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:

Cyanide: Apples, Apricots, Cherries, Peaches

Cyanide: Apples, Apricots, Cherries, PeachesWelsh wisdom reworked as “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” dates back to the 1860s. One of the most popular poisons in history, cyanide, dates back far further. Surprisingly, the two are not unconnected.
- Friday, November 22, 2019

Broom Bloom: Symbol of Royalty

Broom Bloom: Symbol of RoyaltyGeoffrey V, Count of Anjou, Touraine and Maine, was known as ‘The Fair’ or ‘The Handsome.’ He also bore the nickname ‘Plantagenet’ from the sprig of yellow broom flowers, Genista monspessulaana, that he wore in his hat. In French, these are genêt, so planta genista, or Broom Shrub.
- Friday, November 15, 2019

Indoor Plants Clean the Air

Indoor Plants Clean the AirModern interior decorating, furniture and life styles can wreak havoc on air quality in homes and offices alike. Known carcinogenic sources such as benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene expose those living and working there. That is the bad news.
- Friday, November 8, 2019

A Matter Of Mulch, Weeds and More

A  Matter Of Mulch, Weeds and More“Getting mulch?” enquired Ontario farmer Charlie Farquharson. You should be. Snow cover is becoming increasingly problematic, perennials are increasingly exposed to winter destruction. The answer, as Charlie knew, is a good thick mulch. Unfortunately home compost, superior in every respect, is too often a thing of the past. Composted livestock manure would be an acceptable substitute but the price by the bag . . . If not manure by the cubic yard, then consider straw. Check garden centres for bales left over from Halloween décor. After the ground freezes, break up and spread several inches thick and water down to prevent straw being blown over the rest of the garden – and the neighbour’s.

- Friday, November 1, 2019

Poisonous Food Plants

Poisonous Food PlantsAre there poisonous plants lurking in the kitchen? Plants produce toxins to deter herbivores from eating them. And that could include a not-so-well-informed Homo sapiens. And their pet pooches and #.

Usually, the commonly consumed parts of well-known vegetables and fruits are safe. Other parts may be toxic if not outright lethal. It is well-known that all of rhubarb plants are poisonous with the exception of the leaf stems (petioles). Much has been made about the poisonous properties of the green portions of tomato plants and potatoes. In fact, the water in which the former’s foliage is boiled and then allowed to cool makes a useful pesticide. But the saucepan it is done in remains permanently contaminated.,

- Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Gardens of Empress Josephine

Gardens of Empress JosephineThe Empress Joséphine did not mince her words. “The only thing that ever came between us was my debts, certainly not his manhood,” she said of husband Napoléon. And some debts those were. Early in the landscaping of her Château de Malmaison, she had run up a £2,600 bill with London nurserymen Lee and Kennedy. In less than a decade, she had risen from the shadow of the guillotine to femme du monde, perhaps the most influential woman in France.
- Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Wych Witch Hazel Is Which?

Wych Witch Hazel Is WhichNot to keep you in suspense – neither. Wych is an Old English alternative for wicce, or witch. This is turn derives from wicca, a wizard. Confusingly, Witch Hazel, botanically Hamamelia, is from Old English wice, pliant or bendable. Switches were used for divining for underground sources of water, possibly minerals as was Hazel, Corylus.

- Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Gardeners are Optimistic and Live Longer

Gardeners are Optimistic and Live Longer “We are now in Autumn – season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” suggested P. G. Wodehouse in The Code of the Woosters (1938)

Gardeners – amateur and professional – have to be optimists. Could that account for their oft-prolonged lives? As far back as records go, gardeners have been shown to maintain long and fruitful lives. Could that have something to do with their ingrained optimism?
- Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Questions We’re Asked: Rubber Plant Erasers

The Rubber Plant, Ficus elastica

The Rubber Plant, Ficus elastica, is a popular indoor plant. More accurately known as the Rubber Tree, in its native habitat of Eastern South Asia and Southeast Asia it may reach a mighty 200 feet. Strangely, it has also been called the Rubber Bush or Rubber Fig. But why ‘rubber’ when commercially such is obtained from the Para rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis?

- Monday, September 30, 2019

Golf Courses: The Sport That Greens

Golf Courses: The Sport That Greens

It is played by presidents and prime ministers – wish should warn us about something. Mark Twain regarded it as a good walk ruined. More enthusiastically, on Jerry Lewis’ opinion, “A great golf course is like a beautiful, unattainable woman – full of challenges, surprises, difficulties and delights.”

