Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-10-18, 08:55:30

Hits & Misses: Mighty mites & too much of a good thing
Question of the Week: Are these insect eggs?
The Business: Greenhouse trade show in Amsterdam

Spoiler Warning: Do not read this intro if you intend on seeing the movie Into The Wild.

OK, obviously if you’re reading this intro, you either don’t intend on seeing the movie, or you’re the kind of person who flips to the last page of a novel before you begin page one. Either way, here’s my story. On the weekend, I hit the Garneau theatre to watch the “true” story of Christopher McCandless, an intelligent but disenfranchised 23 year old who sheds his worldly possessions and heads to wild Alaska to live off the land. Along the way, he endures many a hardship, including the loss of his car in a biblical flood. But as skilled as he was at water survival, he wasn’t so great at plant identification. Case in point when he ate a plant that turned out to be Hedysarum alpinum. Well, you can imagine his horror upon reading the passage in his plant identification book that states that he will likely die from eating the plant unless he seeks medical attention immediately. Since medical attention is tough to come by in the middle of nowhere, our protagonist meets his demise.

Sorry, Hollywood. I’m not buying the ‘poisonous plant equals insidious death’ story. I will, however, fall for the ‘City kid with no outdoor survival skills moves to harsh wilderness of Alaska and starves to death’ scenario as the cause of his unfortunate demise. I guess poisoning just makes for a better Hollywood script.

Hedysarum alpinum captures a staring role in the movie Into The Wild.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Mighty Mites
We have been receiving regular shipments of a predatory mite called Phytoseiulus persimilis. No, this wasn’t an impulse buy gone terribly wrong. The mites serve the very important purpose of bullying (and by bullying, I mean eating) some plant-destroying, two-spotted spider mites that have been problematic on the annual grasses. P. persimilis has a pretty voracious appetite and loves nothing better than to zip across plant leaves, grasp onto spider mites and suck out their bodily juices. Hey, no one said the greenhouse is always pretty.

Miss: Too Much of a Good Thing
Sometimes, misses are in the eye of the beholder. I had a customer who was upset because his vegetables were just too darn big this year. His corn, tomatoes and potatoes were all gargantuan, and both he and his wife were worried that their aging bodies couldn’t endure a bumper crop of large vegetables. In fact, the husband went as far as to send us a soil sample to see if we could recommend something to stunt them! Now, 99% of the gardeners I know would not complain about vegetable vigour, but for those who do, try ‘mini’ vegetables (vegetables that are bred to remain dwarf even at maturity). Sometimes big problems require small solutions.

Try vegetable varieties like ‘Goldrush’ zucchini if you’re not interested in growing large vegetables.

Question of the Week
Are these insect eggs?
Last week, a customer brought in a sample of her lawn grass, a photo of her lawn and a small cup with some “insect eggs.” She felt quite certain that these eggs were giving rise to some horrible caterpillar that chews grass. Well…not exactly. The “eggs” turned out to be nothing more than empty shells of slow-release fertilizer. The way that many slow release fertilizers enrich soil is by ‘oozing’ nutrients out of semi-permeable resin-coated pellets or prills at a rate that is dictated by the type of prill coating, moisture and temperature. The last part of the prill to biodegrade is the resin coating. Now, it’s an easy enough error to make—insect eggs and fertilizer prills do look very similar—but the good news is that with a bit of extra water, the lawn will recover quite nicely.

Slow release fertilizer is a great way to supply nutrients to plants over a long period of time. Just don’t mistake the pellets (or prills) for insect eggs!

The Business
My brother Bill and his wife, Valerie, have just returned from a greenhouse trade show in Amsterdam. Robotics and computerization, not surprisingly, are playing a greater role each year. For example, they saw a robot that could pick up ivy plants, examine them and if needed, give them a bit of a haircut before sending them back into the greenhouse. Sounds very cool, but I think these robots are getting a little too bold. I’ll think that I’ll keep my baseball cap on the old cranium when I head over to the next Dutch greenhouse trade show.

Did You Know?
Plants, like people, toss about in their sleep. Time lapse photography shows a striking amount of leaf and stem movement with many species of plants. When we flail about, it’s called insomnia. With plants, it’s called nyctinasty.

