Jan10 City Gardening & News

 

January 2010

City Gardening by Wes Porter

Happy New Gardening Year!

BROWSING CANADIAN SEED CATALOGS

Joseph of Arimathea and the Glastonbury Thorn

Comping for Gardeners + Profiling Celebrity Gardeners

Garden News in Review

According to the late Ogden Nash, the best place to face the notorious New England winter was at the bottom of Florida. Alas, the Poetess of the Prairies, Sarah Binks, never had that option. On the family farm outside Willows, Saskatchewan, she penned:

A long, quiet winter with plenty of snow,

And plenty of barley; its eighty below;

Barley in the heater, salt pork in the pantry

How nice you never feel cold in this country.

Those who, like Sarah, must reject the temptations of tropic climes can find solace in many a garden catalogue. Whiling the winter away thus is a long-established occupation here in the Great White North. Unlike poor Sarah, theres now the better way to browse through Canadian seed catalogues a click of the mouse would have puzzled her. But if you are looking for the latest vegetables, flowers, herbs, and yes, even trees and shrubs, from fresh, generously filled seed packages at excellent prices you neednt shop abroad. Better yet, you will be assured that seeds proffered will grow here.

A modest list follows with companies listed alphabetically:

Aimers Seeds, www.aimers.on.ca

Angelgrove Tree Seed Company, http://trees-seeds.com

Blazing Star Wild Flower Seed Co. http://growwildflowers.com

Great Canadian Seed Co., www.greatcanadianseeds.com

Halifax Seed Co, www.halifaxseed.ca

Henry Fields Seed Co., www.henryfields.ca

Holes Greenhouses & Gardens Ltd, www.holesonline.com

Howard Dill Enterprises, www.howarddill.com

McFayden Seed Company, www.macfayden.com

McKenzie Seeds, www.mckenzieseeds.com

OSC Seeds, www.oscseeds.com

Richters Seeds www.richters.com

Saltspring Seeds, www.saltspringseeds.com

Seeds of Diversity, www.seed.ca

Stokes Seeds, www.stokeseeds.com

T&T Seeds, www.ttseeds.com

Upper Canada Seeds, www.uppercanadaseeds.ca

Veseys, www.vesey.com

Wildflower Farm Inc., www.wildflowerfarm.com

William Dam Seeds, www.damseeds.ca

Diversion No. 1

If you cant beat em, eat em: Nigerian nutritionist Ukpong Udofia of the University of Uyo says the West African land snail has more protein and iron than beefsteak. Better yet, it is affordable for school kids and their mothers, many of whom suffer from malnutrition and iron deficiency, according to the weekly Macleans. The magazine fails to note that Nigerians derisively call this common garden pest Congo chop, implying their less sophisticated neighbours regularly indulge.

Now, though, there is also preparation for the coming season as well as care and culture of indoor plants. First on the agenda is taking cuttings of tender tropicals saved from last year geraniums, impatiens, fibrous begonias, hibiscus, and fuchsias are some of the commonest candidates.

In order to be ready for planting out in May or early June, some can be raised from seed sown in January. Again, impatiens and fibrous begonias are high on this list, perhaps also pansies. Geranium seed has been widely available for several years now, but the resulting plants are often less than enthralling.

Whether raising cuttings or seeds, it will vastly improve chances of successful germination to place the containers over a heating mat. For some strange reason one of the few sources to offer such an essential are the good folks at Lee Valley Tools, with outlets across Canada (1-800-267-8767 www.leevalley.com).

Despite this requirement of gentle bottom heat, many cuttings keel over two or three weeks after having been taken. Seedlings similarly emerge only to collapse as the base of the tiny plants shrivels. Stagnant air is encourages this condition, as does using cold water.

Diversion No. 2

At least half of the years in the next decade will be warmer than the previous record year for global temperature, the British Meteorological Office warns, notes The Times of London. The last two summers would be warm and dry, predicted the same Met Office and this winter will be mild, they say.

The mild late autumn of 1998 was no forecast of things to come for Canadas largest city January saw Toronto so thoroughly snowed in that even people taller than Mayor Mel Lastman failed to see over the snow banks. So his worship brought in the army to clear the streets and event that lives on in tales of Toronto . . . and the jokes of Canadian elsewhere.

Nevertheless, if you reside in that lugubrious city, be aware that the bylaw requires you to clear your sidewalk of snow and ice or else. Over an average winter, Toronto issues about 3,000 warnings. Only about 10 per cent of those result in a $125 fine.

If a snowfall is forecast and you have lawn fertilizer left over from the past season, a light sprinkle prior to the arrival of the snow will help keep access ways clear. If you do have to shovel or use a snow blower, try to spread the white stuff evenly over lawns and flowerbeds. If possible, avoid weighing down spreading evergreens and small deciduous bushes, which can suffer permanent damage.

Diversion No. 3

A new English ice cream cocktail, The Sex Pistol, contains Gingko biloba and Guarana, Paulinia capana. Said to be for adults only, it claims to boost beleaguered Brits libidos, still stuck down in the depths of a recession.

If youve managed all the above, youll have deserved relaxation. Denizens of the true north proud and free with want to raise a glass to Sir John A. Macdonald on 11^th January, his birthday and no mean elbow-bender himself. A couple of weeks later, Robbie Burns Day falls on the 25^th January. Of course no one with nary a trace of Scottish blood could be unaware of this which includes a large proportion of Canadas population. And if that isnt enough, join those of oriental descent in celebrating the Year of the Tiger.

