First published October 26, 2006

I was asked one gardening question more frequently than any other this past summer. And it happened to be the question I dreaded answering more than any other: What’s eating my Virginia creeper? It’s a straightforward question and, unfortunately, so is the answer: leafhoppers. However short and sweet my verbal response may have been, I couldn’t help but think we could be on the verge of losing an old friend.

Virginia creeper itself isn’t actually in jeopardy of being eradicated, but its beauty certainly is. Gardeners, including myself have gotten used to expecting buildings covered in picturesque foliage, and now that picturesque foliage has turned it into a denuded labyrinth of branches. As beautiful as the image is of Virginia creeper scaling venerable old buildings, providing a green mass of foliage during the summer and a blaze of red in the fall, the fight involved in achieving that image is too frustrating and labour intensive for many gardeners. Simply put, damage from leafhoppers is extensive and common, and the most effective pesticides for controlling it have been banned for home use.

To understand the threat, you first need to understand the pest. Leafhoppers are small insects that have wedge-shaped bodies. During the fall, adult leafhoppers look for places to ride out the winter, and the old leaf debris that’s fallen to the ground around your Virginia creeper suits them perfectly. By the following spring, adult leafhoppers awaken from their torpitudinous state and the females begin slitting young growth and inserting their eggs into tender twigs and newly emerging leaves. When young nymphs emerge, they feed by sticking their knife-like mouthparts, called stylets, into the vine’s leaf tissue and draw out the sap. If you’re wondering why the leaves look scorched rather than eaten, it’s because leafhoppers are ‘mesophyll’ feeders, meaning they eat only the upper cell layers of leaves.

That’s the leafhopper’s plan of attack; but what’s ours? Well, I could argue both sides of the pesticide debate ad nauseam, but it’s already been waged and won. By choosing not to simply spray and walk away, we also have to accept a smaller selection of plants available to us from what was an already short list of hardy vines.

So what can we do to have it all? Nothing. But we can rethink the problem and start at the beginning. If you’ve had leafhopper problems before, start a control program now. Cleanup the leaf litter around the base of your Virginia creeper before the snow flies; it will reduce the over-wintering population. Next, if you haven’t done it already, give the plants a good last soaking. The next year, keep plants properly watered throughout the summer—drought-stressed plants are much more prone to leafhoppers and will suffer greatly when attacked.

There are some approved pesticides, but timing the applications is critical. Start with insecticidal soap once leaves emerge and continue through the summer with applications every 7 to 10 days. There are a few products that are more effective than soap, but as a rule, start with the mildest control and monitor the results. If soap isn’t working, try a stronger control like Ambush—the timing of its application isn’t as critical and it kills adult leafhoppers, too.

Changing the way we approach problems is never easy, but in the case of pesticides, it’s possible that we’ve indulged in easy for too long. Environmental issues are only going to get more complicated, and when you rely on the easy, you don’t look for better solutions. It’s time to deal. Striking a balance between protecting the environment and manipulating it to suit our vanities won’t be easy, but neither will be looking at a landscape void of our favourite perennials.

Hits & Misses: Plant problem answers and survey results that don’t translate to sales
Question of the Week: What’s eating the Virginia creeper around the Edmonton area?
Science & Technology: Immoral Orchids?

Bougainvillea is a tropical plant that loves the summer heat of my back deck but abhors frosty October nights. And last week I think I pushed mine a bit too far. Said bougainvillea has expressed its displeasure at being left outdoors by displaying a magnificent show of crispy, dead leaves. My wife—she of little faith—questions whether after a winter recovering indoors, it will return to its former glory next summer. I tell her not to worry, but her skepticism doesn’t seem to be diminishing. I see the glass being at least half full: if the bougainvillea doesn’t rise from the ashes by next summer, at the very least I can save it for a great Halloween decoration!

This once breathtaking bougainvillea may have succumbed to frost.

Hits & Misses:
Hits: Questioning How We Answer
The definition of anxiety for new Garden Centre staff member is to watch a customer walk towards them with a dead plant in hand. It takes a lot of education, experience and analytical skills to correctly determine why a plant is not growing the way it should and if you are a greenhorn in the greenhouse business plant diagnostics is the last thing that you want to tackle. Even great diagnosticians need a lot of background information to solve the more perplexing problems. At Hole’s, we take customer plant diagnostics very seriously and we spend a lot of time training our staff on how to handle them. Currently, we are in the process of restructuring the way we deal with plant problems by updating our plant questionnaire and our information delivery to our customers. Stay tuned. I think there will be some exciting changes in plant diagnostics in the months ahead.

