It is a disconcerting time: conflicts in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe, in parts of Africa. Mass shootings, stabbings, looting seemingly everywhere everyday. Unprecedented weather events. We must remember, through all the ugliness, that good people are everywhere, working to change the bad things. We are not alone.
On Friday, October 11th the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. The prize was bestowed upon Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese group dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons. This grassroots movement was founded by survivors of the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
The survivors, known as Hibakusha, have used personal testimony to illustrate the destruction of nuclear weapons. Survivors include people in the area when the bombs were dropped, people who were present at testing sites, people who responded to the disasters and the children carried by pregnant women. It is estimated that a little over one hundred thousand survivors are still alive. Their testimony includes the horrors of the day and the following weeks. They speak of the illness that resulted, skin lesions and cancers. They speak of the families, communities and environment that was destroyed.
The work of the Nihon Hidankyo reminds us all what is possible. Their tireless efforts means that nuclear weapons have become regarded as too dangerous. Alfred Nobel believed that individuals could make a difference. We must remember that.
Read the press release from the Nobel Committee here.
Colourful samaras on an Amur Maple. Photo: PeaceSignsPruners
The gardeners’ world has become like the fashion world: every season there are new releases, new ‘must-haves’, new colours and shapes! If you’re on social media the algorithm has picked up on your like for gardens and you are deluged with ads for the latest plants as well as influencer posts declaring their love for the new and nifty.
How do we get new plants? Well, there are a few ways. There is the time honoured tradition of exploration and discovery. It’s seems almost unbelievable but there are still places on this Earth where humans have rarely walked. The deepest corners of the Amazon, the heights of the Andes or the meadows of the Alps, to name a few, all hold plants never catalogued. You have to be a real plant nerd to keep up on these things. Here’s Kew Gardens’ list of the most exciting discoveries of 2023. A tree that grows underground? How fantastic!
Plant exploration and discovery does not hold the prestige it once did but there are still intrepid scientists out there. When the New World was still new to Europeans, fortunes could be made by introducing new plants. Have you heard of ‘Tulip Mania’ in the 1600’s? The tulip, introduced from Turkey, had some interesting and exotic varieties. Collectors went a little crazy and the price rose astronomically, fueling a financial collapse when prices finally bottomed out. Read more about it here. Or how about Victorian Fern Cases? When a glass box was designed to keep Amazonian species alive, collectors went a little crazy for ferns. You were nobody if you didn’t have a Fern Case with an exotic specimen. Read more about that here.
Another way that we get new plants is by selection. This has been used since ancient times, when the first farmers noticed a grain that produced better and saved seed from it for replanting. It can be applied to any plant. Imagine a family farm that grows a tree for the horticultural trade. They grow nothing but, say, Amur Maple (Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala), ten thousand of them in the field. The farmer notices that one tree has brighter samaras (seed pods), a more vibrant pink than most. It’s got a nice form and habit: straight trunk, not too large a canopy, good fall colour. This tree is different, it’s special with those bright seed pods. So the farm begins to propagate it from cuttings, to clone it and make exact replicas. And so, Amur Maple ‘Ruby Slippers’ was created. The document here states that the finders started propagating in 1991 and the tree was trademarked in 2004.
There is money to be made by selecting superior plants. Once patented a small fee will go to the farm for every sale. It can be big money when it’s a plant that can sell to a large audience. It is also a process that one has to invest time in, the plant must be cloned and the offspring must be watched to show that the DNA is consistent. The grower must allow the tree to become old enough to produce seed. Rushing to market can lead to professional embarrassment; anyone remember a variegated weigela released that refused to stay variegated? Once the shrub rooted in, all the branches it produced were plain green. The plain branches were much more vigorous than the variegated so one had to continually prune out the unwanted branches. This left a puny shrub that usually died.
We get new plants from breeding and crossbreeding. This is taking the pollen of one plant and applying it to the stamen of another, creating a hybrid. In the modern age this can also mean taking genes from one plant and inserting them in another. The point is to get the best qualities of both plants. This can be a long process; one must allow the offspring to develop, test them to see that they have the desired qualities and test again to see if the seed the offspring develops stays true. The processes began to be understood in the 1800’s, when Gregor Mendel starting working with peas.
