first published August 21, 2008

It’s tempting to think a cloudburst means that our gardens are getting plenty of water. But just because we get thoroughly soaked running from the grocery store to our car, doesn’t mean that our plants are feeling as saturated as we are. The next time you feel wet to the core thanks to a thunderstorm and the city streets look like urban creeks, head out into your yard and give the soil in your garden a swift kick. Just don’t be surprised if you stir up a cloud of dust rather than a clod of muck.

One of the reasons it’s easy to be fooled into thinking we’ve had a deluge when instead we’ve had nothing more than a sprinkle, is that city landscapes give us the wrong visual clues. Impervious surfaces are masters of illusion. A bit of rain can make streets and parking lots look like streams and lakes but are our gardens as saturated? Not so much. To better understand the fate of rain that hits our yards (and as a result become better at garden water management) we need to look at its whole journey, from the sky above to below the ground.

The fate of rain
Lets start with a droplet of rain hitting the canopy of a tree. A portion of it might evaporate but, typically, the bulk of it will fall to the ground. In urban environments, sidewalks, driveways and streets will divert some of the water to storm sewers, robbing plants of substantial amounts of moisture. Roofs and their downspouts that redirect water will do the same unless one captures this free resource in rain barrels. Considering the fact that so much of the typical urban landscape is covered by these impermeable surfaces, there is not much room for rain to be welcomed and absorbed into the ground.

But lets say that, barring sidewalks, driveways and roofs, the bulk of the droplets actually hit the ground in your yard. The garden plants will use all of the rainfall, right? Well, here is where the droplet story gets a bit complicated. If you are counting on the fact that your trees will be sufficiently watered, you might be out of luck. Urban trees have a common and highly efficient competitor for water droplets that forest trees rarely need to worry about. It’s called lawn grass, and while it provides an attractive understorey for trees and shrubs, it is a voracious competitor for rainfall.

A single blade of grass
When you think about it, your lawn is nothing more than millions of individual plants with a dense network of fine roots that just so happen to be first in line for rainfall because they grow above tree roots. When rainfall is truly abundant, grass and trees can coexist harmoniously. Lawns ensure that other plants cannot easily compete with trees for water, nutrients and space but during years of drought, grasses can be the coup de gras for trees. For example, the mass die-off of birch trees on the Prairies can’t be blamed entirely on the competition for water by lawns, but there is no doubt that grass was a contributing factor.

Now if rain droplets miss your pavement, roofs, trees and lawns and manage to hit the soil in your garden and the plants in your containers, there are still a few complicating factors before you can rest easy and put away the garden hose. If your soils have high clay content, they can act much like your driveway. Water droplets that hit crusted clay tend to form small rivers and run off the surface. Enriching garden soils with organic matter, and therefore making them more porous, is one of the best ways of ensuring that the water that hits your garden stays put long enough for plants to absorb. Soils with lots of organic matter also produce plants with more extensive root systems that can ‘find’ water more easily.

When it comes to containerized plants such as those in planters and hanging baskets, it’s best not to count on rainfall at all. Because the containers are packed with plants there is a high demand for water right off the bat. Combine the high number of plants and dense foliage that deflects droplets with a comparatively small soil volume and even heavy rainfalls fail to reliably keep hanging baskets and pots moist enough. In gardens, water can move up, down and laterally from spots of high water concentration to drier spots. Pots and baskets don’t have that luxury. Anyone who thinks that they can rely on nothing but rainfall to keep their containers looking good better get used to the colour brown.

The next time someone says, ‘Man, we’ve had a lot of rain this year’, take a moment to look at the plants in your yard that have had nothing but precipitation as their source of water. Parched leaves are far better rain gauges than are soaked shirts.

