Begonia & Lily Start-Ups, Rhubarb Splits

“March is the month designed to show people who don’t drink what a hangover is like,” suggested Garrison Keillor. No fear of that in Ireland on the 18th March. Humourist Frank Carson once said, “I’ll have a pint of Guinness with a pickled onion in it – it’s an Irish cocktail.” There’ll by a lot more than a single pint of Guinness raised in the Emerald Isle as well as Hibernian sons and daughters elsewhere on St. Patrick’s Day. Was it a coincidence that that the date chosen for National Potato Chip Day in the United States was three days earlier, on 14th March?

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In botanical speak potatoes are tubers, storage organs capable of giving rise to new plants. Some forms of begonias, a vast genus of some 1,200 species, are also tuberous. Packages of these latter are in garden centres and other retail outlets this month. As with most begonias, they excel in shaded areas asking only a rich, organic soil that remains consistently moist but not wet. There are two selections: pendulous for hanging baskets and window boxes and herbaceous for borders and planters. Start in 6-inch pots, with the upper, slightly indented side barely covered with a lightweight potting mix. Keep moist but avoid splashing water into the crown, which may encourage rot. Two other tips: The leaves will point in the direction the blooms are produced and the smaller, single flowers are male, the larger multi-petalled the female.

Diversion No. 1

A man played classical music to his 287 cannabis plants during a growing venture from which he hoped to profit by $30,000 every three weeks, Gisborne District Court, New Zealand was told. The musical encouragement was all part of “frank admissions” to police by an unskilled grower when his house was searched. Verdun Sturgus Kemp, 21, was jailed for two years and one month.

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Like begonia tubers, lily bulbs are offered in stores about this time on through spring. Those with limited space – most city gardeners – can indulge by planting three to five bulbs in 10- to 12-inch pots indoors, moving them out to patio, deck or balcony in May. Do not be dismayed if they either appear and then stubbornly refuse to grow still more – or even do not emerge at all. Lilies take their own time. Containerizing lilies also seems to baffle the scourge of the Liliaceae, the now-notorious scarlet lily beetle Lilioceris lillii. First identified in Montreal in 1945, it apparently arrived in North America from its native Europe and Asia on imported bulbs. There are no registered chemicals for control and no natural predators or parasites in North America. Parasitoid wasps from Europe have proven successful but are hard to come by. Natural rotenone and neem are known to offer some control. Neem must be applied every 5 to 7 days following egg hatch. Alterative are good old-fashioned hand picking and crushing. Since the larvae pupate in the soil, growing in containers offers some control once initial infestations are eliminated.

Diversion No. 2

The thick matted fur of the three-toed sloth is home, amongst others, to a small moth. As these die, their corpses are fed on by fungi, which releases nitrogen to support the algae that flourishes on the water trapped in unique cracks in the sloth’s hair. This algae, in turn, offers the vital lipids in the three-toed sloth’s diet otherwise of little but leaves, suggests research by Jonathan Paul, a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison [Source: Science Daily]

Citizens of the United States celebrate March, amongst other events, as National Celery Month. North of the border, comedian Mike Myers once remarked that if Canada had a flavour, it would be celery. Both stalks and seeds of Apium graveolens var. dulce have been used as an aphrodisiac as far back as the time of the Ancient Egyptians. By the late eighteenth century, it had reached royalty: Madame Pompadour (1721-64) served up celery soup to Louis XV with romance in mind as his long-term mistress. However, since celery is 95 percent water it must have been remarkable early Viagra. The Egyptians wove celery stalks into wreaths for tombs, as did the Greeks, hence the Hellenic saying “he now has need of nothing but celery” meaning he was near death. The more practical and bibulous Romans wore wreaths of celery to ease the inevitable hangovers that followed their carousing. Today, alas for the Americans and their penchant for ‘national months,’ celery is reduced to salads, soups and, in the form of celery sticks, the most avoided snack at cocktail parties. According to Canada Agriculture, celery has a storage life of 15 weeks after which it presumably loses its crunch that so bedevils participants at such gatherings.

Diversion No. 3

More than two-thirds of native male praying mantises are being devoured by South African females – lured to their doom by an irresistible erotic scent, warns The New Zealand Herald. Research by the University of Auckland found the delicate New Zealand male approaches the exotic female enthusiastically, lacking the in-built caution South African males have when wooing their aggressive potential mates. In a cruel twist, even though the NZ natives find the foreigners more attractive than homegrown females they are unable to mate with them, so die in vain.

Historically, it’s been quite a month in horticulture. Peter Kalm, the Scandinavian plant explorer in North America was born 7 March 1716. Earlier in 1699, American botanist and plantsman of Philadelphia was born on 23 March while the U.S. horticulturist and botanist John Bartram was born 15 March 1858. He didn’t die until Christmas Day 1954, proving once again the remarkable live expectancy for those interested in plants. None of these gentlemen had need to twice a year re-adjust their clocks and watches. Daylight saving time (DST) commences on 9th March giving gardeners an extra hour outside – except in Saskatchewan, which continues to avoid accusations of two-timing. The idea originated in an essay written in 1784 by Benjamin Franklin, extended by New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson in 1895 and William Willett in 1905. Nothing was done until it was adopted as a wartime measure by Germany in April 1916, quickly followed by Britain, U.S. and other countries. Today, for better or worse, over a billion people in 70 countries are affected by DST, although the start and finishing dates vary – as do arguments pro and con. Amongst nations eschewing the whole thing are Russia, India, China, Japan, and western and northern Australia – as well as Saskatchewan.

Diversion No. 4

The thick matted fur of the three-toed sloth is home, amongst others, to a small moth. As these die, their corpses are fed on by fungi, which releases nitrogen to support the algae that flourishes on the water trapped in unique cracks in the sloth’s hair. This algae, in turn, offers the vital lipids in the three-toed sloth’s diet otherwise of little but leaves, suggests research by Jonathan Paul, a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison [Source: Science Daily]

“Everything’s coming up rhubarb” observed Keith Waterhouse a quarter-century ago. Some things just don’t seem to change and Rheum x cultorum is one of them. Rhubarb is the secret of good life. But of course you knew that, suggests National Geographic, noting that one Norma Koch is the perennial winner of the largest leaf contest at the annual Rhubarb Festival in Lanesboro, Minnesota. Doubtlessly Ms. Koch divides patches of rhubarb five years or more old as soon as the ground thaws. Dig up, split into separate crowns with a sharp knife or turf edger and replant before they dry out. Small boys with nasty minds used to pose the riddle: What’s long and thin and covered in skin/Red in parts, stuck in tarts? Rhubarb, they triumphantly shout upon receiving an admonishment.

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