Spring Break

  

Last week was spring break for our kids here in Maine. This was an opportunity for me to take them on a trip to see new places, meet new people and just spend time together. We drove to Burlington, Vermont as I was scheduled to give a talk on new gardening ideas. On the five hour drive, I thought about the other kids on break who went south for warmer climes for spring break while our kids went further north to watch their dad talk for an hour about gardening. I hoped they loved the talk and the ideas will resonate in their impressionable minds. The alternative is that some day they will relay this trip to their therapist wherein the counselor will point the finger of blame for everything on me. How dare a father take their kids to a garden club lecture! And there were no snacks, even. 

After the talk, I treated our kids to dinner which included root beers and chocolate milks all around (dad might have had an actual beer-beer). I asked them what they thought about the talk. Our son, Alex, said that he enjoyed it and did not daze off into the distance or stare at his phone once. One of our ten-year old twins, Callan, said it was really good but she did not understand some of my jokes and why they made the audience laugh.

I took our four kids to a horticulture lecture and they enjoyed it. Or maybe they were being good so they would get root beer at dinner. The other positive is that Callan has said that she would like to be a gardener as she gets older. This spring, she and Zoë started their own flower seeds. Callan helped me mulch for a few hours this spring and she loved it. All of our kids have spent many hours helping their mom in the vegetable garden. That means the world to me that our kids enjoy gardening. 

In my lecture, I pointed out that during the 1960’s and 70’s in the U.S., the next generation of farmers were encouraged to have a more comfortable life in an office somewhere. My dad grew up farming and he thought I was wasting an education by studying plants and soil. We’ve progressed beyond that, was his thought. Get a cushy job in an office somewhere and farm on your weekends as a hobby, was in essence his advice. I am glad that I did not take his advice to heart and continued to pursue what I enjoyed doing.

To see our daughter, Callan, as well as many others in the next working generation excited about agriculture and the potential of growing your own food for a local economy is fantastic. Farming and gardening are hard work and the pay is not comparable to a programmer who writes code. But, I argue, the next generation has the ability to change that. Good food and good plants are vital to a good life. Some people understand that and are willing to search out locally grown produce even if it means a higher price. Maine is seeing a groundswell of back to the land, local farmers. I hope this movement continues to grow and flourish into a sustainable lifestyle that brings in more of the next generation of farmers and gardeners.

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What Are Your Favorite Plants?

Last week, I was interviewed by Dr. Lisa Belisle for a future episode of Love Maine Radio where she asked me questions about living in Maine and working at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. We were talking about some of the common questions that I get while working in the gardens when I said that as gardeners, we are often asked, “what are your favorite plants?” She then, of course, lobbed the question right back at me. “So, what are your favorite plants?”

This, to me, is one of the hardest questions to answer because it is similar to asking me which of our four kids do I like the best. But, in that moment, while sitting there in front of a microphone, I answered with the first plants that came to mind. First, I said magnolias. Then, I said, hydrangeas. If there is a group of plants that I would love to learn more about, it would be hydrangeas. Hydrangeas blossoms are my favorite flowers. They grow well in most parts of the United States and are as welcome in the deep South as they are in New England. If I had to pick a species of hydrangea, I would go for Hydrangea macrophylla. H. macrophylla is a diverse species from Asia that consists of the quintessential mophead style flowers as well as the flattened lacecap flowers.

When we moved to Maine, I was surprised to see so many big leaf hydrangeas growing in the gardens. During most winters, the plants are not stem hardy but can rejuvenate from the base in the spring. Older cultivars of Hydrangea macrophylla only flower on old wood so in a colder climate like Maine’s, big-leaf hydrangeas would look great with foliage but never flower because the flower buds would be lost during the winter die-back. There are newer cultivars in the Endless Summer line which are supposed to flower on old and new wood. The good thing about these plants is that they can die back in cooler climates and then flower in summer on the new shoot growth. Thus far, we have had mixed results with flowering ability on the Endless Summer line but with new selections coming out each year, I am hopeful that the flowering will be better with each introduction. I am trying out the newest selection called BloomStruck. Hopefully, along with the smaller size of BloomStruck comes improved flowering on new wood. I emailed Dr. Michael Dirr who has done a lot of work with Hydrangea and he assures me that BloomStruck is one of the best.

