Darkness Descends

The air stings and leaves turn dry and light as crumpled paper. The heady scents of full-blown blooms are now dumb with cold and the only life in the air is old mould. Winter is the now of our discontent.

I suppose it’s my job as a lifestyle-magazine editor to sing the glories and praises of winter—to be upbeat about everything for that matter—but gosh it’s hard. I grew up in Winnipeg, where winter meant short sharp days of blinding sun and snow and air that cut like a knife with every breath outside. As teenagers we didn’t wear boots in winter because nothing is warm at minus 30 degrees anyhow and there is certainly no danger of getting your feet wet; there is no damp at minus 30.

As a young adult I moved to Kingston where I learned the true meaning of “a damp cold”. At first I could not understand that there wasn’t snow everywhere, continually, from November to March. (Snow melts in winter? It can rain in winter? Not in Winnipeg.) I marvelled at weeks of days when the temperature would surface above freezing. But by the arrival of my first spring as an Ontarian I had realised the downside: four months of endless cloud and wet feet. Feet always wet because if your boots aren’t waterproof the wet gets in, and if your boots are waterproof the sweat can’t get out.

Now living in Toronto, it’s a little warmer but every bit as grey, almost as wet and twice as grimy.

I’ve learned a few local tricks for coping with winter. I can do the icy-day cha-cha from the parking lot to the office in my indoor shoes with some aplomb and I now start nagging my husband to shovel as soon as it starts to snow, before it partially melts and freezes into a solid platform for litigation. I know how far I have to go to get to a full-service gas station. I walk on the side of the street where cars are parked to minimize the risk of a drive-by soaking. Useful strategies but cold comfort.

Today is darkly cloudy and my psyche smarts from the jerk back to standard time. The chrysanthemums are still blooming, but I no longer believe them. Winter is coming soon and fast and hard, and with winter comes the cold, the wet, the dark and the dead.

So what I have to offer, in lieu of an upside, is an exhortation to acceptance and a stab at meaning.

Every thoughtful thing, from Chinese medicine to Newtonian physics to the writings of Northrop Frye, knows this much is true:

It goes both ways.

For every yin there is a yang, for every push there is a pull, and the outward gaze wants introspection for a fuller view. Opposites don’t attract; they are the halves of a whole. Hopeful spring, exuberant summer and fiery fall must have restful winter.

Well… (the crosspatch says) that’s four seasons and “opposites” implies two things, and besides it’s only in the temperate part of the world that we have such different seasons—

But I say hush. I’m looking for meaning, not facts.

Winter will come as it must. We shall survive as we must.

The plants and certain animals will have their rest. And we shall rest in our way (after Christmas—the ladies know what I mean), praising the slim light of day and embracing the comfort of dark evenings by the fire with seed catalogues and plans for gardens where the peonies don’t flop and our knees don’t ache from weeding.

"Living green" doesn't have to be mean

There’s a difference between being green and self flagellation. Or at least, there used to be.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a gardener. And that means you’re probably respectful of things that grow and sensitive to your own influence on growth, for better and for worse.

The vast majority of gardeners I meet tell me they garden organically and resort to chemicals only when absolutely necessary. We’re all thoughtful members of our communities, so we are aware of the rules surrounding garbage separation and follow them. We love the outdoors, so we walk rather than drive whenever it’s practical. That used to be enough to be considered green.

With the environment a top issue for most Ontarians now, all sorts of neurotics have glommed on to green issues. These individuals are inventing endless new sins which, as far as I can tell, are predicated on the idea that we humans were born evil and our very existence on earth should be endlessly punished. Apparently, if we all re-use our dirty towels several times before laundering and flush our toilets “selectively”, we may be stinkier but we’ll be just a little holier.

If you’re not “on” Facebook, the Internet social networking group, you’ve probably heard about it. One of the most popular Facebook applications is called “I am Green”; users select and post their “green leaves” to show what swell environmentalists they are. The green leaves are statements like:

1. “I recycle even when it’s not convenient.”
2. “Most of my batteries are rechargeable.”
3. “I do not own any personal watercraft, aircraft or a Hummer.”

The first two are pretty reasonable; it’s hard to dispute the validity that these minor efforts make a small but positive difference to the environment. For the third, many of us could continue in that vain and declare: “I don’t own or operate any smelting plants”; “I never have drained a lake for commercial profit”; “I have never caused a major spill of crude oil”; and so forth. Other people—perhaps very worthy and environmentally heroic people—might balk at the third, particularly if they live or cottage on an island.

Many Facebook greenies, however, would argue that environmentally responsible people live in urban areas—yes, seriously—because that way they can walk instead of drive. Curiously, they also want to eat local fresh produce; I’m not sure where it comes from, since you get extra points for: “I don't have a yard, or it has only local, low maintenance [sic] vegetation.” Low-maintenance? How does less work in the garden equal a better environment? Because gardening makes you breathe a little heavier and exhale more carbon dioxide?

I suspect the push for smaller gardens by these urban-dwellers—who are also vegans, wear second-hand clothing as a badge of honour and pledge to have no more than one child each—stems from a disdain for lawn grass.

Lawns, if you hadn’t heard, are evil. Forget the extreme usefulness of turf grass in designing an outdoor space that is peaceful, cool and useable. According to the greenies, lawns use up too much water, require chemical treatments and are a monoculture. Of course, many folks don’t put chemicals on their lawns or even water them. And as for the monoculture argument: if you aren’t chemically weeding your lawn it almost certainly contains a wide diversity of species, and besides, monoculture areas are quite common in nature. What’s more, as green plants, lawns process carbon dioxide and cool the air. They also absorb and filter rainwater. And they stand up to foot traffic better than any other plant you’d probably care to cultivate.

Nonetheless, somehow Kentucky bluegrass got voted Canada’s Worst Weed by CBC Radio One listeners. It was up against Canada thistle and leafy spurge, two weeds so invasive they threaten farmers’ livelihood. It made the list ahead of poison ivy and field bindweed, two weeds so invasive they threaten gardeners’ sanity. Perhaps the farmers and gardeners were busy farming and gardening, leaving the majority vote to the childless ideologues in their loft condos.

There’s more.

We’re not supposed to travel long distances anymore because flying makes too many greenhouse gasses. I always thought visiting other countries helped one develop a wider world view which might, I dunno, make us less likely go to war or something.

We’re not supposed to do laundry in hot water, even though it keeps whites white and kills bacteria. We’re not supposed to dry clothes in a dryer, even though line-dried linens are torture for sufferers of hay fever. We’re not supposed to purchase Mexican produce in the dead of winter even though Mexican labourers cannot survive if they cannot sell what they grow.

Maybe this isn’t what you’d expect from the editorial message at the front of our Living Green issue. But the truth is, I’m worried about the environment because of all the ridiculous chastisement. Environmentalism is a great thing, but it is starting to overshadow a lot of other great things. What we’re hearing from so many corners is that we should do things that range from the really uncomfortable to the implausible to the impossible.

Here’s what we need to do, as individuals, to live green, and it’s not new: we need to think about our actions and weigh our options for a reasonable outcome. We each need to trust our intelligence and not simply assume that if something is difficult to do it must be for the best, that suffering is noble, and that the product with the greenest label is superior.

We need a balanced approach to environmentalism to keep it sustainable. I hope you find a balanced approach in these pages.

Editorial from Ontario Gardener Living Harvest 2007.

Ontario Gardener Quiz #85

True or false?

1. The Latin name of a plant is important.

2. Carl von Linne developed the binomial system of plant names in 1753.

3. Alba, luteus, purpureus and rosea all refer to colours.

4. If you need small shrubs, look for plants with nana in the name.

5. If you prefer native species, favour the specific epithet canadensis.

6. Rubrum, coccineus and amur all refer to the colour red.

7. Rosa rugosa is so-named because it is hardy or rugged.

8. Plants with the specific epithet sylvestris were discovered by the Italian monk Sylvester.

9. A plant with officinalis in its name is the true species.

10. The specific epithet reptans means “creeping”, like a reptile.

Answers

1. Hmmm… I’m going to go with true. While the garden-variety gardener may be happy referring to that orange plant as a marigold, the horticultural community needs to be able to distinguish whether it is Calendula or Tagetes, two completely different plants commonly called marigold. Latin naming conventions have the advantages of crossing language barriers, and while it may seem like nobody can understand the names, in fact they are very descriptive, as much of this quiz will demonstrate.

2. True. The question isn’t meant as a history lesson but as an entry to say a little more about the binomial system. “Binomial” means “two-name”, and the two names are the Genus—which refers to the general kind of plant, like Rosa for rose, and is capitalized—and the specific (as in species) epithet (name), which is the specific type of plant, written all lower-case. The great thing about the specific epithet is that it is an adjective: it describes the plant, so sometimes you can get a good idea what a plant looks like just from hearing its Latin name. For example, Rosa grandiflora is a large-flowered rose. Sometimes, though, the specific epithet gives information about where a species is from or who discovered it; you can’t tell from the name Rosa chinensis what the size or colour of a Chinese rose is. Neither does the title Viburnum davidii tell you much about the form of that flowering shrub named in honour of French Jesuit and plant egghead Armand David.

3. True. Any flower with the name alba will be white, luteus will be yellow, purpureus will be purple and rosea will be pink.

4. True. Nana means dwarf; you don’t find nana as the specific epithet in modern cultivars very often, though; it is more common as part of the variety name and frequently seen with aurea, which means chartreuse. Two dwarf golden shrubs that have sold well in the last couple of years are the barberry Berberis thunbergii var. aurea nana and the false cypress Thuja orientalis var. aurea nana.

5. True. Canadensis means “of Canada”. Mind you, if you are particular about how native a plant is, the canadensis tag won’t tell you if a plant is from British Columbia, the prairies or Peterborough. But you can know that Aquilegia canadensis, for instance, is the pretty woodland columbine native to Canada.

