The staff are hard at work…

… making baskets of bougainvillea…

…potting up pennisetum …

…and transplanting mandevilla to their new home!

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Hits & Misses: Fantastic fuchsias & an agave with bite
Question of the Week: Why are the leaves falling off my rubber plant?
Science & Technology: Of pollen and spores

This past weekend, my wife brought home a beautiful, full-colour, glossy booklet about plants. However, those particular plants weren’t run-of-the-mill garden flowers. They had names like Papaver somniferum, Cannabis sativa and Erythroxylon coca; plants that produce (respectively) heroin, marijuana and cocaine. Of course, the booklet wasn’t a grower’s “how to,” but rather a resource designed to educate and warn parents. Now, seeing as plant physiology and biochemistry are near and dear to my heart, I now realize that I may have been the wrong parent to give my 10-year-old daughter the drugs-are-bad spiel. And while I’m not sure I actually used the word “cool,” I did spend a lot of time talking about why plants synthesize drugs, how farmers extract heroin from poppies and how plant breeding has increased THC levels in cannabis. Of course, I did talk about how drugs can destroy people’s lives. But I also wanted my daughter to know that hallucinogen-synthesizing plants aren’t misanthropic; they’re just fascinating organisms trying to carve out niches in challenging environments—just like the rest of us. I hope the lesson my daughter received was that the reasons for abuse of these plants are complex and that the true “gateway” drug is the mind-numbing one called ignorance.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Fantastic Fuchsias
Our fuchsia plants are the best I have seen in a long time. I can chalk up their superior performance to great varieties, vigorous cuttings, superior soil, supplemental high-intensity lighting, fine-tuned temperatures and plenty of TLC by the growers. Other than that, I haven’t got a clue why they look so good.

A lot of factors account for beautiful-looking fuchsias.

Miss: An Agave with Bite
Perhaps a near miss is more to the point when it comes to a particularly vicious little cactus with a strange variety name: Agave parryi truncata ‘Retro Choke.’ It just loves to bite, no matter how careful I am when I pick it up to inspect it. These guys can bury their spines deep into one’s flesh with the least provocation. Hmmm…maybe there is such a thing as a misanthropic plant.

This agave needs to be handled with care.

Question of the Week
Why are the leaves falling off my rubber plant?
If the fallen leaves are still nice and green, the problem is probably a lack of light. Most indoor plants require (at a minimum) bright indirect light. However, if the dropped leaves are brown or yellow, the problem might be that the soil is too wet or too dry. It’s also a good idea to check for disease or insects, but remember—especially if it’s just a few leaves—that all plants shed leaves.

Science & Technology
Of Pollen and Spores
Palynology is the science that studies contemporary and fossil palynomorphs including pollen and spores (as if you didn’t already know!). And of great interest within the field is a compound called sporopollenin. It’s found in the outer layer of pollen and spores and resists degradation by various chemicals, fungi and bacteria, thereby allowing these microscopic structures to remain intact even when trapped in sediment for millions of years. Thanks to sporopollenin, paleobotanists can therefore get a better understanding of what the plant world looked like eons ago.

Did You Know?
There are so many ants in a tropical rainforest that their combined weight is more than the combined weight of all other vertebrate rainforest inhabitants.

“Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom, youth is the season of credulity.”
—William Pitt

The transplanting crew are and hard at work. First task: 10s of thousands of rooted geranium cuttings; by square footage, our biggest crop by far.

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It goes to show, a big city still needs to garden!

– Post From My iPhone

first published February 12, 2009

According to an ancient Chinese proverb, “it is better to be deprived of food for three days than of tea for one.” I can’t say I’d disagree.

I think I became addicted to tea when I was a baby. Mom would often pour a bit of hot tea into my baby bottle, believing it would soothe my earaches. I can’t confirm the efficacy of tea as a medication for earaches, but I can say two things with certainty. The first being that my introduction to tea at a young age is what likely entrenched my love for it as an adult. The second being that telling people you regularly enjoyed a spiked baby bottle as a child is guaranteed to evoke laughter.

Seeing as tea was and continues to be such an integral part of my life, I consider it rather fortuitous that I toured the Hong Kong Museum of Tea Ware this past winter. Now, I won’t say the experience caused any great epiphanies or flashbacks to tea-laced milk bottles, but stepping into the museum did feel a bit like stepping into a shrine. There were so many highly revered types of tea, each with a long and venerable history. And although the term “tea” refers to an entire plant species called Camellia sinensis, there are about 3000 varieties of tea plants grown in various regions of China. For each of those varieties, there seems to be different process for converting them into the drink we enjoy. Everything from flash-heating to crushing and fermenting is used to transform raw leaves into a product that’s ready to brew.