Breeding plants can be very profitable. These plants can be patented and the breeder receives a royalty each time one is sold. It is a meticulous, painstaking process. There is always a goal: bigger blooms, better disease resistance, better leaf colour. All the crosses, all the parents, must be recorded and the outcome recorded. The new plants must be grown and observed. If the outcome is not achieved, the breeder must continue with more cross pollination, adding a different parent. And so on, until the goal is achieved.
Have you ever saved seed from your garden, planted it and got something totally unexpected? You might have bred a new variety and you could make a bunch of money!
I know we’re just enjoying this year’s bounty and beauty. Are you thinking about next year? Are you planning on saving any seeds? Patience is key in saving healthy seed. You may have a lovely little seed head now but is it mature and viable?
Consider that a seed is like an egg in a bird’s nest. The seed coat is the shell, inside is endosperm which is like yolk and there is an embryo or little spark of life. The egg, when laid by momma bird, does not have a baby bird…yet. The mother must sit on the egg to keep is warm for the embryo to develop.
So it is with plants. The seeds need to be attached to the mother plant for a little while to develop properly. Now it is a bit of a fine balance: critters and birds want to eat the seeds, wind wants to blow them to a new home. It is the yellow, soft cucumber that will have viable seed, not necessarily the small one you choose for eating.
How can you tell? With peas, beans and flowers like milkweed the pod becomes brown and brittle. The ornamental grass pictured, purple fountain grass (Pennisetum) will get very beige and fluffy, then the small seeds will pull off quite easily. Most flowers develop a bulge right under where the flower petals were which will dry and eventually split, revealing the seed. Sunflowers hold their seeds in the centre head.
If you are anxious to save a certain seed perhaps protect it by wrapping the developing head or pod with something breathable: paper, muslin or horticultural fleece will work well. Staple or tie it around the seed head to secure. Do no use plastic wrap or bags; moisture can be trapped leading to mold or the sun on the bag can super heat the contents essentially frying what’s inside. Cut the stem and bring the seed inside once you think it’s mature.
We have to have a word here about what’s worth saving. Some seed will not be what you thought you were saving or the seed may be sterile. Seed must be pollinated to become viable. Yeah for the pollinators, we really need them! Plants can only be pollinated by those in their genus and often species; apple (Malus) cannot by pollinated by cherries (Prunus) even though they are both in the rose family. Squash are notorious for allowing pollination from their close cousins, so zucchini (Cucurbita pepo) can be pollinated by pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo) but not by butternut squash (Cucurbita moschata). The seeds you planted should only produce zucchini but the seeds you save could produce some odd cross-pollinated squash. If it’s tasty you can trademark it, name it and make a million dollars.
Some of your well loved plants are hybrids or F1 hybrids, meaning they are like the offspring of zucchini and pumpkin crosses. They can produce wonderful new additions to our gardens but they may not be what you want when you save their seed. Many of the modern petunias, for example, are hybrids; the seeds are either sterile or produce something you do not expect. If you’re really in love with one of those plants it is better to take cuttings (clones) soon and keep the plant like a houseplant through the winter.
Seed suppliers protect their stock by growing related plants far apart: separate fields or separate greenhouses. They may do fertilization by hand, then cover the flower or developing seed head to prevent other pollen from entering. As a homeowner with a small garden it’s impossible to segregate plants, even if you have some in the front yard and some in the backyard the pollinators can fly that far.
How’s your garlic crop? Looking good? Leaves dying back? It’s time to harvest. For us in Zone 3 harvest is usually early to mid-August. Digging the bulbs is the hard work, but the work isn’t finished once you have everything out of the ground. If you want to enjoy your homegrown garlic all winter, you’ve got to cure it.
Testing a few heads is always a good idea. Bulbs should be firm, garlic cloves filling the papery covering. As with all things in the vegetable garden, sufficient water during growing will give you a bigger product. Always loosen the soil with a spade, fork or trowel; do not pull heads as you can damage the stem which allows rot and fungal infections in. Treat these bulbs like gold – which they are worth their weight in! Be very gentle, don’t hit them or ding them!
