Wes Porter

Book Your Tree Pruning Now

Our files are full of accidents involving trees. Many of these describe fatalities. Few if any should have taken place. “The Lord took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it,” Genesis 2: 15 tells us. Properly cared for, trees are famously long-lived but, like the rest of the garden they require occasional specialist attention.

What’s in a Name?

Karl Jung compared the similarity of a surname with the person’s occupation. More recently the London, England-based weekly New Scientist has occasionally indulged in such reader write-ins. Some years ago this spurred us to commence collecting those associated with gardening or related subjects . . .

A Nice Cup of Genuine English Tea

A decade and a half ago, young and enthusiastic gardener Jonathan Jones noted that temperatures at the estate where he was employed were a few degrees above those to be found in the tea plantation-rich area of Darjeeling, India. This got him experimenting with the idea of turning part of the property to similar pursuits. This past season, over a ton of tea was produced from the plantation in the extreme southwest of England.

November Gardening

As the late English cartoonist Norman Thelwell points out, “Neglect of the garden now will mean hard work next season – so keep at it.” As usual, Environment Canada’s David Phillips has predictions along with thoughts for what the weather will inflict upon us this month as we strain to complete the necessary chores. He is calling for wetter conditions than normal in Eastern Canada. But he guarantees we won’t have a winter like last year, when it was four degrees warmer than usual. That was an El Niño winter. It was the warmest, mildest and driest winter on record in 63 years.

Halloween Past

Harvest festival celebrations are doubtlessly as old as agriculture itself. The last crops were brought in, livestock slaughtered and stored. Days became shorter, nights longer adding to the gloom and resulting superstition.

Tales from the Pumpkin Patch

"A soul of boiled beef, a body of damp paper, with a heart like a pumpkin fricasseed in snow" so we are told the courtesan Ninon (Anne de Lenclos) born 1620 in Paris, described the son of Marquis de Sévigné.

Get Them While They’re Still Fresh

Growing bulbs that, left to themselves, would flower next spring is not hard for novices. Some require "forcing," six to twelve weeks cold treatment to bring into bloom. Others may be stored in a frost-free place until potted up four weeks or so before they are required to bloom.

An Exotic, Very Inexpensive Indoor Plant

In the tropics, the cocoyam, Calocasia esculenta, is frequently grown in coconut plantations, hence its name. In the Caribbean it is more commonly known as dasheen and on the Pacific islands it is taro, the source of that basic foodstuff, poi.

October Gardens

Much has been made of a 'low-maintenance garden.' It is, however, in the opinion of Canadian horticulturist Kelvin Brown, "The stupidest phrase in the English language." True, green-thumb-endowed gardeners, know that this rings true at least for October.

Garden News in Review

Landscaping

Dan Pearson came back to Britain after a business trip to Hawaii with the scent of frangipani, datura and hibiscus lingering on his mind. What to replace such scents with far from the lush vegetation of those Pacific Isles? He suggests daphne, wisteria, roses, honeysuckle, Lilium regale, night-scented stocks, scented-leaf pelargoniums and the two original flowering tobacco, Nicotiana affinis and N. suaveolens, he writes in The Observer. Should be worth the search here or, early next season, raising stocks and flowering tobacco from seed.

SEPTEMBER SPECIAL: BULBS ARE BRIGHT IDEAS

This past spring driving had an added pleasure for those travelling through Toronto's intersection of the Don Valley Parkway, Highway 401 westbound and Highway 404. A typical spaghetti junction had become enlivened by blooming masses of narcissus and red tulips. A special bulb-planting machine from Caroline de Vries' TradeWinds International Sales in Mississauga, Ontario, undertook the task on behalf of the provincial Ministry of Transportation. A year earlier, Ms. De Vries had undertaken a similar planting project further south down the Don Valley Parkway, that time with massed narcissus. You can't beat bulbs for a spring display.