Misses : Survey Says
Every year there are a rash of surveys conducted across Canada and the U.S. that seek to answer one of the great unanswered questions of the century, namely: Which poinsettia varieties do customers like best? Typically, the surveys are filled out by poinsettia consumers who peruse tables full of a vast number of the latest and greatest poinsettia varieties and then choose those that they think are the best of the best. Usually a fair number of odd-coloured types come out near the top of the preference list. Poinsettia growers scrutinize the data and think to themselves, ‘Aha! I had better grow more pastel and pink-coloured poinsettias because they finished high in the consumer preference surveys.’ There is only one tiny problem with these surveys. What people say they LIKE and what they BUY are two different things: we may say we love a pink-striped poinsettia but we just can’t seem to gather up enough courage to take it to the till and buy it for fear of being ostracized by our traditionalist friends and relatives! I liken it to seeing your favourite actor strutting around on the big screen wearing the coolest outfit and realizing, sadly, that if you wore the same clothes, you would look hopelessly uncool…and no, that’s not a confession.

Question of the Week
What’s eating the Virginia creeper around the Edmonton area?
I’ve been asked repeatedly this summer about what is eating the Virginia creeper around the Edmonton area. I hate to answer for two reasons: the pest is not easily controlled, and I fear we may be losing one of our most beautiful, hardy vines. The pest is leafhopper, and it damages Virginia Creeper by feeding on the top layer of a leaf, eventually causing stressed foliage to dry up, drop and leave behind a denuded framework of vines. Many of the products used to control this voracious pest are now banned and, for those that are left, application timing is critical. Start with insecticidal soap once leaves emerge in spring and continue through the summer every 7–10 days. If soap doesn’t work, try a stronger control like Ambush—the application timing isn’t quite as critical and it kills adult leafhoppers. For now, cleanup and trash the leaf litter around the base of your plants before the snow flies. Next, if you haven’t already done so, give the plants a good soaking. Next year, keep plants properly watered throughout the summer—drought-stressed plants are much more prone to leafhoppers and will suffer greatly when attacked.

Science & Technology
Immoral Orchids?
Can orchids be liars and cheats? According to an article in the American Journal of Botany, one particular species of orchard certainly is. It has the Latin name Disa nivea and it has evolved to look very similar to another orchid called Zaluzianskya microsiphon. Nothing wrong so far: after all, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. But while Z. microsiphon feels that it should provide a nectar reward to flies that pollinate it, D. nivea offers nothing. Flies inadvertently pollinate the D. nivea flowers thinking that they are Z. microsiphon and that they will get a nutrient rich reward. How’s that for creating the ultimate con?

First published October 19, 2006

I often feel a twinge of regret when I meet victims of ‘Johnny Appleseed Syndrome.’ This mirthful guy apparently skipped across North America flinging apple seeds from his leather pouch, populating the continent with pockets of trees destined to bear delicious apples. Although that image makes for great children’s reading, it’s not a good model to follow if you want to spread specific apples throughout your garden.

Fall is the time of year when ambitious gardeners think about collecting seeds. Just this week, I spoke with two people who were excited about sowing some seeds from particularly good apple trees in their yards. Although they each had a different apple that they wanted to propagate, the single question that steered both of those enthusiastic conversations was, “How long before I have that delicious fruit growing on my new tree? Five years? Ten years?” Unfortunately, the answer was, likely never.

The reason for this dire prediction is that virtually all apples are cross-pollinated. This means that none of the resulting apple seed from your favourite-tasting apple will produce apples that taste exactly like the fruit from which the seed came. What you end up with instead are variable replicas. Will the tree bear fruit?—probably. Will it be the identical-tasting fruit with which you fell in love?—no. Sometimes it helps to think about cross-pollinated varieties the same way you would think about your own genealogy. You share a blend of DNA from your parents, and your kids share a blend of DNA from you and your spouse, BUT your kids (as they have likely informed you) are definitely not clones of either of you.

