Just as you fondly imagine spring has finally sprung, Mother Nature comes crashing down on your cranium.
Invasive dandelions may not be welcome in lawns but elsewhere
Taraxacum officinale is making something of a hit. Dandelion patches across Eastern Canada played host to hundreds of thousands of butterflies during the latter part of April thanks to an unusually large spring migration. Many of the butterflies are red admirals, which look like smaller versions of monarch butterflies, noted CBC News. A red admiral was even observed fluttering across one of Toronto’s busiest commercial streets. Higher temperatures in northern U.S. states combined with powerful winds are thought to have contributed to this spring’s massive migration, said the CBC.
Meanwhile, patience has paid off for University of Windsor biochemist Siyaram Pandey. A local medical doctor observed some of her cancer-stricken patients improved when drinking tea brewed from dandelion root. Although skeptical, Pandey agreed some two years ago to study how effective an extract is in combating cancer. He has now received a total of $217,000 towards his research.
Diversion No. 2
Janna Coomber and her husband Brian had looked after the raised floral displays at Weymouth Railway Station in Dorset, southern England for ten years until they were banned from using the steps by Health & Safety bungleaucrats. The subsequent furor caused the snivel serpents to reverse their decision and beat an ignominious retreat.
City gardening, in contrast, requires plants suitable for confined areas. But every gardener believes that the more the merrier. How to solve the conundrum? Time to check out
Vineland Nurseries, Beamsville, Ontario, “special plants for small spaces” dwarf and unusual evergreens, heathers, rhododendrons, Japanese maples and bamboos – and much more in their $2 catalogue. Better still, given the equally small space occupied by the typeface in the print edition a miss, and visit them online at
One of the earliest supreme rulers on record was Sargon I (2360-2305 B.C.) who succeeded in uniting a large portion of Mesopotamia under his rule. But he started out as a gardener. The legend of his birth brings to mind Cyrus, Romulus, Krishna, Moses and Perseus, wrote C. W. Ceram in
Gods, Graves and Scholars (2nd edition, 1967). His mother, a virgin, put him in a container, sealed it with pitch, and set it adrift on a stream. Akki, creator of waters, raised the foundling to be a gardener, a later the goddess Ishtar made him a king.
A more recent ruler will celebrate her Diamond Jubilee next month also afloat. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will travel down London’s Thames River leading a mass flotilla in her Royal Barge. Former model-turned-TV garden expert Rachel De Thame, 50, who now presents the BBC
Gardeners’ World and Countrywise on ITV, has been given the task of revamping the luxury tourist 210-foot cruiser Spirit of Chartwell into something suitable for the occasion. Red, gold and purple flowers from the Queen’s own gardens will be used to create Royal-themed floral displays on board the vessel. “I feel extremely honoured to be involved in the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. My aim is to make the day an extremely special one for the Queen,” said Ms. De Thame.
Diversion No. 3
A quarter-century ago, wild turkeys were reintroduced into southern Ontario. Today there are an estimated 80,000. Make that 79,999 after an 11-kg specimen crashed through the windshield of a transport truck on Highway 401 near Trenton. The driver, who maintained control and was uninjured, said that turkey was not his favourite food.
The English poet Abraham Cowley (1618-67) believed gardeners appeared early on the scene: “The first three men in the world were a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier; and if any object that the second of these was a murderer, I desire him to consider that as soon as he was so, he quitted our profession, and turned builder.” And if it’s any consolation according to Richard Gordon, a GP himself, gardeners and doctors very seldom commit suicide.
By this time your giant pumpkin seedlings are taking over all available windowsill space, thrusting aside tomato, pepper, eggplant, okra and other tender transplants. Patience is the watchword here. May is still too early to expose what are strictly tropical vegetable plants to cool night air temperatures and even cooler soils. June is a better bet – about the time the beach bunnies commence appearing in force.
What to do when your mouth waters upon reading of garden-fresh veggies and you are stuck with a teeny patch of compacted clay that the real estate agent proclaimed to be ‘soil’? Answer: construct raised beds of 6x6 lumber in a sunny area. These should be no wider than five feet to allow for reaching the rear and at least 18” deep. Order ‘triple mix’ by the cubic yard for your vegetables and herbs to grow in.
Seeing is believing and twitching green fingers in the Toronto area might want to visit
Danforth Lumber Landscape and Garden Centre (8 Dawes Rd.). Go through the giant greenhouse and look behind the building to your right for such a project, newly constructed and planted as a demonstration of what can be achieved in a confined area with questionable soil.
Diversion No. 4
Climate change could fuel a giant ‘compost bomb,’ as decaying vegetation stuck under the ice or in peat bogs starts to heat up and tips the world into dangerous global warming, warned Louise Gray, Environmental Correspondent for
The Daily Telegraph in Britain.
No one knows how large they can grow – but giant, blind, glow-in-the-dark earthworms are wriggling about a couple of metres below the surface around Auckland, New Zealand.
Spenceriella gigantea are rarely seen live above ground. So a 75-centimetre-long specimen was a surprise discovery for the owner of Ti Point Reptile Park in Warkworth, who came across the worm on his morning rounds of the grounds, according to The New Zealand Herald.
Celebrated post-impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh produced an acclaimed series of sunflower paintings that have left a genetic mystery. His
Helianthus are mutations, “double flowers” as horticulturists term them that existed a century ago when he painted them. Similar sunflowers are much in demand today, both in the garden and in the cut flower trade.
A team of scientists at the University of Georgia has now revealed the details behind the mutation in a study published in PLoS Genetics. “In addition to being of interest from a historical perspective, this finding gives us insight into the molecular basis of an economically important trait,” said senior author John Burke, professor of plant biology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “You often see ornamental varieties similar to the ones van Gogh painted growing in people’s gardens or used for cut flowers, and there is a major market for them.”
