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.
There’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.
“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.
Winter 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!
Filling 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.
Final 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
History 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.
Welsh 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.
Geoffrey 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.
Modern 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.
“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.
Are 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.,
The 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.
Not 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.
“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?