The one question that seems to cause consternation for people is, “If the seed doesn’t yield the same type of fruit from which it came, then why does the edible part of the apple look just like the fruit I want?” My answer, again, is to think about it in terms of ourselves—to think of apple flesh as you would human flesh. The human flesh that surrounds an unborn child is still 100 per cent the mother’s, while the child is a blend of both parents. Apples develop the same way…well, except completely differently, of course!

We all understand that apple varieties do originate from seeds and that superior varieties are selected from seedlings that grow into fruit bearing plants, but the part that gets complicated has to do with how to develop an apple variety that tastes like you want it to. The answer is to keep cross-pollinating apple trees until one produces what you’re looking for or, as occasionally happens, a mutation arises on a tree branch all on its own. When a particular variety does manage to catch the fancy of breeders and growers, it isn’t the dog’s breakfast of DNA contained in the seed they clamor to—it’s the DNA in the wood and the buds that they want. Desirable wood and bud tissue is then collected, rooted and multiplied in order to produce clones. So, regardless of where you live, when you buy, say a ‘Honeycrisp’ apple variety, it is an identical copy of all Honeycrisps everywhere else in the world. Amateur apple breeders be forewarned; it can take a long time for new superior varieties to find their way to market.

I have to say it’s never any fun being the person who delivers bad news to enthusiastic gardeners, but look at the bright side. Just because we feel the disappointment of knowing the tree we nurtured from a seed won’t bear the fruit we expected doesn’t mean we can’t go ahead and plant it anyway. After all, it is genetically possible that this seed might grow into the next great soon-to-be-discovered apple variety. So I say embrace the true spirit of Johnny Appleseed—scatter at will, throwing both caution and seed to the wind.

Fall cleanup can be a chore, but knowing where bugs and diseases can overwinter can help you make good choices on what you really need to do.

Quicktime
WMV

Hits & Misses: Amazing amaryllis and top-secret plant testing
Question of the Week: What is this weed from my cottage and how can I get rid of it?
Timelines: Thinking spring
Science & Technology: Apple tree rootstock

My sister in law Valerie came into the office last week exclaiming that her mums had developed some very strange growths. The growths were, in fact, ice crystals that had burst out of the stems, forming ice “strands” that resembled cotton candy or philo pastry. I think the perfect combination of plant, weather and water all contributed to this interesting formation. When outdoor temperatures are well below freezing, water doesn’t develop into a nice crystalline structure. Instead it solidifies into a more random structure called…ice. The crystals that burst out of the stems were beautiful in their own right. Too bad they had to destroy the stems in the process!

Hits & Misses
Hits: Amazing Amaryllis
This year we have some very interesting amaryllis varieties. One particular variety called ‘Cybister Chico’ is a complete departure from what we typically think of as a conventional amaryllis. These ‘haute couture’ flowers have exceptionally long stamens and thin, curvaceous petals that are ideal for bulb enthusiasts who enjoy something a little out of the ordinary. As these bulbs come into flower, I’ll have to make a point of posting an image in the Notebook.

Misses: Top-Secret Plant Testing
Oh the perils of trialing plants. We trialed a particularly outstanding variety of bedding plant in our show garden this past summer. We loved it and the visitors to our garden loved it. The problem is that I received a letter from the supplier asking us to please not mention it in any publications, and not to grow any leftover seed next year. Apparently the company must delay the introduction of this new plant and is seeking our assistance in keeping it sequestered until their issues are resolved. Since we have an excellent rapport with this company, we are more than happy to accommodate their wishes. So the uh…plants that you saw and really liked in the…uh show garden, well they really weren’t there in the first place. But those crop circles—well, that’s another story.

Question of the Week
What is this weed from my cottage and how can I get rid of it?
A customer brought in a weed from his cottage this week in hopes that we’d to identify it and tell him how to eradicate the problem. Identifying the weed was no problem but offering a pesticide solution was not. I don’t like to recommend the use of any pest control products for lakeshore properties. They are too environmentally sensitive and the risks far outweigh any potential gains. Don’t get me wrong, with proper usage, there are products that can be used to control some particularly troublesome pests but proximity to water bodies must be taken into consideration. My advice is simple: if you don’t have the proper training and understanding of the regulations and implications of applying these products in riparian zones, just get out the weed fork and tackle the job by hand.

Timelines
Thinking Spring
Sure the amaryllis has arrived for Christmas sales but so too have other plants. Streptocarpus is here and azaleas are coming next week, followed by cineraria and primula for early spring sales. Yes, believe it or not, we have to think spring now. In fact, my sister-in-law Valerie filled out her spring bedding plant order long ago. It comes as a surprise to some of our new staff members that October is too late to order many of the hot, new spring plants. We are, like it or not, similar to the fashion industry in this way. Of course, with the shorter, cooler days of autumn, it probably never hurts to think spring anyway.

Science & Technology
More Fruit, Less Tree
The latest issue from The International Society of Horticultural Science has an article about the challenges of growing fruit trees. For example, big apple trees can cause a lot of problems—cost—wise for professional growers. Large apple trees require more labour for pruning, harvesting and spraying than do small trees. So the challenge faced by breeders is to get the most production of fruit from the smallest tree framework. The preferred option for growers is to use trees with dwarfing rootstocks (root systems of apples that keep the upper portion smaller); however, more research is being undertaken to figure out the biochemical reasons that make dwarfing rootstocks tick. The spinoff for home gardeners may very well be improved apple varieties that yield heavily and consistently. But if you are the kind of gardener who is plagued by tons of unharvested fallen apples, this research may prove to be of little value for you!

(We now bring you the final installment of the Unlikely Gardener’s interview with departing grower Scott M.)

Unlikely Gardener: Think you’re going to miss your job as a grower here at Hole’s?
Scott M.: Parts of it. I don’t know if I’ll miss dragging a hose around, but being out in the sunshine all day was always nice. If you’re working on the poinsettia crop you get to do that even if it’s minus 20, and without freezing, of course. More than that, though, I’ll miss the people I’ve worked with. I’ve been well looked after by more than a few of them, maybe even spoiled. There’s no question that I’ve incurred debts of kindness I’ll probably never be able to repay. I think you always hope you’ve given back as much as you’ve been given, but I doubt I’ve done that.
UG: How do you feel about that?
SM: Well, I regret it of course, but I regret so many things.
UG: Like what?
SM: I regret never having seen Bill Hole’s record collection. I’ve heard he’s got some pretty strange stuff in there. Brian Eno, Mike Oldfield, maybe even Devo.
UG: Where did you hear this?
SM: People talk.
UG: Devo? Come on.
SM: Okay, you’d probably have to check with him about that one. Another regret is never seeing you arm-wrestle Jim Hole. Did you know he once beat the reigning champ of western Canada?
UG: Seriously?
SM: He would have made you cry.
UG: Where are you getting this stuff?
SM: I have my sources.
UG: I’m sure. Anyway, let’s get this over with.
SM: Hear, hear.
UG: You’re leaving. What comes next?
SM: I’ll be writing. Not a movie script, though.
UG: What then?
SM: A sitcom—something I’ve been thinking about over the past few months while watering all day. It’s called “Robot Dad” and it’s about this dad who’s—
UG: A robot?
SM: Yeah, but it’s not quite so simple. He’s a single dad trying to understand the intricacies of human relationships. Tough enough when you’re human, right? Well, try doing it when you’re a robot. Anyway, you can probably imagine the comedic potential of a machine trying to raise a family. There’s more, though. The show will be a vehicle for exploring the human condition through a medium that relies exclusively on analysis rather than emotion for navigating the troubled waters of daily living. Oh, and he’s got a dog, too, who tries to help him along by barking in a pattern akin to binary code.
UG: Huh.
SM: I’m just waiting to hear back from the CBC about going ahead with the pilot. They sounded pretty enthusiastic about it, though.
UG: Really?
SM: Yeah.
UG: You know, I’ve always wanted to do something like that. Well, without the robot.
SM: You should give it a shot. Based on this blog, I’d say you’ll have to polish your writing up a bit but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The CBC’s great. They’ll take almost anything. They have to or Canadian culture will die.
UG: Maybe I could do something about a guy who doesn’t care much about gardening.
SM: Write what you know.
UG: Yeah. But because of natural talent, great hair, and a cavalier attitude, he gets thrust into the national horticulture spotlight, becoming an instant celebrity. Soon enough, he’s overwhelmed by the attention, and fame drags him away from everything he once thought important—you know, the simple things in life, like toaster waffles smothered in spreadable cheese products, or something. Eventually, though, as the hollowness of fame makes itself painfully apparent, he finds himself drawn back into that calming world of soil and blossoms and earthworms—and he becomes more attuned to it, somehow more aware of it—in a way that he wasn’t ever before. Suddenly, he feels at home just crawling around in the dirt, which he’ll do one night, almost certainly in the rain, in a scene bordering between breakdown and epiphany. It would be a journey of self-discovery and rebirth. Callum Keith Rennie could star.
SM: Sounds like a six part miniseries to me, a la Ken Finkleman or Don McKellar. How serious are you about this?
UG: I don’t know. Maybe more than I thought.
SM: You know, if you’re going to do it, you’re going to have to devote yourself to it. Entirely. This is what the CBC demands of us. Of all Canadians, actually.
UG: But then what about the blog?
SM: You’ve got a choice to make. No one will mind much anyway. I think we’re all kind of tired of you, to be honest. Besides, sometimes the best way to go about things is just to put your head down and charge forward. It’s like if you stand on the curb waiting for a safe break in the traffic you’ll spend your whole life just looking across at the other side. And nobody’s going to come and take your hand until you’re old and blind. By then, the other side of the street is just a place of fear and foreboding anyway.
UG: What are you talking about? Who’s tired of me?
SM: I am, for one. I’m sure there are others.
UG: Others? Like who?
SM: Listen, you’ve had a good run. You don’t want to descend into some kind of self-parody anyway, right?
UG: No, I guess not.
SM: So, quit while you’re ahead.
UG: …You’re right.
SM: Really? Wow.
UG: Yeah. Yeah, I’m going to do it.
SM: Well, then. Mr. Finkleman, prepare to be rivaled.
UG: That’s right. Hey, who’s this Finkleman, anyway?