Hits & Misses: Donkey’s ear & certain uncertainty
Question of the Week: When is the best time to add compost or manure to my garden?
Science & Technology: Plants that purify

Each year, I spend one weekend hiking in Jasper National Park with my family. And each year, that hike includes a trek up to Mount Edith Cavell, one of the most beautiful spots on earth. Now for those of you unfamiliar with Mount Edith Cavell, it consists of a mountain (obviously), a glacial lake with small “icebergs,” and a bunch of fallen rock that sits atop that ice. And there’s a large sign a few hundred metres away from the glacier that says something to the effect of “Don’t go near the glacier because chunks of rock and ice the size of small cars break off and could land on your head!” OK, the sign doesn’t say that exactly, but I’m thinking it should because every year without fail I’ve heard the thunderous sound of rock and ice falling and watched people panic and scatter in all directions. Fortunately I’ve never seen any one injured, but I’m starting to think that sign reading should be mandatory for anyone entering national parks.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Donkey’s Ear
Kalanchoe beharensis (donkey’s ear) is a very cool-looking succulent. It isn’t winter hardy here, but we have grown it as a summer annual, and in doing so, discovered that it has an interesting way of reproducing. At the tip of each leaf a daughter plant develops by late summer that is just a miniaturized version of the mother plant. These little daughter plants can simply be broken from the leaf tip, potted up, and—voila!— a new donkey’s ear is born.

The unique daughter plants of donkey’s ear.

Miss: Certain Uncertainty
I’m seeing a lot of tree leaf samples showing up at our Garden Centre that look rather poor. The problem?—drought, drought and more drought! During successive years of dry weather, trees really take a beating, the symptoms of which include brown leaf margins, yellow leaves and leaf shedding. Unfortunately, the solution is as simple as it is unlikely: string together a series of years with normal precipitation levels. Crystal ball anyone?

Question of the Week
When is the best time to add compost or manure to my garden—spring or fall?
I always tell customers that the best time to add compost to the garden was yesterday. And even though that’s a bit of a bad joke, it’s a pretty good way to assure people that compost can be added anytime throughout the year. Typically though, the easiest time to add compost is in the spring when large patches of the garden are bare or in late fall when the garden has geared down.

Science & Technology
Plants that Purify
Some indoor plants are very effective at absorbing airborne pollutants (such as formaldehyde) through their leaves, but according to the July issue of the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science, research has shown that roots and soil microorganisms also play a large role. During the day, leaves of plants such as Ficus benjamina and Fatsia japonica absorbed a large portion of formaldehyde through their leaf pores (stomates). At night, however, the plants’ roots and microorganisms took over and continued to remove formaldehyde at a rate 10 times that of the leaves. I’ll sleep better at night knowing that.

Trend Spotting
Gardeners are really starting to understand the value of choosing planters that stretch out the seasons. These kale and grass barrels have looked great all summer and will continue to perform long into the fall.

Did You Know?
There is a saying to consider if you are thinking about eating a mushroom that popped up in your yard. “There are old mushroom pickers and bold mushroom pickers, but there are no old, bold mushroom pickers.”

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.

–Jan Glidewell

Bill Hole’s State of the Industry

Last week Valerie and I were in Chicago attending the Independent Garden Centre Show—and we weren’t the only ones. The show itself is only in its second year and has already had an attendance increase of more than 30%. More booths, new speakers and a lot of new information and trends in the industry were presented over the three days.

One of the talks I attended was about the need to focus efforts on capturing the attention of a specific demographic: 35-year-old women. Apparently, they are the most sought after consumers in our business now, and we in the independent garden centre business are doing a poor job of catering to their needs. According to the speaker, this demographic has more money and more influence than ever before and our industry is moving at a snail’s pace to understand what they want.

This speaker also said “You are opening the door for smarter savvier retailers to step in and take this business” and that if we didn’t believe him, then we should believe Urban Outfitters, a trendy clothing chain that’s getting into the garden centre business.

Urban Outfitters has seen the writing on the wall and knows that much of this demographic is up for grabs if someone with a little understanding and savvy comes into this market. This is a very positive statement about our industry, but it is also a very big red flag.

We, the middle-aged independent garden centre owners, better learn more about these influential and successful 35-year-old women. If we don’t, it’s obvious there are others out there who will.

First published August 14, 2008

After a recent trip to the grocery store, I realized there’s more messing with our self-esteem these days than the barrage of beautiful celebrities peering at us from magazines at the checkout line. No, no, my fellow gardeners, thanks to perfect-looking produce, you can start feeling bad about yourself and your abilities long before you’re even out of the vegetable aisle.