Joseph of Arimathea and the Glastonbury Thorn

And did those feet in ancient times walk upon Englands mountains green? queried the poet William Blake (1757-1827). And Did Those Feet is now the title of a new film argues that as a boy Jesus visited southwest England in the company of his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant.

Blake found inspiration for his poem in ancient and perhaps not-so-ancient folklore, religious legends and perhaps his own desire to mythologize.

Certainly Joseph of Arimathea is mentioned in all four Gospels. It was he who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus following the crucifixion after requesting the body from Pilate. Perhaps as early as the 2^nd century, stories began to circulate connecting him with the early spread of the new religion.

By the late 12^th century Joseph of Arimathea had become connected with Arthurian legends and said to be the first keeper of the Holt Grail. Even more remarkably, he founded Christianity in Britain before it had become established in Rome.

Specifically, following the crucifixion, he was said to have left Palestine with 12 followers. Brought by the winds to southwest Britain, they on the south shore of the Bristol Channel close to Glastonbury Tor in modern Somerset.

Josephs attempts to convert the local population were scorned until, wearying, he lay down to sleep, plunging his staff into the ground beside him. Miraculously it immediately took root, sprouting leaves and flowers. Suitably impressed, the hoi polloi accepted Christianity en masse. Not to their king who, however, granted the Christian crew the land whereon the new tree flourished. There they built a church of wattle, Britains first, later to the site of a famed Glastonbury Abbey.

There also flourished the tree that had arisen from his staff, an unusual form of the Hawthorn or Quickthorn, Crataegus monogyna, once so commonly used for farm hedges in southern England, also known as Whitethorn or May. But Joseph of Arimatheas became known as the Glastonbury Thorn, now botanically identified as C. m. cv. Biflora.

Strangely, the nearest native species of this small tree come from the Near East and North Africa.

The Glastonbury Thorn is also very different in its blooming habit from the common native. The latter comes into flower about mid-spring, hence the alternate name of Mayflower. But C. m. cv. Biflora begs to be different frustrating gardeners. Nearby Thornhayes Nursery, in Devon notes that it: Flowers twice in a year, once at Christmas and once normally. Further east in the county of Suffolk The nursery Botanica remarks: Regardless of its mystical connections manages to come into leaf very early in the season and occasionally flowering in midwinter.

Stranger still, hawthorn is of the same botanical family is the apple. Glastonbury Tor is a prominent hill overlooking the Isle of Avalon rising from former fenland and surrounded on three sides by the River Brue. Tor is Celtic for a conical hill. In the Celtic tradition, the apple tree flourishes in paradise (in Welsh lore 'Avalon,' Ynys Avallach, or 'Apple-land: Place of Apples, or in the other words, an apple orchard.

According to Geoffrey Ashe in his The Discovery of King Arthur (1985): In a poem which he [Geoffrey of Monmouth] wrote later, The Life of Merlin, he speaks of Avalon as a paradisal island of apples over western waters, where Arthur was nursed by the enchantress Morgen.

At this point it only needs to be added that Somerset is famed for the conversion of apples into an alcoholic cider that can catch the unwary by surprise. And in local folklore, the Apple-Tree Man of Somerset is the spirit of the oldest tree in the orchard.

However the Glastonbury Thorn arrived in Britain, both its association and flowering time, around Christmas, old style (early January) attracted the devout. Arthur and Guinevere were buried there. No less than five saints were said to have stopped over at the increasingly famous abbey: Patrick, Dunstan, Benedict, David and Bridget.

St. Dunstan appears to have been one for bending an elbow, at least we must believe from the writings of Sir William Beach Thomas. About the 17, 18 and 19 May, there is danger of the devil blighting apple-trees with frost. This is the result of a bargain with St. Dunstan, who was a great grower of corn at Glastonbury, wanted to sell his beer, and so sold his soul to the devil to ensure a shortage of cider.

Little wonder crowds flocked to Glastonbury!

Rich and mighty became Glastonbury Abbey, something that never bodes well for the future. Ever-short of funds and none to enamoured with the Catholic Church, Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries across the Scepterd Isle. Much to Henrys wrath, Glastonbury held out to 1539. In retribution, he had the unfortunate abbot hung on the top of the Tor, flanked by two of his monks. Taken down before quite dead, the unfortunate cleric than had his bowels removed before being hacked into quarters.

Through all this, the Glastonbury Thorn continued to thrive although now divided into two trunks. Alas, with Puritans commencing to stalk the land, its days were numbered. In Queen Elizabeths reign, a single trunk was hewed through despite its notoriously hard wood. Indeed a chip is said to have flown out and put out the would-be woodsmans eye while another severely injured his leg.

The following century, a Roundhead cut down the remaining trunk as an act of pure devotion.

Fortunately earlier, during the reign of James I, it had become fashionable to grow hawthorns in aristocratic gardens. This probably saved the Glastonbury Thorn from extinction in Britain. It is to this day offered for sale by English nurseries.

And Crataegus monogyna cv. Biflora continues to flower at least in southwestern England around Christmas each year, so supporting the belief of some that it supplied the Crown of Thorns Jesus was crucified with, flowering at the same time as his birth. And in the Glastonbury Abbey grounds can be found several such trees.