“Grass is the cheapest plant to install and the most expensive to maintain.”
–Pat Howell

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-10-11, 07:24:36

Hits & Misses: Buying frenzy & Thanksgiving leftovers
Question of the Week: Do cacti survive outdoors in Canada?
The Business: Opening of the Edmonton Chinese Garden

I suppose it was inevitable. Take one nine-year-old daughter, blend with schoolmates who have dogs, sprinkle liberally with requests of “Pleeease, Daddy” and sooner than later, you’ll end up with a new puppy. So, yes, it’s official. This past week, my family and I became the proud owners of a Havanese pup. I have to admit that it’s pretty darn cute, but I hope I still think so next year when we have to rethink the backyard garden layout to make sure it can accommodate plants and a pup. It will be interesting to see what kind of “gardener” the dog becomes. I suspect, however, that even if she does destroy a few plants, she’ll manage to get away with it. After all, how could anyone get mad at a pup with a face like that. In case you’re wondering, her name is Ginger, but I’ve taken to calling her by her Latin plant genus name, Zingiber. I just hope I don’t end up having to rename her Digger.

Ginger (Zingiber) Hole.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Buying Frenzy
Bulb sales were crazy this fall, and I am not entirely sure why. It could be that people were afraid to be caught off guard by the snow this year, or perhaps bulb gardens are just trendy again. Whatever the reasons, if you want to jump on the bandwagon, you have only the slimmest amount of time to get those bulbs in the ground. They need time to root, and since our fall weather is so unpredictable, you just might run out of calendar days.

Miss: Thanksgiving Leftovers
I know it’s early to complain, but I’m already sick of our holiday leftovers—and I don’t mean turkey sandwiches. We have a bunch of large, indoor pot mums that look great but just didn’t sell as well as we expected. In this case, the reason for poor sales was quite simple: they just couldn’t compete with the massive floral display of our garden mums. Given the choice, most customers view bigger as better. Considering how many garden mums I took home this year, I can’t say I disagree.

Question of the Week
Do cacti survive outdoors in Canada?
Yes. In fact, several species are native to Canada. The brittle prickly pear cactus (Opuntia fragilis) grows on the prairies, in parts of Ontario and well up into the Peace River country of northern Alberta and northern BC. If you’re traveling through the southern prairies, keep an eye out for Coryphanta vivipara, the native pincushion cactus. In the summer, it has lovely rose-pink flowers.

Brittle prickly pear cacti (Opuntia fragilis) love hot days and cool nights.

The Business
Opening of the Edmonton Chinese Garden
On September 23rd, 2007, phase one of the Edmonton Chinese Garden officially opened at Louise McKinney Park. My mother was very happy to have contributed to the plants used in this wonderful garden and would have been thrilled to see its completion. Beautiful public spaces were one of her passions. Our family congratulates everyone involved in the planning and execution of the garden and wishes the Garden Society every success in construction of the next phases.

Did You Know?
In the old Roman calendars, October was the eighth month of the year and got its name from the word octo, meaning eight. The Saxons called it Wyn Monath because it was the season of wine making.

“Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.”
–Albert Camus

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-10-04, 07:07:44

Hits & Misses: Silver linings & architectural angst
Question of the Week: What is bulb dust, and how do I use it?
Science & Technology: Split personalities

Being that I’m president of the University of Alberta Alumni Association, I had the honour of being MC for several functions over the past weekend. It made for a hectic few days, but it was great to be speaking at two outstanding venues: the Winspear Centre and the Shaw Conference Centre. The acoustics were perfect, and the great staff at the alumni office had my speeches typed and ready for me—in fact, the only glitch during the entire weekend involved a wardrobe malfunction. I managed to get my suit, shirt and tie combination as close to the GQ ideal as humanly possible (as determined by my wife) but inadvertently left my only pair of black dress shoes at work, many light years away. So there I was, a half-hour before the first event was supposed to start, running in and out of stores trying to find a good pair of black dress shoes—a shopping excursion that quickly turned into a “JUST GIVE ME ANY SIZE THIRTEENS THAT YOU CAN FIND” shoe-buying debacle. Well, it took three shoe stores before I finally found a pair that could be shoe horned onto my feet—AND I still have a large open wound on my right heel that feels like it may require surgery to repair—but, damn, those shoes looked good.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Silver Linings
The pumpkins are here! That might not seem like a big deal, but I assure you it felt like one when we phoned the Medicine Hat farmer who we usually buy our pumpkins from, and he told us he’d been completely hailed out. Fortunately (for us, that is), we were able to source out pumpkins from Gouw Farms, another excellent pumpkin grower from the same region. Gouw Farms sell a huge amount of onions at fresh markets, and several years ago when I served on the Alberta Fresh Vegetable Marketing Board with Casey Gouw, I had the pleasure of touring the farm’s massive onion storage facilities. For some strange reason, it brought me to tears…I guess I’m just a sensitive guy.