The more I think about it, the more disconcerted I become. I mean, really, how sad a social commentary is it when our standards for physical beauty are so high that even what we see in the produce aisle isn’t attainable in real life? Worse yet, when our vegetables don’t look glossy, uniform and unblemished, we think we’ve failed. Well, it’s just not so.

Take tomatoes, for instance. If you look in almost any grocery store, the standard you’ll likely see is that of perfectly smooth, globular-shaped fruit—a modern 21st century version of what tomatoes are supposed to look like. What we don’t realize, however, is that those results aren’t any more attainable than “Flab to Fab in Six Weeks!” It’s difficult to accept sometimes (because of the impossible pressure we put on ourselves to meet unrealistic standards), but the perfection we see in the grocery store is often about profit, ease of transportation and packaging—with taste being desirable but not necessarily at the top of the priority list. As a result, we’ve been trained to root through the produce bins in search of the perfect, blemish-free tomato. But that training should not be applied to the first harvesting foray into our own gardens. Because it’s there we learn that a great tomato isn’t necessarily a perfect-looking one.

Across the prairies, one of the most common afflictions of homegrown tomatoes is catface injury, a disorder that causes the bottom of the fruit to look brown and distorted. Why it’s called catface injury is beyond me, but if I were a cat, I’d be outraged by the comparison…or asleep in the sun.

Catface 101
Catface injury manifests itself as rough, distorted brown patches on the base of tomato fruit and begins at the inception of flowerbud development, usually about two to three weeks before blossoms appear. What happens is that the tissues at the connection between the ovary (where the seed growth originates) and the style (the long tubes on flowers that the pollen travels through en route to the ovary) grows abnormally, and many weeks down the road becomes catfaced fruit. The good news, however, is that catface injury doesn’t spread to other tomatoes, only a few fruit on a plant are affected and the ones that are affected are still edible (although you might want to slice off the ugly bit).

The overwhelming cause of this abnormal growth is low temperature. Several days of temperatures below 15 C, when the plants are young, seem to be the trigger for catface injury, although other factors that impede flowerbud growth can also contribute. Applying too much nitrogen, for example (whether it be from commercial fertilizers or manure), can increase the occurrence of injury. Sometimes an errant spray of a lawn weed killer will also mimic the symptoms of catfacing, although the damage from these products tends not to cause the same degree of browning on the tomato skin.

It’s also important to note that catface injury is often confused with blossom-end rot, which blackens the bottom of tomato fruit. However, blossom-end rot is caused by irregular watering and a deficiency of calcium in the fruit, and the damage is more extensive than is the damage due to catface injury.

And that’s catface injury—an oddly named disorder—not a disease, not the end of the world, certainly not anything to feel inferior about. Of course, perfect tomatoes will always remain what we strive for, but they are also a fairy tale image of how fruit is supposed to look—not how it actually looks when grown by real gardeners in real gardens. So get out into the garden and revel in imperfection this year! After all, if ugliness deterred us from eating things, lobsters would never have been introduced to butter.

Hits & Misses: Surplus & thrips
Question of the Week: What are the bugs attacking my Virginia creeper?
The Business: Mural tribute

I’m guessing that at 35°C, August 18th will have been the hottest day of 2008. And what does one do on the hottest day of the year? Why, head out with an infrared temperature gun in search of the hottest item in the greenhouse, of course. Here’s what I found.
When I pointed the gun at a poinsettia leaf, it read a paltry 34°C, which shows the crop is managing to stay cool by evaporating water from its leaves—not the case for the concrete walkways, which were a toasty 41°C. For a real heat treat though, I headed out to the empty “coldframes,” which at this time of the year are just plastic shells with no ventilation—saunas, really. There, the infrared gun showed a floor temperature of 45°C and a temperature of 63°C on the structural steel. But these numbers are nothing compared to the temperature winner. It was a 15 cm piece of black plastic tubing that topped out at 75°C! Throw a little water in that pipe and one could cook up some pasta for lunch.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Surplus
Thanks to the recent heat, tomatoes are in surplus this year. And because one can eat only so many per day, tomatoes are quickly becoming the new zucchinis of 2008. True, the saying goes that you can never have too much of a good thing, but my money is on a different adage: be sure to lock your car at night in August because you could wake up to it filled with zucchini…or tomatoes, in this year’s case.

Miss: Thrips
It’s inevitable that with the heat comes an insect pest called thrips. Thrips can be a royal pain because they transmit plant viruses or, at the very least, cause a lot of scarring on the leaves and fruits of many plants. Gladiolus, for example, will display streaking or stippling from thrips, while carrots develop hairy-looking tops from aster yellow, a disease that is transmitted by thrips. Unfortunately, all one can really do is rogue out the bad plants and hope for wetter weather.

Thrips love to feed on rose flowers and buds.

Question of the Week
What are the bugs attacking my Virginia creeper and what can I do about them?
Virginia creepers (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) are highly vulnerable to the grape leafhopper. But before you can treat the problem, you first need to understand the pest and its life cycle. 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.
So if you’ve had leafhopper problems before, start a control program now. Cleanup the leaf litter around the base of your Virginia creeper and keep it clean until the snow flies; it will reduce the over-wintering population. Next, if you haven’t done it already, give the plants a good soaking and keep them properly watered throughout the fall—drought-stressed plants are much more prone to leafhoppers and will suffer greatly when attacked.
There are some approved insecticidal soaps, but timing the applications is critical and should start once leaves emerge and continue every 7 to 10 days throughout the summer 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 will kill adult leafhoppers.

The Business
Mural Tribute
On Tuesday, August 12th, I had the pleasure of attending the unveiling of a mural that celebrates the life and legacy of my mother, Lois. It is the first installation of several works of art that will be unveiled as part of the Giants of Edmonton Mural Program. Besides celebrating Mom’s contribution to the province, the city is hoping the artwork will discourage graffiti and help Edmontonians take more pride in our public buildings.

This mural, created by artist Ian Mulder, reflects the tremendous legacy of care and nurture that Mom left in the city of Edmonton. I know that she would be incredibly proud that her influence will forever stand large in the heart of the city.

Union Bank building, 95 Street and 113 Avenue.

Did You Know?
Durian fruit has such a powerful odour that it is banned from many hotels and airlines.

“The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”
–Tennessee Williams



First published August 7, 2008

Each summer, my end of workday ritual is to walk down the pathway that leads to my car, grab a big mitt full of bright-red ‘Evans’ cherries from an adjacent tree and pop those ruby-red beauties into my mouth…one at a time, of course. Typically, the three-metre tall tree is laden with fruit by now and the supply is inexhaustible, despite my daily grazing.

This year, however, things are different. For some reason my beloved tree is cherry-less, and as a result, I rarely give it a second glance. The reason? Well, neither birds nor bugs nor even my brother (who takes the same route to work each day) is to blame. So the question is then, why? Could it be that my cherry tree is just being vindictive because of my gluttony? Perhaps. But there’s also the scientific explanation, and here it is.

A Fruitless Endeavour
Most fruit trees that provide lots of fruit one year and then little the next typically owe their capriciousness to one of two things: cold temperatures or hormones. Let’s start by dealing with the first evil, which was certainly the culprit with my cherry tree.

As we all know, spells of exceptionally cold winter weather are not uncommon on the prairies, which is the main reason that our choice of fruit tree varieties is rather limited. Hardier varieties, such as my Evans cherry can survive deep winter cold, but will rarely emerge unscathed from record winter cold—which is exactly what happened this past January when temperatures dipped into the -40C range. Even though the leaf-producing buds on our hardy trees are surprisingly resilient to temperatures that make freezers seem warm, the flowerbuds were simply pushed beyond their limits. Unfortunately, the inevitable result of winter 2008 is cherry trees with plenty of lush green leaves but few, if any, red clusters of fruit.

Although, weather is to blame for this cherry-less summer, hormone imbalances will also cause problems with certain varieties of fruit trees. Trees that suffer from this are referred to as biennial or alternate bearers, meaning they will have high yields one year and little the next. Bud development on biennial bearers functions a bit like an old-fashion balance scale. A heavy fruit load one year (hormonally speaking) pushes the next year’s buds towards becoming leaves; whereas a year of heavy leaves pushes the following year’s buds to favour becoming flowers. The ‘Honeycrisp’ apple is a perfect example of a tree that produces excellent fruit but is notorious for being an alternate bearer.