Slugging It Out with Gastropods

"I had lief as be wooed of a snail," the Bard proclaimed in As You Like It (Act III sc v). But it is not so much snails as slugs that make Britain the slug capital of the world. In northeastern North America, it is the grey garden slug, Derocera reticulates, which is active through at least this and next month and perhaps, weather permitting, even into November.

September Gardening

"One feels the first palpitations of the autumn, like the wings of a butterfly fluttering to unwrap themselves," wrote Lawrence Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet (1962). Another land, certainly, but the first faintest hints of the fall are here as it officially arrives later this month.

A Passion for Parsley

Watch packages of curly parsley seeds fly off the stands this spring. According to foodies, the herb is the “in thing” this season. Parsley was mentioned in Homer’s Ulysses, perhaps long ago as 1000 B.C. Calypso’s isle featured four streams bordered by soft meadows in which parsley flourished. Indeed its botanical name, Petroselinum, derives from Greek petros, rock, and the genus name Selinum, the plant originating from the Mediterranean region.

Profiling Celebrity Gardeners

Harold Lloyd’s 16-acre Greenacres: the Estate that Laughter Built Harold Lloyd is best remembered today for the iconic scene where he dangles from clock hands high above the street in Safety Last (1923). The American film actor and producer was active 1914-47 in both silents and talkies. He was the highest paid movie star of the 1920s, appearing in more than 500 films and made at least 200 himself. Lloyd was famous for his silent comedies that included “thrill sequences.” He also knew his trees, personally choosing and collecting all 500 for his 16-acre landscaped grounds at 1225 Benedict Canyon Drive, Beverley Hills.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig, St. Patrick’s Day

The Government of Ireland registered shamrock as a trademark. Tradition has it that St Patrick used the three-leaved plant to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish people. However, according to the Oxford English Dictionary such was not recorded until 1726. Another Hibernian legend claims that the Druids believed shamrock was a sacred plant because its leaves formed a triad, three being a mystical number in their religion.

When Does Spring Really Arrive?

In her ‘Ode to Spring’, Saskatchewan’s Sarah Binks joyfully welcomed substitute for departing winter, proclaiming that: “For spring is coming with its mirth/And breezy breath of balmy warmth,” while “luscious joy shall fill the earth.” Spring home and garden shows abound – but when does spring really arrive? The sun may wobble north again the third week of March. A few snowdrops may be joined by adventurous crocus. Cabin fever may be banished but we all know frosts and even threat of more snow is not yet past.

St. David’s Day

“The Welshmen did good service in a garden where the leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps.” Henry V, Act IV, scene vii. Patron saint of Wales, St. David, is said to have been a sixth-century Celtic priest active in Cumbria. But why a leek? One tale has it that in about 540, the Saxon invaders were advancing to the Welsh border. Uniforms being unknown in those far-off days, St. David advised his Welsh warriors to wear leeks in their caps to distinguish them from their foes. Another story has it that the battle between Saxon and Welsh was fought over a field of leeks, perhaps under the leadership of Cadwalladr when he defeated the Saxons near Hethfield, or Hatfield, Yorkshire in 633. Needless to say, this is denied – by English historians.

Valentine’s Day

A quarter-century ago, that canny U.S. organization the National Potato Promotion Board, declared February to be National Potato Lover’s Month. This, as Rebecca Rupp observed in her fascinating book, "Blue Corn and Square Tomatoes," (1987), was nicely timed to overlap Valentine’s Day. Alas, for the lowly spud, this was nothing more than a clear case of blowing their own tuber. No such claim has survived to the present day, at least not here.

Profiling Celebrity Gardeners

“An enchanted castle suspended high above the rest of the world,” silent movie star Pola Negri declared her fellow thespian’s mansion and grounds. ‘Falcon’s Lair’ was one of the first great homes on Benedict Drive in Beverley Hills, purchased for $175,000 in 1925 by Rudolf Valentino. He died in 23, August, the following year from peritonitis following an operation for appendicitis and a gastric ulcer in New York, where he was on a promotion tour.