The pumpkin patch is under construction this week, but some of the staff have spent a few days decorating in advance.

Miss: Architectural Angst
During one of the events at the University of Alberta’s reunion weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to chat with Mr. Roman Fodchuk, a landscape architect who’s studied both here and in the U.S. and has designed many parks and interiorscapes right across Canada. While we were chatting, he told me an amusing story about a “miss” he had with some huge fig trees that were grown in California for one of the health science buildings at the U of A. Apparently, despite his warnings to the construction company, all of the walls and doors were finished before the gigantic fig trees arrived. A few red faces and sledge hammers later, a wall was demolished and the figs were craned into place.

Question of the Week
What is bulb dust, and how do I use it?
Bulb dust is a product that contains a fungicide and an insecticide, plus some inert material such as lime to “carry” the chemicals. These chemicals keep bulbs from rotting in the ground by protecting them from many soil-borne diseases and insects. Apply bulb dust by placing the bulbs in a bag, adding a bit of dust and giving the bag a shake to coat the bulbs evenly. This Shake’n Bake method is very fast and effective but has the potential to get a little messy, so do it outside, in the garden.

Alliums are great bulbs to plant in the fall. For best results, choose a sunny location with well-drained, sandy soil. Hardy Zones 3–10.

Science & Technology
Split Personalities
Sometimes we get some truly strange-looking plants at the greenhouse. Take the case of a garden mum of ours that looks as if one of its flowers was created by sewing two varieties together, in a Frankenstein-like manner. This bizarre flower is what’s scientifically referred to as a sectorial chimera: sectorial, meaning that only one section of the flower or plant has mutated cells that produce the genetic aberration; and chimera, meaning an ancient mythical beast that’s half lion and half goat. It’s a very impressive mutation but one that’s highly unstable. So if you find one of these bizarre beauties in your garden, enjoy it…but don’t expect to make a million dollars reproducing it.

Did You Know?
In early colonial times, pumpkins were used as an ingredient for the crust of pies, not the filling. Pumpkins were also once recommended for removing freckles and curing snakebites…hmm…stick with pie making, please.

Quote
“Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.”
–Chinese Proverb

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-09-27, 08:32:08

I saw the movie Stardust last week. It starred Michelle Pfeiffer as an evil witch who apparently (and I say “apparently” because I dozed off briefly during the beginning of the movie) was determined to capture eternal youth by ripping out the heart of a star, played by the beautiful Clare Danes. Yes, I know, this movie sounds like it could have been a Hollywood documentary but, in fact, it was a fantasy film. What I found particularly interesting about the charming plot wasn’t so much the prospect of Clare being challenged in a cardiovascular sense, rather it was that the hero, played by Charlie Cox, was protected from the powerful witch by a tiny glass flower called snowdrops (Galanthus), an early spring bloomer that is a common fall-planted bulb. Now I’m not suggesting that if you come out and buy snowdrops from us this fall that they will protect you from evil witches at Halloween, but really, can you afford to take the risk?

Hits & Misses
Hit: Simple Pleasures
We had to pause a moment in Coldframe 8 this week to embrace and imbue the scent of the trial garden mums. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day care of greenhouse plants and forget to stop and smell the mums, so to speak…thousands of mums, some with at least 500 fragrant and richly coloured flowers that just seem to burst out of the pots…life just doesn’t get better than that.

Miss: Unreasonable Request
African Violets are an odd mix of tough and temperamental. They can dry down to a point where you wouldn’t think they could possibly recover, and then they just seem to pop back to life once the watering resumes (but don’t try this at home!). On the other hand, African violets are also one of the few plants that suffer irreparable damage to their foliage if droplets of chilled water (5C) sit on their foliage for any length of time—a problem that one of our growers is having to deal with. It seems one particularly finicky variety of African violets has taken a liking to having its water gently warmed for it…shaken, not stirred. It’s a request that’s proven to be a bit grating.