The reason for this balancing act is elegantly simple. The ultimate goal of any living thing is to pass on its genes to future generations. Because fruit contributes no food energy to the tree but is necessary for a tree to produce seed, and leaves produce life-giving food for the entire tree but aren’t capable of passing on genes (a.k.a. seeds), striking the right balance is essential. Fortunately, there is a very simple way for you to help: reach for the pruners.

A Small Sacrifice
As brutal as that sounds, pruning some fruit off a tree that has a heavy fruit set is actually quite kind. Just think about how hard leaves work to feed fruit. Well, pruning allows a tree to throw all its energy into the fruit that remains. Fewer fruit means less pressure on the tree to shift energy to leaf buds at the expense of flowerbuds. Pruning works well on apples, plums and pears, but remember that fruit removal is necessary only in years when trees produce a heavy fruit set—so you can cross it off your to-do list for this summer.

There’s no denying that knowledge is a powerful thing, but being able to pinpoint whether a fruitless tree is due to cold weather, hormones or hungry relatives is little consolation when all you can think about is your craving. I suppose the good news, if you abide by the misery loves company principle, is that, near as I can tell, there are scores of gardeners in the same boat this year. I guess that sometimes, life isn’t a bowl of cherries—it’s just a bowl. Better luck next year.

Bill Hole’s State of the Industry

I believe that what many businesses call “good customer service” and “good sales technique” really just represent poor customer service, plain and simple. Case in point, when a customer has to ask staff the most obviously required pieces of information because signage is missing. Unfortunately, many businesses don’t see this as a problem.

There is a school of thought that the more we engage customers in dialogue, the more products we can sell them. Companies that sell customer relations management software have also told us that customers want store staff to know them on a personal level. Experience has shown me the very opposite; customers are pressed for time and many have absolutely no desire to build a personal relationship with staff. Customers simply want information and goods consistently delivered—quickly and easily.

Where’s the proof? Look at the explosion of shopping on the Internet. When an online store meets the customer’s needs, they return over and over. For example, why do most people like the online experience of Amazon? This company does a very good job of providing all of the information a buyer needs without the buyer ever having to ask a question or build a personal relationship. Vending machines, self-serve checkouts and pay-by-phone parking all achieve the same result. Most importantly, the best of these services and companies enable customers to talk to a live salesperson or service representative in the event that a problem or difficult situation arises. Now that’s good customer service and good sales technique.

The relationship between customers and businesses would be much better if our chats were about the weather and current events instead of businesses’ communication failures. Don’t you agree?

Hits & Misses: Dapper dahlias & haggard hangers
Question of the Week: What causes scab on apples, and how can I prevent it?
Science & Technology: Floricultural industry

This past weekend I took a walk with my daughter down a beautiful street that’s shaded by a long row of huge American elms. It was a hot, sunny, cloudless day, so I was a little surprised when my daughter commented on how nice the gentle rain felt on her skin. Being that clouds—which are sort of a prerequisite for rainfall—were nowhere to be found, I was faced with the task of delicately informing her that the “rain” she was enjoying was, in fact, aphid poop. Thanks to the recent heat wave, aphid populations have exploded in numbers and been feeding like mad on the elms. As I explained to my daughter, aphids are like mini pumps that draw large amounts of sugary sap from leaves as they search for plant proteins. And because what goes in must also come out, the result is a shower of aphid poop (affectionately called “honeydew”) that rains down on us and everything else beneath the elm’s canopy. After walking another “rainy” block, my daughter decided that honeydew was an infinitely better name than aphid poop.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Dapper Dahlias
Many gardeners are drawn to certain plants simply for their size. Some find miniature plants fascinating, while others are attracted to plants on the opposite end of the scale, those giants with huge foliage or monstrous blooms. I confess to falling into the latter group and one plant that always impresses me is the dinner plate dahlia. These definitely fall into the “extra-large” category of interest, and are great conversation starters. Trust me, if you grow even one dinner plate dahlia in your front yard you can be absolutely certain to have a steady stream of quizzical neighbors stopping by to marvel over the huge blooms.