Comping for Gardeners

Promotions Probably Not Coming Soon to an Independent Garden Centre Near You

Garden centres across Ontario are awakening to the advantages of promoting themselves. Encouraged by the trade association Landscape Ontario they launched their own website last season to answer gardeners queries (www.landscapeontario.com). However, apart for some individual centres going for the gold, this has largely been barren ground. Experienced grass roots communicators remain surprised at the lack of enterprise.

Years ago, the ever-canny Dutch ran an advertising campaign over the banner: Theres more behind a bunch of Dutch flowers. It featured a Dutch girl holding an enormous bouquet. At least it was assumed she was Dutch as she wore a traditional bonnet and a pair of wooden clogs and apparently not much else.

Now, prior the season getting bursting into bloom, we offer a few modest proposals with the organ of taste and speech firmly planted in jowl.

Calendars

The local drug store can offer one. So can our favourite cheese merchant. Now everybody is getting into the act. But the name of the game is artful photography: Ryanair cabin crew stripped off, as did the Cosmetic Surgery Girls along with 11 English farm girls from the Young Farmers Club. Then there is the Hot Mormon Muffins: A Taste of Motherhood calendar features 12 mothers in vintage pinup poses who claim membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Each month also has a muffin recipe.

The problem with all of these is that they attract men, not known as prime garden centre patrons. But wait! Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 2010 calendar featured nude male operatives from southern England. The News (Portsmouth) excitedly reported: RSPCA inspectors have brought out the animal in them by baring all for a charity calendar. And of course Down Under will never be left far behind. Aussie cricketers have stripped for 2010 calendar and last year they raised $50,000 for placement of breast cancer nurses.

So how about a calendar featuring gardening gurus such as Denis Flanagan, Tony DiGiovanni and Stephen Murdoch, names that instantly come to mind. If that wont bring in the women, what will?

Comping

The gambling industry encourages its high rolling customers by comping them offering complimentary gifts and services to persuade them to enter the sacred casino portals. Garden centres could increase their sales with similar schemes. Frequent customers can be encouraged to come on in by personally addressed mailing inviting to collect a free gift or two. After all, what true, green-thumb-twitching gardener can visit a garden centre just to see what they have without coming away with the cars back seat, front seat and trunk full?

Fortune Telling

Ask any newspaper publisher what is the most read part of their newspaper and theyll tell you The Horoscope. It wasnt so many years ago that any country fair worthy of the name had its own resident fortune teller.

At branches of Ilans Coffee House in Tel Aviv, Israel they are boosting business by having the waitresses offer to tell patrons futures by examining the coffee grounds in the bottom of their cups. (A gypsy soothsayer was retained to teach the waitresses how to interpret residue.)

Surely something similar is available locally? Herb tea, perhaps or blowing the seed heads off a dandelion stem. And is the holding of a buttercup to reflect off the skin under the chin a lost divination?

Political Party Plantings

Political pundits adore elections and so should garden centres. Heres an opportunity to offer a palette of annual collections for federal political party supporters to plant in their front yards; blue for Conservatives, red for Liberals, orange for NDP and for Green party enthusiasts seeking to honour leader Elizabeth Mays, perhaps corn, botanically known as Zea mays. Extended down to provincial and municipal level it can only be described as blooming wonderful.

Gardening Fashion Shows

Gardening is indeed well and truly fashionable. Again attract the women who make most gardening purchases by bringing fashion to garden centres, parading down the walkway rather than catwalk. Customers will adore being led up the garden path.

Lawn Mower Races

It all started in 1973 as a group of English motor racing fans gazed morosely into the beer at the Cricketers Arms in Wisborough Green, near Horsham, West Sussex. Discussing the over-costly turn that their spot had been reduced to, they watched a groundsman mowing the green opposite the pub. The rest is history: thus was formed the British Lawn Mower Racing Association. Ride-on lawnmower racing became a sport. This side of the Atlantic, SOLTRA Southern Ontario Lawn Tractor Racing Association, proclaims that it is the fastest show on grass . . . grass gripping, dust digging, top level lawn mower racing excitement. OELTRA, the Ontario Extreme Lawn Tractor Racing Association suggests it is grass root racing at its finest, and advises to watch for the sod warriors at a fair near you. Helping promote this magnificent sport would surely bring male customers flocking, although it is doubtful if David Suzuki would be among them.

Miss Garden Centre of the Year

Why should it be left English farm girls, Ryanair cabin crew or the Cosmetic Surgery Girls to display feminine pulchritude? Even visiting but a few Ontario garden centres will prove they are way out in front of the pack. Offering male customers a chance to vote each time they visit will offer an incentive to shop early and shop often.

Profiling Celebrity Gardeners

This column is dedicated to Sir Peter Viggers, Member of Parliament for Gosport, England since 1974. Sir Peters website informs us that, in their free time, Peter and Jenny enjoy opera, walking, gardening and travel. A gardener he certainly is: who else would spend several thousand dollars on a floating ornamental duck house for the pond at his residence in Titchfield, Hampshire and charge it to his parliamentary expenses? Sir Peter needs his garden to relax. A solicitor and banker, he is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and College of Law and says his website, served in RAF and qualified as a fast jet pilot in Canada. Presumably they only have slow jets in Britain.

Time to turn to the world of entertainment for thought-provoking peeks of horticultural interest. For instance, Lolla is a kind of curly lettuce named after Gina Lollobrigida. Bollywood leading lady and Miss World 2004 Aishwarya Rai had a tulip named after her in 2005. And following his death and cremation, Vincent Prices ashes were scattered in the sea off Malibu along with his favourite gardening hat.

However, the acknowledged King and Queen of Hollywood were Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. And their house and landscape grounds overlooking Beverly Hills Benedict Canyon at the top of Summit Drive was a sight to behold, at least for those invited there.

A hunting lodge built by a Los Angeles attorney originally occupied the 14-acres of chapparal sagebrush and wildflowers. Fairbanks purchased the property in 1918 for $35,000. According to Robin Langley Sommer: Hollywood: The Glamour Years 1919-1941 (1987) the freshly divorced Fairbanks was secretly seeing the still married but separated Mary Pickford and the then isolated hunting lodge attracted him.

Max Parker, the art director on many of Fairbanks films, became architect for what was to become Pickfair. The original hunting lodge as remodelled and enlarged. A 55- by 100-foot swimming pool, that requisite of all film stars who have made it to the top, was installed. But this being Pickfair, it featured a sand beach along one side. Supervised by a head gardener and several day labourers, the Beverley Hills Nursery was entrusted to install hundreds of trees and shrubs in the reluctant soil, surrounding the sweeping lawns. Lording over all this, Fairbanks and Pickford could, if they so chose, to go canoeing on several small artificial lakes that completed the landscape.

Not everyone was welcome to this sylvan scene high above Benedict Canyon. One day Rudolph Valentino made an unexpected appearance on the Pickfair lawn, which, in the warm months, was our outdoor living room, recalled Mary Pickford: Sunshine and Shadow. I never saw Douglas act so fast, and with such painful rudeness, as he did showing Valentino that he wasn't welcome.

A decade later, Summit Drive had become the fashionable retreat for the ber-rich of Hollywood. The veddy-British Ronald Colman took up residence in his faux-Tudor mansion in the 1930s. He promptly ordered the bougainvillea torn down and oleanders uprooted, replaced by sombre, dark green clipped yew hedges redolent of the old country.

Garden News in Review

Landscaping

• A U.K. grandmother was ordered to rip up shrubs and flowers in her front to make room for new wheelie bins or garbage containers. Harlow council even insisted Sandra St. John, 57, pay for the cost of paving materials to store two giant bins [Source: Daily Mail].
• They are the defining icons of a fading era the clothes line, the chook run, the vegie patch, a few fruit trees, the makeshift cricket pitch, the dog, the tyre swing hanging from a tree and the incinerator belching smoke . . . R.I.P. the backyard . . . Quarter acres are out, courtyards are in and lawnmowers are gathering cobwebs. David Nankervis in Adelaide Now, Australia [Editor: please note lingua franca spelling]
• A Berkshire, England couple was left stunned on a Sunday morning when they woke to find a dumpster had fallen into a giant hole on their front lawn measuring 15-foot by 15-foot. They later discovered that there was a cesspit beneath their front lawn, which they had not known was there. They had moved into their new home just two weeks previously and were preparing to build a conservatory. [Source: Daily Mail]
• Les Quartes Vents, Quebec is one of The Worlds 50 Most Beautiful Gardens selected by Tim Richards of The Daily Telegraph. Les Quartres Vents (The Four Winds) was created by Frank Cabot commencing in 1975. www.cepas.qc.ca/garden.php

River Farm, the American Horticultural Societys headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, now includes a comfy sod sofa, according to Landscape Architecture. Apparently the august periodical is unaware that such seats were all the rage in medieval Europe, where squires would court their fair although perhaps damp-derriere damsels

The benefits of natural and landscaped green spaces are not just limited to the environment, say officials at Landscape Ontario. According to research gathered by the not-for-profit organization, green spaces can improve childrens self-esteem, lower crime rates, increase mood, encourage social interaction and even reduce road rage. The research provides proof that green spaces not only make communities look better, but feel better as well [Source: Canadian Garden Centre magazine]

Lawns

The grass is smiling at you. Please detour. A sign in Beijing noted by a reader of The Daily Telegraph.

Gardening: Drainage advised the London Sun, suggesting readers follow their garden expert Steve Bradleys gardening advice on draining your lawn as Britian ended its wettest November on record.

• Britains Project Rollingblade is set challenge the world record for the fastest ride-on lawnmower. The current record was set by Bob Cleveland of the United States at 80.792 mph at Bonneville Salt Flats on 4 July 2006. An attempt to exceed 100 mph is planned at the Welsh Pendine Sands early this year has been reported by British media. While the engines of such mowers may be modified, the machine must still be able to achieve its primary function to cut grass.
• A moss epidemic is predicted for British gardens this winter. Gardeners there are being warned to prepare for an invasion of moss after lawns that had dried out over summer were deluged by Novembers storms, Stephen Adams wrote in The Daily Telegraph.

Trees

• Millions of trees should be planted to cover an extra four per cent of the U.K. woodland in order to tackle climate change, according to a scientific study by the Forestry Commission. This would reduce greenhouse gas emission by 10 per cent and protect communities at risk of flooding, says the Commission. The planting of 23,000 hectares every year, the equivalent of 30,000 soccer fields for 40 years, would bring the U.K.s total woodland cover to 16 per cent.

Earths oldest trees are experiencing a growth spurt, notes New Scientist. A tree ring study suggests the Great Basin bristlecone pines (Pius aristata) of the western U.S. have grown faster in the past 50 years than they have in 3.7 millennia because of rising temperatures [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]

• Gusty winds blew a 90-foot-plus pine tree onto the roof of the Pilgrim Community Church in South Los Angeles, destroying the building, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Flowers

The Tamil national flower is the gloriosa lily, notes The Globe and Mail. In Tamil Sen-Kanhal or Karthigai Poo, Gloriosa superba is a tuberous-rooted tropical vine common in Sri Lanka. All parts contain the toxin colchicines, with highest concentrations in the root. As little as one-tenth of an ounce of the powdered root can kill and adult. It is also the national flower of Zimbabwe.

Some plants have the prefix of dog, for instance dogwood and dog violet, said the teacher. Now can anybody name another? Answered the blonde: Collie-flower. [Source: Google]

Spring flower lovers may be about to have their revenge on bulb raiding squirrels. Jacob Richler, Macleans resident gourmet, reports on the delights of carefully prepared hind leg of Sciurus carolinensis a left-hind leg to be exact since, he explains, the right leg is less tender as they have to lift it to pee.

Wildflowers

Newfoundland and Labradors Minister of Environment and Conservation announced measures to protect the threatened Crowded Wormseed Mustard.

• Botanists who have just reported a new orchid in Ecuador can be forgiven for having missed it until now: It is only 2 millimetres across, notes the Daily Mail. Discovered by American scientist Dr. Lou Jost, it is a member of the Platystele genus, which is made up of mostly miniature plants. For Dr. Jost, it is the 60^th new orchid he has discovered in the past decade.

Vegetables

Brussels sprout: a European Union (EU) bureaucrat [Source: anonymous].

• Matthew Appleby, an editor with the British magazine Horticulture Week, was not fazed by the inclement English weather the past season. He reports that, beside cabbages, he has also done well with potatoes, broccoli, radishes, marrows, zucchini, rhubarb, garlic and onions.
• I feel guilty that the dinners we make dont take five hours to cook or include homegrown arugula raised indoors without being exposed to fertilizers, herbicides or loud noise. Scott Feschuk, Macleans

Fruit & Nuts

The European elk, or moose, is usually considered to be shy and will normally run away from humans. But Swedish Radio International says the animals can become aggressive after eating fermented fallen apples in gardens. [Source: Michael Kesterton, The Globe and Mail, reporting on a 63-year-old woman that the Swedish police believe to have been killed by an elk].

Beverages, Herbs & Spices

• The price of garlic has tripled in just eight months in China, with global prices likely to rise as a result. Speculation has been blamed for this massive rise, reported BBC News, but there is also a popular theory in China that garlic may also offer protection against swine flu.
• The Additional Cost Allowance claims released by the Commons authorities covered the financial year 2008-09. The most unusual, according to The Independent on Sunday, was for three garlic peelers, worth 43, claimed by Tory MP James Arbuthnot, chairman of the Commons Defence Committee.
• Germany spent more than 30 times as much collecting taxes on coffee beans ordered online from abroad than it received in tax revenues, reported the commuter tabloid 24 Hours.
• Drinking coffee and tea, whether decaffeinated or not, lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes, a large body of evidence shows, BBC News reports and decaf has the greatest effect. Researchers looked at 18 studies involving nearly 5,000 people [Source: Archives of Internal Medicine]

Houseplants

There are organophosphate pesticides that have been banned from indoor use in the U.S. but are legal in the European Union that may cause developmental, emotional and possible autistic spectrum disorders, warned University of Bristol scientist Brooke Magnanti in an interview with New Scientist. Name sound familiar? Check out Belle de Jour.

Seeds

• The biotech seed giant Monsanto opened its first biotech research centre in Beijing, China late last year. The facility will focus on Monsantos core crops of corn, soya beans and cotton, notes the journal Nature.

For the Birds

• The Iron Curtain that divided Europe for 46 years left an indelible impact on the continents wildlife, writes Matt Walker for BBC News. The isolation of Eastern Europe meant far fewer bird species colonized it, scientists have found . . . While Westerners imported exotic birds such as parrots and weavers, people in Eastern Europe introduced just a few game birds that were good for hunting [Source: Biological Conservation]

The Good, the Bad and the Bugly

• A cane toad hitched a ride to New Zealand in a Cairns, Australia womans hiking boot. As she was receiving her pre-walk briefing in a hiking store, the pest jumped out of her bag, according to The Southland Times. The New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture was immediately contacted and urged the store staff to kill it as soon as possible.
• The New South Wales government is so concerned about a colony of West Indian dry wood termites that it ordered a compulsory fumigation and will pay the $60,000 cost to rid a Ramsgate house of the pest, reported the Brisbane Courier-Mail. Only two buildings have previously been fumigated for the pest in New South Wales. But there have been around 600 cases of the termite in Queensland since 1979.

If you cant beat em, eat em: Nigerian nutritionist Ukpong Udofia of the University of Uyo says the West African land snail has more protein and iron than beefsteak. Better yet, it is affordable for school kids and their mothers, many of whom suffer from malnutrition and iron deficiency, according to the weekly Macleans. The magazine fails to note that Nigerians derisively call this common garden pest Congo chop, implying their less sophisticated neighbours regularly indulge.

• Two Painted Lady butterflies emerged from their chrysalises on the International Space Station, the first time butterflies have survived the pupal stage in orbit, reports CBC News. They went into orbit as six-day-old caterpillars aboard the space shuttle Atlantis.

Chinas cricket-fighting season is getting longer and longer, notes The Globe and Mails Michael Kesterton, citing James Areddy of The Wall Street Journal. Betting is illegal in China but under the countrys money culture the stakes have risen dramatically. The toughest crickets each sell for hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

• One can always rely on the London, U.K.-based New Scientist for exotic information. Male bedbugs in danger of stab wounds from the penises of other males have evolved a way of telling their mates to back off.
• After what it termed an in-depth study, the London Sun revealed that Santas red-nosed helper in fact preferred mushrooms to carrots. In addition, the study showed that reindeer are also partial to parsnips.

Researchers from France and the U.S. have shown that the ant Cataglyphis cursor will rescue a trapped member of its own species but not unrelated ants or other insects with no possibility of reward for the rescuer aside from the benefits of kin selection. The research was published in PLoS ONE. [Source: Lindsey Konkel, Natural History]

Ekko, a two-year-old Parson Russell terrier, specializes in sniffing out bed bugs, reports Kate Lunau in Macleans. He is a member of Andrew Faragos Scentdogs, a K-9 unit in Berry Mills, N.B.

Weeds

Green shoots has entered the lingo of banking fraternity, records Macleans. Thats as in forecasters say they spot green shoots breaking through our barren economic landscape, says the iconic Canadian magazine. It notes, however, StatsCan reported that Canada had lost 43,000 jobs in October. So maybe those shoots were just weeds.

• Bad plants dont die: French proverb

Fungi

All is not well among champignons lovers in la belle France. With wild mushroom prices soaring, money-hungry gangs have flooded Frances forests, reports Tom Hemheffer in Macleans. He writes that they aggressively steal tons of truffles, ceps and chanterelles, harming ecosystems and robbing forest owners of estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nor do they eschew violence, getting into violent fights with landowners.

Pesticides

• Indian officials have dismissed claims that the former Union Carbide pesticide plant at Bhopal is still leaking dangerous toxins into drinking water. The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state, Shivraj Singh Chouhan told BBC News that plant was safe, 25 years after the worlds worst industrial disaster, contradicting claims in a new report.
• A popular weedkiller sprayed on cornfields across North America turns male frogs into females, CBC News reports. Researchers at the University of Ottawa discovered that even low levels of Atrazine affected the amphibians, they reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

In an effort to prevent Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, officials dumped some 900 kilograms of the natural pesticide rotenone, which is highly toxic to fish, into a nine-kilometre stretch. The result was tens of thousands of dead fish and a single immature Asian carp.

• The scientists who discovered sucrose (now sold as Splenda) were originally trying to create an insecticide, Rebecca Coffey wrote for Discovery magazine An assistant thought he had been instructed to taste a compound hed only been asked to test. [Source: Michael Kesterton, The Globe and Mail]

Gardeners

• Gardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe. Thomas Berry quoted by Michael Kesterton, The Globe and Mail.

Gardening in the City

• Leamington Spa train station in Warwickshire has been voted Britains best in the Country Life Awards. Once neglected and overgrown it was made over four years by 30 volunteers. They created a 164-foot-long lawn, herbaceous border and yew hedge, all with their own money. It is one of the largest gardens at a working British train station, reported The Daily Telegraph.
• Sponsors are needed to save the iconic Bloedel Conservatory in Vancouvers Queen Elizabeth Park from being closed, reports The Province newspaper. While it sees 74,000 paying visitors ever year, the conservatory requires major renovations. Meanwhile, the citys parks board is threatening closure as a cost-saving measure.

Science and the Gardener

• Cottonseed is rich in protein but inedible because it contains the poisonous substance gossypol. Researchers at Texas A&M University have found a way to reduce this poison, then grind the seed into meal. In tests, this has been made into pancakes and cereal. The amount of cotton grown worldwide is enough to feed 500 million people, say the scientists [Source: Daily Express].
• Garden vegetables such as tomatoes and potatoes have been found to be deadly killers on par with Venus fly traps, writes Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph, reporting on new research by the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew. Researchers there have shown that these plants capture and kill small insects with sticky hairs on their stems and the absorb nutrients through the roots when their victims decay and fall to the ground.
• Geneticists have sequenced the genome of maize (corn), one of the worlds most widely grown grains, a feat that should accelerate efforts to develop improved crop varieties to meet the worlds growing hunger for food, animal feed and fuel, writes Elie Dolgin in the journal Nature.

If you feel like scooping up a handful of snow to eat, dont forget the snow fleas, teeny wingless insects that live and love in the drifts, warns the Toronto Star. These insects are in there and they thrive, David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada said, adding: They likely get into the snow through the soil or animal excrement. Aw no ice worms?

Researchers at the Atlantic Food and Horticulture Research Centre have devised a way to use spas to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, while at the same time improving their quality, reports Canadian Garden Centre magazine. Spas are not what you think certainly not fronts for bawdy houses, either. It is a process called low-temperature thermal treatment, which bathes the fruits and vegetables in moist warm air before cooling them.

Nematode worms fed on a diet spiked with glucose die about 20% earlier than those consuming just the bacterium Escherichia coli, report Cynthia Kenyon and her colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco in the journal Cell Metabolism [Source: Nature]

Termites are known to engage in a mutualism with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and researchers have identified similar relationships occurring among leaf-cutting ants, which maintain specialized nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their fungus gardens, notes the journal Science. Together, these mutualisms are a major source of nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems.

A combination of two gene regions, known as rbcL and matK, will be used as a bar code to uniquely identify every species of land plant, biologists announced at the Third International Barcode of Life Conference in Mexico City [Source: Nature]

Weather

• At least half of the years in the next decade will be warmer than the previous record year for global temperature, the British Meteorological Office warns, notes The Times of London. The last two summers would be warm and dry, predicted the same Met Office.
• The global average temperature could reach a record high in 2010, according to the UK Met Office, reported the BBCs Mark Kinver. Forecasters predict that the annual figure will be 14.58C, 0.58C above the long-term average of 14.0C. The London Sun remains skeptical: Next year will be the hottest yet according to the Brit weather experts, who got 2009s barbecue summer all wrong.

• Last year was the wettest one for southern Scotland since 1928.
• Why is the rest of the world wetting their underwear about global warming when North Americans have endured the reverse? According to experts, it is that only Canada and the United States have experienced cooler conditions than average. The British at least are unlikely to concur.

More global warming? Edmonton was the coldest place in North America in the middle of last month. A low of -46.1C with the mercury dropping to 58.4C with the windchill, was recorded at Edmonton International Airport.

Down on the Farm

Greek peach farmers blocked a major highway west of Thessaloniki with more than 130 tractors, demanding government subsidies be increased. According to the growers, present subsidies are mot enough to prevent them from selling their peaches at a loss.

Australian wineries are bulldozing and selling vineyards in a desperate attempt to clear cellars choked with more than 100 million wine cases in the worst glut in two decades, according to The Guardian. Of the nations 165,000 hectares of wine grapes, about 40,000 hectares need to be destroyed. If the industry fails to uproot 20 per cent of vines at least 200 million more cases will pile up over the next two years, sources warn.

• French farmers civilized Britain reports The Daily Telegraphs Science Correspondent, Richard Alleyne. The French have always believed they are more sophisticated than their British cousins he writes. Now archaeologists have proved them right. University of British Columbia researchers report in the Journal of Archaeological Science that 6,000 years ago, French farmers crossed the English Channel and civilized their neighbours who at that time were still running around with spears.

When does a snails shell get its twist, queries New Scientist? By gently prodding small embryos with fine glass rods, Japanese researchers were able to temporarily change the shells direction of rotation, explains the weekly magazine, adding that this could shed light on when a snails handiness gene kicks in during development. Gardeners might be inclined to wield more lethal implements.

• New figures showing more than 80 per cent of New South Wales in drought paint a really bleak picture for farmers, New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally said, according to The Brisbane Sunday Mail

Kyoto Kafuffles

It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, to centralized. Climate researcher Mike Hulme at the University of East Anglia, UK, responds to the leaking of emails from UEA last month with the suggestion that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may have outlived its purpose [Source: New Scientist]

Genetic Modification

• Public opposition in the U.K. to genetically modified food is based on emotion, not reason says a report by the British Food Standards Agency.

Organic Scene

• The British charity Garden Organic has admitted to financial difficulties and is discussing staff redundancies, revealed Matthew Appleby, an editor with the British magazine Horticulture Week. It recently off-loaded its garden centre in Warwickshire to try and concentrate on what it does best, says Appleby research into organic gardening.

Macleans Andrew Potter invoked the wrath of environmentalists by proclaiming that organic debunked as nothing more than a scam, and local reduced to little more than an under-motivated preference for freshness and the small farmer, yet another pointless exercise in pseudo-ethical consumerism appears to come to an end.

• An organic farm owned by the wife of multi-millionaire industrialist Sir Anthony Bamford was ordered to pay more than 90,000 after one of its employees died because of a relaxed attitude to safety, reported The Independent on Sunday. Daylesford Organic farm shop has become a favourite haunt of health-conscious celebrities and nicknamed the Harvey Nicks of the Cotswolds. Gardener Tony Cripps, 57, was crushed under a JCB while he tried to collect elderflowers from the farm to make lemonade for owner Carol Bamford. He was a much-loved former publican and founder of a local rugby club.

Environment

• Elleray Preparatory School above Windemere in Cumbria, England, holds classes in self-sufficient timber pods that sit on stilts, surrounded by trees, according to Macleans magazine. The pods are linked by platforms made of recycled plastic bottles. Rainwater is harvested for drinking, and each pod comes equipped with solar panels that light it up, as surely will any eco-conscious parent. At least it will keep the kids above floodwaters.

There are apparently lots of people who really do think that global warming is an evil socialist plot, and that many scientists are part of the plot and deliberately faking their science, Tom Willet, a senior scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado, told the journal Nature.