Do not, do not, do not, may I repeat: Do Not hose them down or rinse them off! Getting water on the bulbs invites rot: moisture can get into the root crown, under the papery cover of the cloves or into the stem. Do leave them dirty and leave them to air dry. They do not need to be in sun which can dehydrate the bulbs. Find a dim, cool area with good air circulation. If you don’t believe the air circulation is good put a fan on the area.
I’ve always cured garlic and onions by simply laying them out on a table, often in the garage. I turn them regularly because rot will start where the bulb is in constant contact with the table. This is true of winter squash, potatoes and root vegetables. You can hang the produce or lay it on mesh screens, lessening the chances of contact rot. The curing process can take up to two weeks, if your weather is humid. The dirt should fall off or brush off easily. It’s when the curing is finished that I trim the roots and stems.
Keep any produce that is dinged, stabbed or bruised for immediate eating, they will not store well. Cured garlic can last in a cool, dark space for months; the temperature, ideally, is around 12o C or 55o F. Warmer temperatures will cause them to desiccate or sprout to soon.
Here on the Prairies we typically grow a hardneck garlic, which is a little tougher than soft neck garlics. This includes varieties such as Music, Purple Stripe, Porcelain and Rocambole. Hardneck garlics give us the delightful scapes in late spring, softnecks do not. Softneck garlics can be braided, hardnecks can not. Colder climates can grow softneck garlics such as Artichoke or Silverskin but plant a little deeper, mulch well and delay removing the mulch in Spring for as long as possible. I find the hardneck garlics more flavorful; I only tried to grow the softnecks and elephant garlic a couple of seasons before deciding to dedicate the space to hardneck varieties.
Fresh, locally grown garlic is fantastic! If you’ve never used fresh garlic for roasting whole heads you are missing out. If you didn’t grow any this year do search it out at your local farmers’ market.
‘Promise of Peace’ Sculpture Photo: PeaceSignsPruners
I love visiting gardens, private and public. When we’re travelling it’s one of the first entertainments that I search out at our destination. Imagine my surprise when I realized I’ve never visited the closest botanical garden, just an hour away. My excuse is that summer is busy time for us in horticulture!
Holiday Monday (in Canada) we visited the International Peace Garden, located on the Canadian/US border. The garden will be 100 years old in 2032, and they are already planning the celebration. Plans started for the garden in 1928, with a vision of a garden between two great countries that celebrated Peace. We’re all about that here at ‘Peace Signs & Pruners’! Groundbreaking occurred in 1932 with more than 50,000 people in attendance from both sides of the border. The historical photos displayed are quite something.
The visit was highly enjoyable. We first toured, by car, the North Drive. It’s mostly a natural, wild area, with some excellent picnic areas, hiking trails, camping and a kayak entry. There is some interesting information on a dam project with Ducks Unlimited. There are some beautiful vistas to Lake Stormon from all around the drive. Lots of birds and insects flitting about.
View of the Sunken Garden from the top. Photo: PeaceSignsPruners
We drove around to park and enter the more formal gardens. The Sunken Garden, with fountains and pools, was a delight to the eye. There are some fantastic bedding schemes of annual plants, as well as more permanent beds of trees, shrubs and perennials. There are many levels and views to enjoy. There is a pollinator garden, a kitchen garden, a play park for kids and so much more.
We worked our way over to the Conservatory & Interpretive Centre. An display of succulents and cacti in a desert biome was incredible! Having worked in retail greenhouses for years, I’ve seen a lot of succulents and cacti sold as houseplants. So many in the collection I’ve not seen. I’ve been to the Phoenix Botanical Garden and the collection here rivals that. The cafe and gift shop are very nice.
In the Conservatory Photo: PeaceSignsPruners
All in all a great afternoon. There’s a few problems I noticed. The annual plantings have not filled in very well, a product of our cool July, I believe. Most of the permanent beds in high profile areas were rather weedy. The gardens were busy, probably with the Canadian holiday, and staff were line-trimming in busy areas, like the gate to the Conservatory, leaving slippery clippings. As well, hoses were out, not being used, across pathways such as the kitchen garden and pollinator garden. Just not a great, safe environment. We are, admittedly, very conscious of safety and tripping hazards.
The International Peace Garden is open year round, with skiing and snowshoeing trails. The Conservatory would be a delight in winter. Have you visited botanical gardens in your area?
Peace Signs and Pruners 