(My sincere thanks to anyone who read a word of the ravings of the Unlikely Gardener, to my co-workers who tolerated the glare of the occasional spotlight, and, especially, to Bill Hole and Bruce Keith, who made all of this possible in the first place. Garden ’til you drop, everybody. Garden straight for the top. Don’t you ever stop.)

Note: Jim’s Notebook is now being mailed out in a pdf format with additonal images and links. If you would like to subscribe to it, visit this page to sign up. We will continue to post a text version here on the website.

Hits & Misses: Kochia and spotted pansies
Question of the Week: Can I compost my rhubarb leaves?
Greenhouse Timelines: Poinsettia powdery mildew
In the Garden: Taking the pruning plunge

I just received a copy of a magazine from Hedonics which markets ‘really, really neat stuff.’ On the front cover is a shot of an AeroGarden hydroponic indoor garden overflowing with pepper fruit. I counted around 100 fruit in this garden container that appeared to be about the size of a 15cm pot. So let’s see…either the Aerogarden IS the greatest invention since sliced bread or some graphic artist took a few liberties with photoshop and strategically wedged a bunch of fruit-laden plants into the photo. Hmmm, far be it for me to judge.

Hits & Misses
Hits: Kochia
The annual bedding plant, kochia, performed well this summer in local gardens. This plant is a great addition to gardens because it produces lush, lime-green foliage in summer that turns to a vibrant red in the fall, and plants can be grown either individually or in rows to form a tidy annual hedge. But a word to the wise, DO NOT let kochia develop seed—a single plant can produce enough seed to fill your yard. So, unless you plan on spending next spring and summer on your hands and knees weeding out thousands of feral kochia seedlings, my advice would be to wrap up your love affair with this plant early!

Misses: Soap Spots
Some of our pansies planted for fall developed strange brown spots on the foliage this past week. At first glance, the leaves looked like a fungus was attacking them. But upon closer examination, it became apparent that the damage wasn’t biotic at all. We had treated the plants with Ivory liquid Soap to control a few aphids. Why Ivory liquid? It’s easy to use, there were only a very few aphids and it smells nice! But in hindsight, it wasn’t the best choice. The weather at the time of the soap application was cold and rainy, which didn’t allow for quick drying of the soap solution. As a result, dry, dead spots appeared on the pansy leaves a few days after the spray was applied. The bottom line is while household soaps can be reasonably effective at killing some pests, they are still better at cleaning the dishes.