To keep it straight in your head, it helps to break the varieties into six main tea categories: Green (non-fermented), White (slightly fermented), Yellow (slightly fermented), Oolong (partially fermented), Black (fully fermented) and Pu’er (post-fermented). I grew up in the fully fermented tea camp, and I can’t say that I have acquired a taste for the lighter fare.

Tea plants themselves are not what one would call dazzling beauties. In fact, the leaves are similar to those on everyone’s favourite office plant: the fig (Ficus). The flowers, however, are rather attractive and reminiscent of Alberta’s wild rose (but with white petals).

Tea plants are native to temperate, mountainous regions of southeast Asia, which, needless to say, makes them a poor choice for the Prairies. However, if you can find a tea plant (available sporadically at garden centres), it can be grown as a potted patio plant during the summer and overwintered in a garage, provided the temperatures in that space don’t drop lower than -6C. If you do give it a try, note that tea plants require rich, slightly acidic potting soil for best growth. They also like plenty of sun but require filtered afternoon sunlight. Intense sun can burn the foliage and cause a build-up of bitter tannins in the leaves—an important point to remember if you’re planning on starting up a plantation.

All in all, the tea museum was a fascinating excursion into the science and culture of one of the world’s most famous plants—a plant that was instrumental in writing this article.
For more great gardening info, check out Hole’s Greenhouses on Facebook. You don’t have to be a member to visit, but if you are, be sure to sign on as a fan.

Hits & Misses: Stellar azaleas & plunging temperatures
Question of the Week: Should I start my spring-planted bulbs indoors?
The Business: Enjoy Life Outside

I can’t begin to estimate how many hours I’ve spent growing and researching thousands of plant varieties. One might conclude, therefore, that I’m an omnipotent horticulturist who saunters about the greenhouse, leading a congregation of acolytes who devour every bit of plant knowledge that I care to dispense. Wait…is that the sound of our staff doubled over in laughter? The truth is, the most common answer that our growers get from me is “I don’t know.” The reason is simple. Each year, we receive 100 or so new plant varieties to test. And the reality is I have little or no experience with them. Sure, I can guess how they should perform based on cultural information. But until the crop is grown in the greenhouse and then transplanted outside, I can’t say—with a great degree of confidence—just how well it will perform in our region. Super. Obama hits the big time with “Yes we can!” and I’m stuck in my own little world with “I don’t know.”

Hits & Misses
Hit: Stellar Azaleas
This season, we have the best-quality azaleas I can recall in recent memory. The plants have a huge number of flowerbuds, while the foliage is thick and a very rich green. What’s our secret, you ask? Transplant only the most vigorous plants, place them in fibrous, peaty soil and grow them slowly and coolly. Think of this technique as the plant-growing equivalent to the slow-food movement. Fast plants, like fast foods, just don’t make the grade.

Our azaleas are first-grade this season thanks to our growing methods.

Miss: Plunging Temperatures
On Family Day we had temperatures dip to –6ºC for a brief time in our greenhouses. The circumstances included a failed boiler temperature controller, a defective outdoor temperature sensor, a roof vent inadvertently left open, plus a comedy of unfortunate events where I played a role as one of the less-than-funny comedians. Yes, some plants were irreparably damaged, but (fortunately) nowhere near as many as first suspected. In the end, all we can do is learn from the experience and put safeguards in place to try and prevent it from happening again.

Question of the Week
Should I start my spring-planted bulbs indoors?
Most spring-planted bulbs will do perfectly well when planted outside after the average date of the last spring frost (May 9 in our area). However, growth may stall and the bulbs may even rot if planted too early in cool, wet soil. To avoid this problem and to get a jump-start on the season, consider starting bulbs indoors. This works especially well with long-season, tender bulbs such as begonias.

The Business
Enjoy Life Outside
Our latest book, Enjoy Life Outside: Inspired Projects, is at the printers and will be available exclusively at Hole’s Greenhouses by March 1. The do-it-yourself project book written by Linda Bodo features “15 al fresco encounters.” Here’s a sneak peak at the cover.

Did You Know?
Dischidia plants have urn-like pouches for housing ants. That may seem odd, but it’s actually a mutually agreeable relationship. The ant gets protection; the plant benefits from nitrogenous waste (excrement and debris) deposited by the ants.

“Isn’t it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists.”
—Kelvin Throop III

Over 2000 bare root roses are being potted up today by the transplanting crew.

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Enjoy Life Outside, our latest book, will be available exclusively at Hole’s by March 1. Author Linda Bodo was on hand for a presscheck of the do-it-yourself book, which features “15 al fresco encounters.”

The bare root roses arrived today and are enjoying a nice, pre-potting soak before the crew arrive tomorrow to start planting them up.

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The first of the cinneraria are breaking bud; spring is definitely near!

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