Question of the Week
Dad, are these bugs rare?
My daughter managed to find some really cool bugs in the garden the other night and was asking me if they were rare. Unfortunately, the cool gray-and-black coloured “bugs” she found were far from that—they were female inchworm moths. These wingless moths emerge from cocoons in the ground and then climb up trees to deposit bands of eggs. The following spring, loads of “icky green worms” emerge from the trees, chew the heck out of the leaves and dangle menacingly from threads when disturbed…can’t wait for spring now, can you?

The Business
Official Launch
On September 28th, my family and I have the pleasure of attending the launch of the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library. It’s an initiative that supports Mom’s vision of providing greater learning opportunities for all Albertans. We are very honoured by the dedication.

Trend Spotting

Gardeners are demanding great colour and interest from their gardens all year long, which is why Bailey Compact maples are more popular than ever. Brilliant-red fall colour; terrific for small yards; Height: 2–3 m.

Did You Know?
Sinistral gardeners are also known as left-handed gardeners.

“When the world wearies, and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden.”
–Author Unknown

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-09-13, 09:37:09

Hits & Misses: Plum luck & second thoughts
Question of the Week: What’s the best way to store my carrots?
The Business: Millennium Seed Bank Project

I was out in Vancouver for a few days last week and took a hike up to the top of Grouse Mountain with a couple of friends of mine. If you have never hiked ‘The Grouse Grind,’ as it is called, I would recommend that you give it a try. It is very popular, and the trail can get quite busy, but the view of the city from atop the tram is well worth it.
Once I reached the summit, I couldn’t help but notice the ‘ornamental’ flowerbed that welcomed hikers to the tram. The mass of plants featured in the bed was Tanacetum vulgare, commonly called tansy, which is weed here in Alberta. Tansy produces many tightly packed, yellow, disk-like flowers on fern-like leaves. It’s quite an attractive flower and is tough as nails, but I found it rather amusing that in Vancouver, which really is the gardening mecca of Canada, tansy would be a featured ornamental plant…but then again, what makes a weed a weed?

Hits & Misses
Hit: Plum Luck
Every last one of the ‘Tecumseh’ plums have mysteriously disappeared from my sister-in-law’s orchard. The orchard just happens to be close to the route I take to my car after work, and for some strange reason, I was under suspicion for absconding with the entire Tecumseh harvest. After I assured her that I hadn’t taken any plums (well…no plums from that particular tree), we concluded that birds must be the culprits. The Tecumseh yields nice, sweet, small fruit—fruit small enough to fit nicely into the beaks of medium sized birds….honestly, it does.

‘Tecumseh’ plums

Miss: Second Thoughts
I love to grow ‘Black Pearl’ ornamental peppers in a pot. This year at my house, we put 3 peppers into a large container and surrounded them with white ageratum, but in retrospect, we need not have bothered. The peppers look better entirely on their own. With their rich, purple foliage and black fruit that turns burgundy by late summer, they don’t require any other plants for supporting roles. But one bit of advice: don’t eat the fruit. I tried one and it was horrible. Gee…I guess that is why the label says ORNAMENTAL pepper.

The Business
Millennium Seed Bank Project
Bob Stadnyk, our perennials manager, just finished his annual trek through the Alberta Rockies, looking to collect seed from rare plants for the Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP). The MSBP has a worldwide network for the conservation of seed from wild plant species, and it works together with other seed banks to provide a repository for effective, low-cost insurance against the loss of species from their natural environments. Bob said that, near Banff, he found three spectacular species of cotton grass (Eriophorum spp.) and an iris species, which is very rare in the Rockies. It just goes to show that one doesn’t necessarily need to travel to exotic locations to find the unexpected.

Question of the Week
What’s the best way to store my carrots?
The key to storing carrots is to keep them clean, cold and moist. Carrots with soil still on them often harbour disease organisms that get a free ride to the storage area, so give your carrots a thorough washing. As for where to store them, the crisper in the refrigerator is an obvious choice. For best results, keep the temperature close to 0°C degree and humidity close to 95 percent.

To shorten the amount of time you have store your carrots, leave them in the garden for as long as possible.

Did You Know?
The hairs on stinging nettle weeds are hollow and act like hypodermic needles that deliver enough formic acid to causes blisters on bare and unsuspecting shins.

“The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.”
-Author Unknown

Upcoming
Jim’s Notebook is on hiatus next week as our publishing staff attends the Book Publishers Association of Alberta annual conference. The Notebook will resume September 27th, 2007.

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-08-30, 09:21:08

Hits & Misses: Fragrance on wheels & double-talk
Question of the Week: What can I do about the wasps in my yard?
The Business: Independent thinking

Each year in late August, my family and I spend a few days in Jasper National Park. And each year that I visit, I make a point of hiking from the base of Whistler Mountain to its summit. The hike always offers some spectacular scenery and provides a great opportunity to enjoy the vast array of alpine plants. This year, however, I noticed a substantial change in the alpine flora above the treeline: there were more flowering plants than I’ve seen in the past 20 years. Maybe it was the extra winter moisture and warmer than normal July weather (perhaps the result of global warming) that contributed to this year’s spectacular floral show, but the mass of blooms was so distractingly beautiful that it even made me forget about the burning pain in my quads…well, almost.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Fragrance on Wheels
Stephanotis is one crop that we, literally, have no problem moving. That’s because, in our greenhouse, this wonderfully fragrant plant grows in a little something we call a stephanotis go-cart (a trough and trellis on wheels, to the uninspired eye). Why do we grow it this way? Well, the reason is twofold: the go-cart allows us to pamper this delicate beauty by moving it from one microclimate to another in the greenhouse, and it makes it easy to shove it aside when other high-demanding plants bully it out of the way.

Stephanotis is also commonly known as Madagascar Jasmine.

Miss: Double-talk
I was leafing through a large U.S. gardening book on perennials, and lo and behold, I came across a grass called Hordeum jubatum that was described as having beautiful, tiny, silky-bristled spikelets, borne on arching spikes. Oh, really? On the prairies, we call those “beautiful, arching spikelets” foxtails, and farmers spend a lot of money trying to eradicate them from their grain fields. Don’t get me wrong; I love annual and perennial grasses, but when I think of gardeners planting foxtail, it makes the tiny, not-so-silky bristled spikelets stand up on the back of my neck. Hmmm…where’s that old herbicide book of mine again?

Question of the Week
Wasps are swarming all the trees in my yard. What can I do?
I was asked this question a lot this week, and my answer was always the same: Don’t do anything! As intimidating as those wasps may seem, the truth is they’re just not that into you. But don’t be too insulted—it’s hard to compete with a tasty caterpillar or a hamburger grilling on the barbeque. The garden-variety wasp really is a beneficial insect because it eats bugs that attack our garden plants. However, if you are one of those people who must carry an EpiPen around during the summer, beneficial is probably not a word you’d ever associate with wasps. So if they are a problem (as in, harming you), then try some wasp traps. They can be quit effective for luring wasps to their death, if, of course, you don’t have a lot of barbequed burgers distracting them.

The Business
Independent Thinking
My brother, Bill, and my sister-in-law, Valerie, just returned from an independent garden centre show in Chicago, and both have commented on how product lines are changing in an attempt to appeal to a new generation of gardeners who don’t just want to tend to their gardens—they want to enjoy them. Now, wanting to make something an enjoyable experience isn’t radical idea, but, traditionally, gardening’s been revered as a labour of love—heavy on the labour. Well, that all seems to be changing. Gardening is becoming more about enjoyment and about focusing on what you want to have rather than what you thought you were supposed to have. It will be interesting to see who this new generation of gardeners is and how their consumer needs will change the industry. Stay tuned!

Trend Spotting

These days, the typical houseplant isn’t so typical. This pineapple plant is the perfect example of what today’s consumers want: houseplants that make a statement and reflect the signature style and interests of their keepers.

Did You Know?
‘Montmorency’ cherries account for about 95% of the cherries used in the pie-making industry. But because the flesh of a Montmorency cherry is yellow, dyes (like beet juice) are added to give the pie filling its ‘true’ cherry-red colour.