- Sunday, September 29, 2019

Language of Flowers

Language of Flowers

“You were practically sure of landing your article on ‘The Language of Flowers’” suggested P. G. Wodehouse in Over Seventy (1956). In fact, the ‘Language of Flowers,’ or Floriography, to be more formal is far, far older than Wodehouse implies. 

Sending a message through flower arrangements might sound like something dreamt up by advertisers for the Interflora company. But it finds mention in both the Bible in the Song of Songs and Shakespeare’s plays which contain over 50 references. In fact, the using or arranging flowers to communicate a message, floriography if you like, has long been practiced in cultures of Europe, Asia and Africa.

- Sunday, September 22, 2019

Passion for Pawpaw

Passion for Pawpaw

It may have been planted by Jefferson at Monticello and chilled, a favourite dessert of Washington, but the native pawpaw has not fared well since then. This could be for two reasons. The ripe fruit deteriorates fast and ships poorly. For home gardeners, unless two genetically different varieties are planted, there is likely to be poor pollination – and it could be four to eight years before fruiting anyway, although grafting can shorten this.

- Sunday, September 15, 2019

Saffron: Culture and History

Saffron: Culture and History

As with many other flora, the Greek  poet Homer was familiar with saffron at the opening of the first millennia B.C.:

In saffron-coloured mantles from the tides

Of Oceans rose the Morning to bright light

To Gods and men 

- Sunday, September 8, 2019

Discouraging squirrels with Daffodils

Discouraging squirrels with Daffodils

Bad enough for a scurry of squirrels to rip tulip flowers apart in a spree of vandalism every spring, but then urban deer invade to snack on them. And, of course, no sooner have fresh tulip bulbs been planted this fall than the wretched rodents dig them up. This past March, Britain’s famous Royal Horticultural Society took matters in hand to advise gardeners to abandon tulips in favour of daffodils. All daffodils are botanically Narcissus. They are also poisonous. Not surprisingly, squirrels, deer, mice and other pests shun them.

- Sunday, September 1, 2019

Questions Often Asked: Shrubs with Colourful Fruit

Shrubs with Colourful Fruit

Selecting flowering shrubs, double your pleasure. Some easy-to-find have colourful berries as well. While many lists may be found, not all mention some recommendations have drawbacks. Not the least of these in eventual size. For example, Russian Olive Elaeagnus angustifolia can grow to be a small tree. Its Canadian equivalent, Silver Buffaloberry, Shepherdia canadensis, is a large, 15-foot, shrub and likewise probably not for a small garden.

- Saturday, August 31, 2019

Healthy Tobacco: Rise of Biopharming

Healthy Tobacco: Rise of Biopharming

Tobacco use is “the single most preventable cause of death in the world,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO). But could the noxious plant be used to create helpful health products?  

- Saturday, August 24, 2019

Thomas Blaikie Scottish Gardener to French Nobility

The Château de Bagatelle.

So many Scottish gardeners south to the Sassanach that the two are almost synonymous. Indeed James Boswell, himself a Scotsman, tells in his biography Life of Johnson, his subject once pungently pointed out, “The noblest prospect a Scotsman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England.”

- Saturday, August 17, 2019

Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do

Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do

When songwriter Harry Dacre penned those lines in 1892, he was commemorating a hot-blooded London socialite named Daisy Granville. She is perhaps better known today as the respectable Lady Warwick – and much less respectable mistress of ‘Dirty Bertie’ the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII of the British Empire.

- Saturday, August 10, 2019

PLANTS LACK A CONSCIOUSNESS: SCIENTISTS

Plant are extraordinary living things. They can recognize sounds and touch – and don’t like some of them. They seem to be able to remember. They communicate with one another. They even become numb under the effects of .anesthetics. But let’s not get too anthropomorphic. This is emotional language. From Prince Charles on down, many people believe their plants respond to being talked to. But those same people obviously appreciate their plants to the extent of taking care of them. So their plants respond. So perhaps we had better forget about plant neurobiology, suggests research appearing in the journal Trends in Plant Science.

- Saturday, August 3, 2019

Questions Often Asked: Dog Days of Summer

As with so much, we must credit the Ancients with the Dog Days of Summer. The Greeks derived dog days, from the Dog Star, Sirius, the most brilliant star in the night sky. This became to the Romans, always ready to adopt Greek culture, caniculares dies: days of the dogs. In the Northern Hemisphere these is the hot, humid days of midsummer--roughly mid-July to the third week of August--this year 12 July to 20 August. The Greeks believed that a combination of Sirius' light with that of the Sun's effected plants, animals, women and men.
- Tuesday, July 30, 2019

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