• The estimated global water demand by 2030 will be 6,900 km, reports the journal Nature. The current reliable supply amounts to just 4,200 km
• The Brazilian government announced that roughly 7,000 square kilometres of forest was cleared last year, a drop of about 45% from the previous years levels, while pledging to cut the rate of deforestation by 80% by 2020 [Source: Nature]

Travel

• An eight-tonne armoured troop carrier driven by a 19-year-old soldier crashed through a fence into the front garden of a village in Norfolk, England. Making matters worse, the four soldiers of the Light Dragoons aboard had to wait six hours to be rescued as the recovery vehicle broke down, reported the Daily Mail. The Afghan vets were on their way to an army training area in the perhaps all-too-accurately named Muckleborough.
• I miss the wind, I miss the sunlight, I miss the smell of flowers and freshly cut grass, Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk just before returning to earth after six months on the International Space Station.
• South African road signs warning that vehicles must brake for dung beetles, according to an article in last months National Geographic. Argentina has signs that tell would-be lepidopterists hands off the butterflies.

Show Biz

Actor Richard Gere faces fines of up to US$50,000 in fines for felling trees on his Pound Ridge, New York property without first obtaining a permit, report various media.

Law and the Gardener

• A council in the U.K.s West Midlands has apologized to tenant Linda Langford after ordering her to remove two, six-inch-tall garden gnomes from outside her front door, claiming they were a fire safety hazard [Source: The Daily Telegraph].

Prince Edward Islands Environment Minister Richard Brown introduced legislation that will ban about 240 domestic lawn care and other pesticides products. The legislation is expected to become effective on a date only a politician could dictate: 1^st April 2010

• A convicted drug dealer grew cannabis in his prison cell in Portland, Dorset, England, according to the London Sun. He persuaded the staff there that they were tomato plants and even decorated one four-foot plant as a Christmas tree. It took the authorities five months to catch on and then only because other cons finked on the green-thumbed one.

According to Lee Pernice, a retail security expert with ADT Security Services, some of the most shoplifted products include power tools and weed killer, both popular with thieves at Home Depot. Some brands of weed killer are expensive, as much as $100 (US) or more a bottle [Source: Michael Kesterton, The Globe and Mail].

Business

• Make her feel special with a clothesline this Christmas. Hilliers a 14-store British garden centre chain received about a hundred complaints for running an advertisement suggesting this a clothesline as a suitable gift.

Health

• A new English ice cream cocktail, The Sex Pistol, contains Gingko biloba and Guarana, Paulinia capana. Said to be for adults only, it claims to boost beleaguered Brits libidos, still stuck down in the depths of a recession.
• Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the former South African health minister who advocated beetroot, wild garlic and African potato for HIV may need a second liver transplant, reports The Daily Telegraph. He resounds in the moniker of Dr. Beetroot.
• Does DEET cause penis defects? According to the Brisbane Courier-Mail, European researchers have found a possible link between pregnant women who use the bug spray and an increasingly common birth defect. However, an Australian specialist warns that the link remains unproven.
• A school in Detroit, Michigan, the Med Grow Cannabis College, is offering courses in how to grow, use and profit from medicinal marijuana, reports The Daily Telegraph. The small suburban college is said to run six-week courses for $485.
• Can grape juice bring back your memory? Possibly, according to a report in the Daily Mail. Scientists at the University of Cincinnati carried out a study involving 12 people with early memory loss drinking pure Concord grape juice for 12 weeks. Note to those who drink to forget: this was unfermented grape juice.
• People who smoke the highly potent form of cannabis know as skunk in the U.K. are almost seven times more likely to develop a psychotic illness than those who use the traditional strength drug, report researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London [Source: Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph]
• Scientists are delivering some unexpected cheer this Christmas. They have found that a couple of glasses of champagne a day is good for your heart and blood circulation. Nor, they believe, are the benefits limited to expensive fizz: cheaper alternatives such as cave and prosecco may offer similar effects. The research is the handiwork of a team led by Dr. Jeremy Spencer of Reading University, working with scientists from France and is published in the British Journal of Nutrition. [Source: The Guardian]
• While alleged health products containing South American acai berries are not authorized for sale in Canada, a shipment was stopped at the border. It was discovered to contain undeclared sildenafil, a drug prescribed for erectile dysfunction. Health Canada issued a warning that it could cause adverse reactions.

Bullfighter

• Leaked emails have revealed the unwillingness of climate change scientists to engage in a proper debate with the skeptics who doubt global warming. Jonathan Leake, Environmental Editor, The Sunday Times.
• Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global arming are based. Jonathan Leake, Environmental Editor, The Sunday Times.
• I feel guilty about climate change. I feel guilty that I may not be taking it seriously enough, in that I continue to selfishly exhale with wild abandon. Scott Feschuk, Macleans.
• Biologists and conservationists adore species. So estimates 30 million insect species became very popular, observes leading entomologist Vojtech Novotny, who continues: A new calculation based on our Grand Matrix has led to the mass extinction of hypothetical species, since by this reckoning we share the planet not with 30 million, but no more than 4 to 6 million species of insects [Source: Notebooks from New Guinea: Field Notes of a Tropical Biologist (translated from the Czech by David Short) Natural History]
• James Hansen, the NASA scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the alleged danger of global warming, said it would be better for the planet and for future generations if Copenhagen climate-change summit ended in collapse. I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because its a disaster track. He got his wish. [Source: The Guardian]

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