“You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt.”
–Author Unknown

New!
To help you source out great information quickly, we’ve made our What Grows Here? index available online. Search for keywords, and find out what books you need to help answer all your gardening questions.

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-08-23, 09:12:11

Hits & Misses: Purple Emperor & word of mouth
Question of the Week: What plants won’t die in my basement suite?
The Business: Peaches and Creamed

When I look at the latest arrival of pitcher plants at our greenhouse, I can think of only one thing: that they must be from another planet—perhaps even the same one that gave rise to the alien plants that nearly lured Captain Kirk to his demise (a rare switch from the plethora of shapely femme fatale aliens that also seemed on the verge of destroying good old James T.) I mean, just look at it! How could a plant this strange have evolved on earth? It has saxophone-shaped pitchers that hang from impossibly skinny strings, and it eats bugs that are too stupid to resist crawling inside those pitchers to eat the sweet edibles that they think reside there. Apparently, these strange plants are irresistible to Star Trek-loving greenhouse owners, too, because you can bet I plan on placing one in the hallway of my home. Of course, I also plan on locking my bedroom door at night and leaving at least one light on.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Purple Emperor
This is the time of the year when sedums really start coming into their own. I happen to like them all year, but late August is when they start flowering heavily, which makes their succulent foliage look even more beautiful. One variety I’ve grown in my yard this year and am very pleased with is called ‘Purple Emperor.’ In the greenhouse, its foliage has a rather light tinge of red, but once it’s placed outside in the full sun, its leaves transform to a rich, deep-purple colour. The flowers seem to transition in colour too, shifting from an off-white to a purple. They’re just great plants—perfect for adding colour and interest to the garden in the fall and for being wonderfully drought tolerant in the summer.

Miss: Word of Mouth
The ‘Cherry Tomato Berry’ cultivar of cherry tomatoes we trialed this year were…how can I say this diplomatically…ah yes, terrible! They yielded poorly and the small fruit resembled what bell peppers would look like if reduced to the size of almonds. Add flavourless, mealy fruit to that list of undesirable qualities and a failure to pass our real-world tomato test (a.k.a. noting which tomatoes our staff members ate while they watered the trials), and you have a bona fide loser. I can’t say for sure that it’s a unanimous opinion, but judging by word of mouth and the mass of fruit still hanging on these plants, I’d guess I was the second and last taster.

Green tomatoes ripen better in the dark than in the light, so the common practice of lining your windowsill with unripe tomatoes is not the best thing to do.

Question of the Week
A friend has asked me to “adopt” a few of his plants while he’s away traveling for the next six months. What won’t die in my basement suite?
Basement suites generally rely on light from small windows. Unfortunately, shrubs are often planted close to these windows, which reduces your already limited source of light. So, when it’s time for your friend to start divvying up his plants, offer to take only those that that will tolerate low light—as in, don’t take his prized orchids! Instead, stick to peace lilies, spider plants and Chinese evergreens. Keep in mind that fluorescents provide a source of energy that plants can use, so if you have fluorescent lighting, think about positioning your plants on the tops of bookcases or other tall furniture. This will keep them close to the light source and allow them to maximize the energy. The actual transporting of the plants is a whole other beast. Not a lot fits in the back of a vehicle, so plan ahead and figure out what you can accommodate. And unless you’re fond of back pain, don’t water large plants on the day they need to be moved.

Although peace lilies will tolerate growing almost anywhere in the house, they prefer bright indirect light.

The Business
Peaches and Creamed
The PMRA (Pest Management Regulatory Agency) has approved the sale of a corncob extract to control rats and mice. Apparently, when the rats and mice ingest the cellulose extract from the corncobs, it interferes with their digestive systems. If enough of the cellulose is ingested, the rodents dehydrate and die. Hmm…think about that when you’re sitting down to your family corn roast this weekend.

Trend Spotting
Containers are making a big statement this year. These pots, imported from Italy, not only look great but will also light up your yard and create the perfect atmosphere for evening entertaining.

Did You Know?
Mountain ash aren’t members of the ash tree family and are more closely related to roses.

