and stores to the hospitals would be made of living fungus – constantly growing, dying off and regenerating itself. That's the vision laid out in a provocative new paper, reported by Dan Robitzski in Futurism since the paper has not yet been peer reviewed. The idea is in response to the prospect of catastrophic climate change. Growing our building materials from biological materials, the theory goes, would make construction less dependent on fossil fuels and environmentally destructive mining operations.
- Saturday, February 1, 2020

Questions We’re Often Asked: Wassailing

Wassailing, apple treesThere’s help for your apple trees in the new year. Originally a pagan celebration to bring on spring, it evolved in Anglo-Saxon times to Wassail, from the greeting Wæs þu hæl ‘be thou hale,’ or in other words ‘be in good health.’ Intended to wake the apple trees from their dormancy, bless the coming year’s crops and protect orchards from evil spirits or witches, it took place on Twelfth Night, 5th January.
- Sunday, December 29, 2019

Ivy Will Cling

Ivy Will Cling“You can never be quite sure about ivy. It puts up an impressive front and then, just when it is time for all good ivy to come to the aid of the party, it lets you down, ” observed P. G. Wodehouse, writing in his Full Moon (1947).

Believed to be unlucky indoors at any time except the Christmas season, unfortunately most will be more familiar with plastic imitations churned out by Chinese factories than the real McCoy. 

- Sunday, December 22, 2019

Winter Weather? Don’t Ask

Winter Weather? Don’t AskWinter begins 21st December. The good news is that from then on the days get longer, nights shorter. The bad news is the weather wonks don’t know what winter will be like. 

Even before fall began, the Weather Network was offering an online ‘winter sneak peek’ while the first day of autumn Narcity chimed in with ‘some parts of Canada are going to have a much better winter than others.’ Surprise!

- Sunday, December 15, 2019

Shocker: Houseplants Don’t Clean the Air

Shocker: Houseplants Don’t Clean the AirFilling your house with potted plants might make you happier and more productive, but it’s not going to make the air you breathe any cleaner, wrote Carly Cassella in ScienceAlert. A critical review, drawing on 30 years of research, has once found that houseplants  have little – if any – real value as air purifiers.
- Sunday, December 8, 2019

OUTDOOR CHORES, INDOOR PLANT CARE

OUTDOOR CHORES, INDOOR PLANT CAREFinal season chores beckon this month. Clean out lingering leaves, dead perennial stems and other debris that may harbour overwintering pathogens and pests. For similar reasons, prune back dead or dying branches on shrubs and low trees. Clean tools, sharpen blades and wipe metal parts lightly with oil before storing. Take down bird feeders, clean with a light bleach solution and position over deck or patio to discourage maundering felines
- Sunday, December 1, 2019

Questions Often Asked: Spruce Beer

Questions Often Asked: Spruce BeerHistory tells us that Breton explorer Jacques Cartier saved his scurvy-plagued men with native-sourced spruce beer. Iced in at the mouth of the St. Charles River early in 1536, he brewed up a beverage rich in vitamin C. Only it wasn’t spruce beer. The local Iroquoians instructed him to use what they called Aneda, now believed to have been white cedar, Thuja occidentalis.
- Friday, November 29, 2019

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