Kelvin Floodlight Dinnerplate Dahlia

Miss: Haggard Hangers
August is the month when hanging baskets tend to look a little haggard. And not surprisingly, the main reason for their tired look is because we tend to take them for granted. By August, many of us forget to deadhead old flowers or to pick up another jug of fertilizer. The good news, however, is that with a few deft snips here and a bit of a feed there, hanging baskets can be fairly easily rejuvenated.

Question of the Week
What causes scab on apples, and how can I prevent it?
The scabs you see on apples are caused by a fungal disease called Venturia inaequalis. It attacks leaves and blossoms as well as fruit, but people usually first notice it on the fruit. The disease overwinters on fallen leaves so it’s particularly critical to clean up your apple leaves in the fall. One last point to note is that the problem tends to be worst during periods of high humidity and temperatures above 26 C.

Science & Technology
Floricultural Industry
Being that the Olympics are in full swing in Beijing, I thought it would be interesting to take stock of China’s floricultural industry. According to the Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China had 14,000 hectares of greenhouses in 1984, with a wholesale production value of .85 billion dollars. By 2006, the production area was 722,136 hectares with a wholesale value of over 70 billion dollars. Each province specializes in certain crops because of the government’s policy of regionalization of plant production.

Did You Know?
Portuguese peasants used sticky, insect-trapping sundew plants in their homes as a substitute for flypaper.

“Even with insects—some can sing, some can’t.”
–Kobayashi Issa

First published July 31, 2008

While watching an insufferable parade of commercials the other day, I got to thinking about how many of them show impossibly beautiful young women skipping their way through fields of wildflowers containing essential oils that promise to smooth wrinkles and thicken hair. Well, as perfect a picture (or pipe dream) as that may be, if you plan on partaking in the frolic, my advice is to choose the field carefully. If you don’t, you might encounter some reactive plants guaranteed to turn that lovely image into an uncomfortable parody. One beauty in particular is a garden perennial called Dictamnus albus, otherwise known as the gas plant.

At first and second glance, gas plants don’t look as though they have a particularly pernicious side. But veer beyond the white and purplish, lemon-scented flowers and you’ll soon discover that this hardy perennial’s beauty is only skin deep. Here’s why.

Sequestered within the gas plant’s leaves is psoralen, a rather strange chemical that is best described as the antithesis of sunscreen. Therefore, when psoralen-containing leaves meet human skin that’s exposed to bright sunlight, a chemical reaction takes place that makes us hypersensitive to the sun’s UV rays, the evidence of which is red skin with nasty-looking blisters. The medical term for this condition is called phytophotodermatitis and, thanks to the gas plant, several people I know have suffered its wrath this year.

The story was the same for all of the phytophotodermitis victims. Each adverse reaction was the result of a bare-armed gardener trying to gather and tie up the flopping leaves of their gas plants. Within hours, the encounters yielded whip-like red marks across arms and shoulders.

So why do gas plants produce these unsavoury psoralens? Simple: to send a message to herbivores like us that other plants would be a better dietary choice. And they’re not alone in their approach. Plants such as parsnips also manufacture psoralens to keep animals and bugs from chewing on their leaves. In fact, when an insect feeds on parsnip tops, the parsnip reacts by manufacturing psoralens and transporting those antifeedants to the specific spot where the insect is lunching. It doesn’t take long for the insect to develop a bad taste in its mouth either, and before long it is off to tastier pastures. I suppose we humans must also understand the parsnip’s warning, seeing as we eat only the roots. As for handling the tops, I have never had any adverse reaction to touching parsnip leaves, but the same may not hold true for someone with sensitive skin.

As interesting as psoralens are, it’s worth noting that they have nothing to do with Dictamnus albus earning its common name, gas plant. The gas moniker was actually earned because given just the right blend of humidity and warmth (say a still, muggy evening), the volatile oils emitted by the flowers will sometimes “pop” when ignited with a match. Cool trick, but one could go through a few boxes of matches before ever getting to see it. Not that I’d know…really.