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”
–Walt Whitman

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-08-15, 11:34:31

Jim’s Notebook August 16, 2007

Hits & Misses: Verbena worth waiting for & mix by numbers
Question of the Week: Why are my sweet peas so spindly and pathetic looking?
The Business: Red Rover, Red Rover

I saw some gorgeous monkshoods in quite a few front yards this past weekend. For those unfamiliar with monkshood, it is a beautiful, tall, vigorous perennial that happens to have the unfortunate drawback of being highly poisonous if ingested. Not surprisingly, it’s that last detail that makes monkshood a somewhat controversial plant—controversial in the sense that some people question whether it should be sold at all. Well, here’s my take on it. I have yet to hear of a single customer of ours who’s had a close call with monkshood. And if you check out the poison control centres statistics in the U.S., you will learn that unintentional poisonings from plants that result in death or severe injury are extremely rare. In fact, according to the same source, accidental poisonings that occur from the ingestion of cosmetics are far more common. My point is that eating anything that’s not meant to be consumed can have dangerous consequences. So…when cosmetics are banned from sale, I’ll be happy to pull monkshood from the shelves.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Verbena Worth Waiting for
I am really impressed with a trial verbena we’re growing in front of our office building. It’s tall and has a light, feathery appearance, accented by clusters of light-blue flowers set on long stocks. The open form of this verbena makes it less suitable as a feature plant, but I think it would look spectacular as an informal, annual hedge. Besides looking great, it has done a great job of standing up to the heat and has yet to suffer from any insect or disease problems. And even though you’re probably getting tired of hearing this next statement from me, here it is one more time: I’d love to tell you the name of this verbena, but its identity has to be kept secret until the trials are complete. Sorry.

Miss: Mix by Numbers
When I checked on our latest rounds of gerbera daisies, I noticed that a few were looking rather poor. The leaves had a lot of dead patches on them, and I could tell immediately that the culprit was neither a disease nor an insect. The problem was a micronutrient overdose. At that point, it was still an educated guess, but the symptoms matched up with micronutrient toxicity problems I’ve seen on my geraniums from time to time. A week or so after sending a batch of damaged leaves into the lab, my suspicions were confirmed. Normal upper levels of manganese and iron in gerbera leaves should run about 200 parts per million (ppm). Our leaves had 550 ppm of manganese and 1560 ppm of iron—enough to give the plants a bit of metal poisoning. What I suspect happened is that we may have inadvertently added more micronutrients to the soil mixer than we intended to. It’s kind of like when the phone rings while you’re baking…now did I add 1 teaspoon of salt, or was that two?

Question of the Week
Why are my sweet peas so spindly and pathetic looking?
There’s a lot of spindly and pathetic growth going on in the sweet pea patch this year, and it has everything to do with the weather. Sweet peas (and all peas, for that matter) hate the heat. They do like full sun, but growing and producing blooms when it’s excessively hot outside is definitely not their thing. Because controlling the weather isn’t an option, here’s what you can do: sow the seeds outdoors in rich, loamy soil as soon as the ground is workable, water plants heavily and frequently, and start picking bouquets as soon as the flowers start producing. Picking blooms frequently and removing spent flowers before the seeds begin to form will encourage your sweet peas to bloom longer. Keeping your fingers crossed for a cool season won’t hurt, either.

The Business
Red Rover, Red Rover…
It’s that time of the year again when we shut down our bedding plants area and move our perennials and pansies over to the sales area on the other side of the greenhouse. But don’t think that because summer’s coming to an end that the growing season is, too. In fact, if the summer’s gotten away from you and you haven’t had a chance to enjoy a garden yet, it’s not too late! Our always-spectacular pots of fall mums will soon be overflowing with the warm, sumptuous colours of autumn. Beautiful and frost tolerant—the perfect plants to carry you into the last days of fall.

Trend Spotting
Hydrangeas are more popular than ever! This variety, ‘White Moth,’ has extremely showy, creamy-white blooms in late summer. For best form and blooms, plant in a spot that receives dappled light during the hottest part of the day, and prune to two buds per stem. A good choice for the prairies.

Did You Know?
Birch trees can be tapped in the spring for syrup.

“The best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.”
–Author Unknown

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-08-09, 11:20:21

Jim’s Notebook August 9, 2007

Hits & Misses: Mum’s the word & lights, camera, action!
Question of the Week: What’s wrong with my peppers?
The Business: Survey said!