Question of the Week
Can I compost my rhubarb leaves?
Leaf composting questions are coming in fast and furiously as gardeners tidy up their yards. The one question I seem to get quite often is: if rhubarb leaves are poisonous, can they be composted? The simple fact is that the microorganisms in soil that are ultimately responsible for turning leaves into compost also break down the poisons in leaves. If you have rhubarb leaves, or any other so-called poisonous leaves, compost away…the only way that your health is at risk is if you decide to eat the compost!

Greenhouse Timelines
Poinsettia Watch
This is the time of the year when we watch the poinsettias like hawks. There is a particularly nasty powdery mildew disease that attacks poinsettias in late October and early November and turns the plants ghostly white. Poinsettia powdery mildew can be controlled fairly easily if it is caught early, but it is impossible to eradicate once it gets a solid foothold in the crop. Fortunately, our staff has that hawk-like vision and invariably catches the mildew before it can become established. I have heard reports of customers marveling at the white spray applied to poinsettias in some stores, not realizing that the spray is in fact powdery mildew running rampant throughout the poinsettia’s foliage and bracts. For growers who fail to keep a watchful eye out for mildew, a gorgeous crop can turn into a “whitemare” in just a few weeks.

In The Garden
Taking the Pruning Plunge
Once the leaves begin falling off trees, you can clearly see the framework or structure of tree and shrub branches, which makes fall a great time to start a pruning program. Pruning is one aspect of gardening for which most people have an inordinate amount of fear. Many people believe that they will kill or irreparably damage their favorite tree with a poorly placed pruning cut. So rather than risk making a bad cut, these gardeners do nothing. Unfortunately the result of this approach is trees with weak branches, disease that may spread because it’s not pruned out in time, and a misshapen form. Now lets face it, we are all guilty of neglecting our trees at one time or another, but it is important start an annual pruning program for your trees and shrubs to keep them healthy. If you can’t or don’t want to prune trees yourself, seek out professionals who have the equipment and training to do the job properly. You’ll be rewarded in the end.

(We now bring you the third installment of the Unlikely Gardener’s interview with exiting grower Scott M. Interested in what you missed? Check out entries posted September 28th and October 5th.)

Unlikely Gardener: Do you garden at home, Scott?
Scott M.: Like Darrell S. was crazy enough to do? No.
UG: Don’t like taking your work home with you?
SM: That’s part of it, I guess. You spend nine or ten hours watering a few thousand flats on 30 degree tarmac and you don’t feel too much like tending your own garden when you get home. Or at least I don’t. Most of the people who work here are the real deal as far as gardening goes. Even after work they’ll still put in the hours. Except you, I guess. I suppose we have more in common than we think.
UG: I doubt it.
SM: Fine, whatever. But there’s more to the matter of not gardening than simply not feeling much like gardening.
UG: Like what?
SM: Well, most importantly, I don’t have a garden. And that’s not necessarily by choice.
UG: So what’s that a product of, then?
SM: Personally, I think it’s generational—one more thing separating me from the baby boomers.
UG: You think the garden is solely the realm of the baby boomer?
SM: No, not to that extreme. But as a bona fide Gen X-er I know that for a good many of us the chief concerns in life are still, as Canadian musician and fellow X-er John K. Samson has put it, alcohol and irony. In other words, we haven’t mellowed enough yet to enjoy the feeling of the earth crusted beneath our fingernails.
UG: Are you setting yourself up as the spokesperson for your generation?
SM: Course not. I’m nowhere near good looking enough for that—which, incidentally, is all it would probably take from anybody. But listen, even those of us who have finally grown up, I’m convinced, are being more or less shut out of the lifestyle our parents showed us when we were growing up—you know, derelict-free suburban streets lined with mature trees and late-model automobiles. We’re becoming much more urban than that, taking out crippling mortgages on hastily assembled condos. The garden is diminishing as a result, ending up as a few containers full of sorry looking plants. There are a few of us out there buying houses, but if you’re going to have them, you have to pay for them. Making that kind of money takes an awful lot of time. As a result, I think gardening is at risk of becoming a mere matter of picking up the typical inch-and-a-half caliper trees and five shrubs to fulfill the developer’s requirements, then covering over the rest of the yard in sod. I don’t think my generation—and, keep in mind, this is the next one in line to inherit the earth—understands gardening like our parents did. Our parents grew up in gardens, ate fresh food from our grandparents’ plots or farms and ate canned stuff in the winter. How many of us did that? We’re not connected to gardens the way our parents were. I don’t think we share their passion.
UG: Do you have any evidence to back this up?
SM: None.
UG: Thought so. On the outside chance that you’re onto something, have you given much thought to the future of the industry?
SM: I’ve been watering for four years. All I’ve been doing is thinking.
UG: Let’s hear it, then.
SM: Obviously, success is going to be a matter of appealing to the emerging market without making it seem like you’re forgetting about the present one, which I think Hole’s is working hard at.
UG: And by market you mean generation?
SM: Aren’t they the same thing these days?
UG: Spoken like a true cynic.

