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.
Berried Treasures - Raspberries
"Berries are the healthiest fruit, offering potential protection against cancer and heart disease, boosting the immune system as acting as guard for the liver and brain," extolls Michael Greger. Perhaps this is why family physicians recommend starting the day on a bowl of berries. Certainly it seems a good idea to plan for a patch or two of our own. Some of the simplest are raspberries in all their forms. More about the latter later. First the basics.
- Thursday, January 10, 2019
Monday morning. Snow covers the ground. Loathe to throw back the bed covers, you need an excuse for not making it into work. Contact the employer claiming a severe case of chionophobia, or fear of snow. Note: if you are Canadian, you may not be believed.
Our feathered friends have spent the season working to help keep the garden pest and weed free. Now it is us turn to help them over the next few months.
Why are some people regarded as horticulturalists and others as gardeners? The smart explanation is that the former is merely a gardener with a panel van. Cute, but . . .
A newly-discovered fungus could also assist in the battle against plastic pollution
Over the years, these columns have recorded many a commercial attempt to relieve the black thumb brigade of their responsibilities. As Zora Neale Hurston once observed, "Trees and plants always look like the people they live with somehow." Who wants to look like a houseplant past its prime?
Two and a half millennia ago the Chinese sage Confucius observed, "He who would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools." As implements are stored away for the winter clean, removing all debris, sharpen working blades and lightly oil. In the day of the use and throwaway culture it remains a truism that gardeners may be judged by the way they treat their tools--and Confucius was correct.
Back in 1986, Prince Charles caused a consternation. "I just come and talk to the plants, really very important . . . They respond I find," His Royal Highness revealed during a television interview. But floral confabulation is nothing new.
Beneath the awesome flame-red flower display in Australia's Top End wanders an eerie apparition. Known to longtime Darwin locals as the Poinciana Women, tales are told of her origin. But although oft alleged, she is seldom seen--or heard. Urban legend, Asian myth or historical figure?
Botanically boisterous and man-eating plant tales abound. Hapless horticulturists stumble on all too frequently into voracious vegetation. At least they do in fictional encounters. These are often illustrated, despite the sexist term man-eating, with amply endowed damsels in dishabille.
From Shakespeare through W.S. Gilbert to Sylvia Fine and Roald Dahl, witches have been all the rage--along with the occasional warlock--and the plants they used about their professional projects.
"Double, double, toil and trouble" declaim the three witches in Macbeth. "Fire burn and cauldron bubble" they continue in the great Sottish play. King James I of England (and IV of Scotland) won the label of "the wisest fool in Christendom." His interests extending to witches--he even wrote a treatise on them--so Shakespeare gave him witches in Macbeth.
"As the leaves of autumn wither and fall, so has my own life become barren," bemoaned a despondent Ludwig von Beethoven. Not so for gardeners in northern temperate climes. Fall is full of fun. In medieval England a mix of garlic and holy water drunk from a church bell was said to divest those possessed of demons--and in many parts of Canada it is municipal elections time . . . and at the end of the month deter witches by copying Ancient Greeks and hanging out strings of garlic.
Can a caterpillar predict coming winter weather? Since the 1600s, North American folklore holds that the larvae of the Isabella Tiger Moth, Pyrrharctia isabella, can do just that. But be warned: the sharp hairs of woolly bear caterpillars, as they are popularly called, while not poisonous may cause dermatitis in sensitive people.
The Yellow Birch is Quebec's provincial tree. In French-Canadian it is merisier, much to the confusion of visitors from France where merisier means wild cherry. If that isn't enough to sow confusion, bothersome botanists and troublesome taxonomists have been at it again. What was simply and sensibly until a few years ago was Betula lutea--in other words, Birch yellow--has been reclassified as Betula alleghaniensis--Birch Allegheny.
The Persians cultivated wild bulb flowers, notably the tulip from 10th century. The very word 'tulip' derives from the Persian word for turban. There, it has never lost its appeal and today is Iran's national flower.
Perhaps because they are native to Western Europe, daffodils never received the adulation that was awarded to the more eastern-dwelling tulip. Nevertheless, to the leader of the Ottoman Turks, it was the daffodil that ruled the courts flanking the Bosporus in the 16th century. And the greatest of these were those of Suleiman, the kanuni or "Lawgiver" as he was known to his admiring citizens, or the "Magnificent" to peoples of the West who have tended to admire militant conquerors.
Will this be a bad winter? If your carrots grew deep, onions have more layers, the sweet potatoes have tougher skins, apples have matured early, while the hickory nuts have a heavy shell, then ancient wisdom warns that to prepare for a worst winter. Or perhaps you place your faith in the weather wonks, global warming and plain luck.
From Australia to Afghanistan, Zambia to New Zealand the world measures in metric. Except that is, for Liberia, Burma and, of course, the world's scientific leader, the United States of America. Why, we are often asked?
Fancy some tomato ice cream? Or how about a slice of green tomato and apple pie. Either could be washed down with a shot if tomato schnapps. If so, you'll have to travel to southern Iceland. There, an hour's drive east of the capital Reykjavik in Fridhemar Fridheimar, Reykholt, is a greenhouse business with a difference.
Although gardening dates to Neolithic times, notes Edward Hyams in his classic A History of Garden and Gardening (1971), ornamental gardening is a product of urban civilization. The first makers of those gardens were ancient Mesopotamians, he says, in the 'land between the rivers.'