We humans love nature, but we also like it fairly sanitized. Take, for instance, the other day when I received a sample of an orange-flowered aster that appeared to have brightly coloured caterpillar “eggs” nestled in the petals. Now, I understand that we are all taught to romanticize the lifecycle of a caterpillar and its metamorphosis into a butterfly, but an important fact not to lose sight of is that caterpillars don’t lay eggs; they emerge from them. Only adult moths and butterflies are capable of laying eggs. Now, that’s not a huge piece of mind-blowing information, but you can imagine the surprised look on that gardener’s face when we told him that the beautifully coloured “eggs” on his flowers were in fact—wait for it!—caterpillar feces; poop, if you prefer. The reason the feces was multi-coloured was due simply to the caterpillars feeding on the highly pigmented petals. Just think back to the first time you ate a large plate full of pickled beets…enough said.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Mum’s the Word
I never get tired of garden mums. There’s just something about their perfectly formed tops that appeal to my desire for structure in life, and this year’s crop is delivering just that. Mum breeders have done a wonderful job of developing varieties that grow rapidly into a nearly perfect, hemispherical shape before abruptly stopping their vegetative growth and budding out into a mass of colourful blooms. Beautiful and tough—garden mums are the perfect plants to replace some of the annuals that look a little tired by late August.

Garden mums come in a wide range of colours and forms—the perfect fall flower.

Miss: Lights! Camera! Action!
I was reading in the paper that Saskatchewan farmers are involved in a heated battle with the Richardson’s ground squirrel (a.k.a. the gopher), and it reminded me of a miss from many years ago. I was chairing the Alberta Fresh Vegetable Marketing Board, and at that time, we decided to produce a video to promote Alberta vegetables. Well, the video company thought that using time-lapse photography to document a cabbage plant from emergence to harvest would make for some wonderful footage. So…the camera was set up, and shots of the cabbage plant were taken hourly. When all was said and done, the video company showed us the video (rather sheepishly, as I remember), and we saw the miracle of a cabbage plant emerging and beginning to form a head. But then a rather strange thing happened. A flurry of brown ‘stuff’ entered the shot for about 2 seconds and when it disappeared, so did cabbage plant. A gopher, obviously liked the cabbage as much as the video company did and made a brief but destructive cameo appearance in the film. Rest assured; no animals were hurt or injured in the making of this film…but that’s only because the video crew couldn’t catch the little varmint.

Question of the Week
What’s wrong with my peppers?
We received a call from a customer who was mystified by a disease causing havoc with her peppers. Apparently, a papery skin had developed around each of her tiny, golf ball-sized peppers. At first, the description of the disease had me a little mystified, but then I realized that the customer didn’t have a diseased pepper—she had a tomatillo plant. Tomatillos are related to peppers but are a different species. As this customer discovered, all of the fruit on a tomatillo is produced within a puffy, brown skin that resembles a Chinese lantern. Interesting, easy to grow and great for adding flavour to salsas—not a bad combination.

Tomatillos are best harvested when husks turn pale yellow but can be used green.

The Business
Survey Said!
The Garden Writers Association Foundation (GWAF) released their 2007 Summer Gardening Trends Research Report and revealed some interesting insights on consumer attitudes and expectations for the current gardening season. In early spring, the GWAF asked consumers where they planned to buy most of their spring plants. More households indicated that they planned to shop at garden centres and local stores than at mass markets—that’s a significant shift in shopping patterns from prior years. When the GWAF followed up with June survey, asking consumers where they actually purchased most of their spring plants, consumers confirmed that garden centers and local gardening stores got the majority of their business.

The GWAF survey was conducted by TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence. For further information, contact the GWA at info@gardenwriters.org.

Trend Spotting

Barberries are enjoying a much-deserved resurgence (in popularity). Its deep-purple, velvety-looking foliage makes this shrub a perfect accent plant in the garden. Drought tolerant and beautiful!

Did You Know?
Corn smut (Ustilago maydis) is a disease that produces black, dusty-looking masses of spores in ears of corn. It’s considered a delicacy in Mexico and Central America.

“Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.”
–Marcelene Cox

Posted by admin to Jim's Notebook on 2007-08-02, 06:19:58

Jim’s Notebook is on hiatus this week but will return August 9. See you then!