6. False. Rubrum and coccineus both mean red, but amur refers to the Amur River in Asia. Of course, many plantsmen would guess that amur means red because of the Amur maple, which turns a wonderful fiery shade in autumn. Strangely enough, though, the botanical name for Amur maple is Acer ginnala, not Acer amur. Stranger still: I cannot find the meaning of the specific epithet ginnala anywhere.

7. False. Rugosa roses are generally hardier than hybrid teas, but rugosa means “wrinkled” and refers to the leaves.

8. False. The Latin sylvestris means “woodland”, as in Mentha sylvestris (wild mint).

9. False. It’s only in common parlance that plants need to be distinguished as “true” or “false”, as in a “true grass” (member of the Gramineae or Poaceae family, unlike, say, sedges) or “false sunflower”. Officinalis is used to distinguish a plant of use to humans; it is often the specific epithet for culinary herbs, as with Salvia officinalis (common sage) or medicinal herbs, as with Calendula officinalis (pot marigold). It isn’t always obvious why a species gets the epithet officinalis, as with the common peony Paeonia officinalis.

10. True. Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up!

8-10 correct: Suma cum laude!
5-7 correct: Cum laude.
Fewer than 5 correct: It’s all Greek to you, isn’t it?

The Japanese maple is dying

My Japanese maple is dying. It is the one thing in my garden I consider irreplaceable.

For one thing, I don’t know the name of the variety, so I actually cannot replace it. I recall that it was a Japanese name, possibly starting with shi-, but I haven’t been able to locate it online. It’s a magnificent tree, with spring leaves almost pink, turning to green for the summer then to orangey-red in the fall.
We put it in about five years ago, after removing the dilapidated old garage—a denizen den after hours—from our back yard and installing a proper fence and a little pergola. I went shopping at Weall and Cullen and found the tree and justified the huge price tag on the basis that my husband’s birthday wasn’t far off and he likes Japanese maples. I brought it home and put out my back planting it by myself. David liked it so much he didn’t even press me to reveal the price.

I suppose I can rationalize my connection to the tree by pointing out that it signifies a second phase of my garden. The first phase, with the garden built out of old cinder blocks and broken concrete, filled with plant cuttings from my mother’s Winnipeg garden, was lovely in its youthful exuberance: a riot of experiments in herbaceous colour, all backed by the appalling garage. This second phase is more educated, somewhat better planned. The Phase 1 garden was a laboratory; Phase 2 is a place to stop and breathe.

I’m not saying I got it all right the second time around. I hate the gangly four-in-one apple tree I planted at the same time as the Japanese maple. The patch of lawn next to the barbecue has long-since become a packed mud floor. The raised patio under the pergola is just a little too small for a dining table. Even the beloved Japanese maple would look better turned about 70 degrees; once I wrenched my back hefting it into the hole, no adjustments were in the offing.

But bringing the maple home was one thing I definitely did right. It is a thing of beauty all year ‘round. There may be weeds and frazzled blooms everywhere, but all eyes turn to that superb tree in all its pink, green or red glory.

And now it is in decline. I believe it is full of verticillium wilt, a soil-based fungal death knell for maple trees. Every few days, a branchlet of leaves curls up and dries out. I cut off the dead parts and clean my tools, offer more water and something of a prayer, but it is all too little too late. I should have kept it better watered last year and the year before; the best cure for verticillium is prevention through excellent cultural practices. The only thing my own cultural practices have prevented is a long life for my beloved tree. Japanese maples don’t appreciate tough love.

I tell David, “oh, it’s probably just getting scorched by the sun since we cut the ballerina rose back,” to give him hope while preparing him for the worst. The tree is dying. The tree will be dead soon.

I have children and a dog, so I cannot reasonably compare the decline to losing a child or even a pet—this death does not begin to hint at that level of pain. Yet my sense of hopelessness and loss is entirely real, and not quite like anything else I’ve felt before.

The mid-century American poet William Carlos Williams, who was also a doctor and a gardener, understood the human connection to plants. His poems, though very modern, are as filled with references and odes to specific flowers as anything by Wordsworth. He imagined and understood the character of different flowers and trees. My own current sadness reminds me of his poem “The Stolen Peonies” from the collection Pictures from Brueghel. It goes, in part, like this:

that year
we had the magnificent
stand of peonies

how happy we were
with them
but one night

they were stolen
we shared the
loss together thinking

of nothing else for
a whole day
nothing could have

brought us closer
we had been
married ten years

Now, this is a happy blog and it is summer; I cannot possibly end on a note of sadness, so I will end with hope and promise.This week I went to Vineland Nursery in Beamsville (Niagara) and brought back a trunk-load of exciting new things including a Taxodium, a Dr Seuss tree called Sciadopitys, a pagoda dogwood and a variegated dawn redwood. Yeah, a redwood. My little city lot is about to become an arboretum. Now that’s hopeful!

Published in Ontario Gardener Living vol. 8 no. 2
Copyright Pegasus Publications Inc, 2007