To be continued, one more time.

The second lecture in the Honourable Lois Lecture Program will take place on Tuesday, October 17 at 7 pm in the Central Library’s John Dutton Theatre. The Calgary Public Library proudly presents Catherine Ford, speaking on the value of public libraries in her life and in the development of Calgary’s new urban culture. Ms. Ford is a writer, former Calgary Herald columnist, and vibrant speaker. The lecture program features key public figures who show an interest and commitment to community and culture building, advancing literacy, and advocating the value of the Public Library. RSVP by Friday, October 13 to 260-2799

first published October 5, 2006

When it comes to cleaning up the dead leaves in your yard, are you an ant or a grasshopper? You know Aesop’s fable—the ant busily toils and prepares for the winter while the grasshopper chirps and sings to his heart’s content. When the blistering winter finally arrives, the ant has plenty of food stored away and, well, we all know what happens to the grasshopper.

So go ahead and sample from the multitude of possible moral lessons: it’s better to prepare for necessity, it’s wise to worry about tomorrow today, idleness brings want…any way you slice it, that grasshopper looks like a dead slacker. But, fortunately for some of us, being a bit lazy in the fall doesn’t invite that same dire consequence.

Right or Wrong?
As fond as I am of the wisdom of the ages, I’m enough of a skeptic to question whether there’s any real merit to cleaning up the yard at this time of the year. Aesop might be quick to crown a moral winner, but if he looked at fall cleanup in terms of science, he might be surprised at the arguments for both sides. Over in Camp Cleanup, there’s a lot to be said for taking a measured approach to tidying up the yard and putting it to bed before the snow flies. By measured, I mean reasonable. Anything diseased should be cleaned up—no questions asked. That means cutting back any powdery mildew from perennials like phlox, removing rose leaves affected by black spot and picking up fallen fruit so as not to invite apple maggots. Raking up fallen leaves from apple trees also reduces the chance of certain diseases surfacing in your yard. Leaves left on the ground act as great reservoirs for diseases that have nothing to do all winter other than prepare to assault your plants next spring and summer. Knowledge is key to making good choices. So if your yard is covered with apple-tree leaves, know that scab fungus will reside on those leaves over the winter a bit like a hibernating bear—no bother to you in the winter, but look out come spring.

Listen to Your Mother
For those of you who are grasshoppers, ‘forgetting’ to clean up every last leaf each fall also has compelling arguments. Nature’s not about sanitation; it’s about balance. When someone tries to clean up everything, he or she is trying to control nature. Nature doesn’t like that. Leaves add organic matter to the soil, and those very same leaves that harbour pests under the snow also provide hiding spots for good bugs and keep plant crowns and roots safe from cold and drying winds. After all, eliminating leaves and pests isn’t much good if your perennials die along with them. If it’s testimony you want, Mother Nature got by without a fall cleanup for countless millennia, and she’s done quite well for herself.

When it comes to adopting a philosophy about fall cleanup, it helps to come to terms with knowing that you can plan and prepare all you want and still lose to nature. So is it better to be an ant or a grasshopper? Honesty, the answer has more to do with personal preference and predicting the winter than it does with moral fortitude. To some people, tall ornamental grasses poking out from under the snow is as beautiful a sight in the winter as is a spotless yard in the fall. Really, there is no right or wrong. It basically comes down to common sense and to pleasing yourself…occasionally, your neighbours. Personally, I like to see gardeners doing a minimum cleanup and leaving berries and seed heads to brighten up our yards during the long winter while providing food for birds and other animals. Then again, that might just be the wishful thinking of a grasshopper who’s writing about fables instead of cleaning his yard.