Dictamnus albus v. purpureus

The one other thing you should know about gas plants is that they really do make great additions to the garden. Besides being one of the longest-lived perennials (lasting for 20 or more years), gas plants are quite easy to keep happy. Simply provide them with sun to light shade and room to grow (approximately 90 cm of spreading room). As for soil conditions, gas plants aren’t that choosy, tolerating even the hot dry areas in the garden. However, once you find the right spot, commit to it: gas plants have long taproots and don’t like being moved. For a great combination, try growing them with peonies, Oriental poppies and lupines, all of which bloom together in early summer. Finally—and it’s an important point—always remember to wear long-sleeved shirts and gloves when handling the foliage.

So the next time an intrepid advertiser inspires you to frolic in a field of wildflowers, go for it! Just remember be on the lookout for gas plants and lost parsnips.

Hits & Misses: Saskatoons & empty promises
Question of the Week: How can I tell that it’s time to cut down my perennials?
Science & Technology: Hot stuff!
The Path to Enjoy: Educate

I’m thinking that Hollywood producer Ridley Scott (Gladiators, Alien) is probably wishing he had skipped fewer high-school botany classes. Apparently, well into the filming of his latest movie Nottingham (a film about Robin Hood), Ridley and his acolytes realized that the leaves of deciduous trees have a tendency to change colour and drop to the ground at certain times of the year. Most of us call this strange phenomenon autumn, and it happens every year…just after summer, as I recollect. Now, because Mr. Scott needed verdant leaves throughout the filming of Nottingham, he decided that suspending production until the following spring would be the most prudent strategy. Too bad Sherwood Forest wasn’t comprised entirely of evergreens.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Saskatoons
The saskatoon berries are plumper and juicier than they have been in several years. I think that timely rains combined with the sunny but not too hot weather has contributed to the excellent berry quality. Whatever the reason, it all spells saskatoon pie!

Miss: Empty Promises
Not more than 10 metres away from the prolific saskatoon bushes, the ‘Evans’ cherry tree has failed to produce so much as one fruit. The culprit was a short but severe winter cold snap that wrote the script for this year’s cherry crop. The silver lining, however, is that it gives the cherry tree a summer off, so to speak, which means it should focus its energy on cherry production next year.

Question of the Week
How can I tell that it’s time to cut down my perennials?

There’s a general rule and it’s simple: don’t cut down your perennials until frost has killed the tops. A perennial’s vigour and winter survival depends on adequate energy reserves in the crown and roots, so it’s critical to allow the leaves to continue producing energy for as long as possible. Also, if you cut down a perennial too early, there’s always the chance it may try to grow back—especially if you have a warm fall. This will deplete the plant’s energy reserves at a crucial time of the year, thus making the plant weaker and more vulnerable to winter injury.

Science & Technology
Hot Stuff!
If you can’t take the heat, then stay out of the interlocular septum. According to a research report in the latest issue of Hortscience, the white, fleshy “stuff” (interlocular septum) that separates the seeds from the fruit of hot peppers is where the bulk of the heat is stored. Apparently, the heat that we mistakenly think is within the seeds is actually just surface contamination from the interloc….er, white stuff.

The Path to Enjoy
Educate
This past Tuesday, Valerie, Bill and I sat down with Godo Stoyke and Shanthu Mano from Carbon Busters to consult about our new facility. I wasn’t sure what to expect and have to admit I was a bit skeptical. After all, greenhouses are so different than most buildings: huge heat losses and heat gains can occur all within the same day. Could they really help us with our energy planning? Well, to find out they asked questions. What were our goals? What did we want to achieve relative to energy saving, and what did we feel was a reasonable amount of time to wait before seeing a return on our investment? Of course, because we can’t predict the future with any amount of certainty, none of these questions had simple answers. However, what we can do—and did in fact commit to—is to try to live up to the philosophies we preach to our kids about how we want to leave this planet. As soon as that became our goal, the concept of taking 20 or more years to receive pay back on a significant investment in energy-saving technologies became worth considering. Double pane glass, R100 insulation, recovering heat from waste water and grey water for the plants—it has all become much more interesting.

Did You Know?
Prayer plants acquired their name because their leaves seem to fold up at night like a pair of hands.

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
–Vincent van Gogh