There seems to be a lot of potential for improved flower color, size, and duration within the entire H. macrophylla species. Are you growing any Hydrangea in your own garden? If so, which ones?

–Rodney

Images: Uncle John’s, The Good Thing

The Healthiest Profession

Recently, I was searching for any information on which professions have the healthiest people. I came across a research study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that listed the fittest and fattest professions in America. Skipping right over the fattest, I scrolled to the fittest in hopes that horticulturists/gardeners would be among the list. Unfortunately, there was no mention of anyone working in the soil. I skimmed the list once and then went back through it with more deliberate attention. Here were the top 5 fittest professions in America:

1. Health diagnosing occupations, including physicians, dentists, optometrists, and veterinarians
2. Natural scientists and social scientists
3. College and university professors
4. Health assessment and treatment occupations, excluding registered nurses
5. Other professional specialties, including librarians, social workers, clergy, writers, musicians, and athletes

Hmm, I thought. Horticulturists and gardeners could fit within all 5 of these categories.
1) We diagnose the health of plants and ourselves on a daily basis. We need our plants to be healthy in order to be successful in our jobs. Also, we need to be healthy in order to do our jobs at the highest level.
2) We use the scientific method on an almost daily basis to analyze the weather, soil reports, plant physiology, as well as entomology.
3) Some of us actually go on to become professors, whereas most of us end up teaching or giving lectures as a part of the love for our jobs.
4) Health assessment goes right along with number 1, above. Not only do we diagnose but with the inclusion of integrated pest management (IPM) in our skill set, we end up finding the remedy for our plant maladies.
5) We are definitely specialists in that we spend our free time reading and sharing on social media about plants, visiting gardens and nurseries, and visiting other plant geeks around the country. For anyone who asks about what to grow in their yard, the sharing of our passion could be likened to a clergyman or woman.

In addition to this study, I have my own intuitive hunch about the horticultural profession. I would argue that most of us are a happy bunch with an irreverent sense of humor. Digging in the soil makes us a happy lot and some of the best jokes I know come from fellow gardeners with a quick wit. We are also looking for ways to physically stay on top of our game as we age. A lot of the gardeners I know stay in shape by walking, biking, running, practicing yoga, and just staying physically active outside of work. We tend to eat pretty healthy as well because not only do we know where our food comes from but we grow our own.

I’ve long felt that our profession is pretty cool. There are not many callings where you do what you do for a living on your own before work as well as for relaxation after work. This summer, I know there will be many mornings where I will get up at the crack of dawn to weed the front bed of our garden with a cup of coffee before biking the five and a half miles to the gardens for a full-day’s work.

–Rodney

Images: National Trust, Express

The ‘Fish’ Pepper

One of the first seeds to germinate this week in the greenhouse was a plant that I have been looking forward to growing all winter. I was reading through seed catalogs this winter when I came across a really cool hot pepper with variegated fruits and leaves, called the ‘Fish’ pepper. This piscine pepper was an heirloom seed strain passed down from generation to generation of cooks. The seed originated from a somewhat albino mutant plant, describes William Woys Weaver, who brought the plant back into cultivation from his grandfather’s seed stock.The seed reportedly was first cultivated by African-American chefs who were looking for a white pepper to provide a spicy tang to fish dishes. The peppers can provide the heat of a cayenne pepper without distorting the color of a fish dish or white sauce. New England chowders consist of a white broth and I may suggest to our chef at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens to add some of the diced, white fruits to spice up her fish chowders this summer.

We are using our ‘Fish’ peppers in our ornamental planting beds to provide an unusual “pop” in the landscape plantings. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, the plants will reach a mature height of two feet, with the showy leaves and fruit. If they perform well, I plan on saving some of the seed and growing them again for years to come. Who knows, maybe the ‘Fish’ pepper chowder might be a big hit as well.

–Rodney

Images: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds