Saturday, December 11, 2010

The garden has gone to seed but hope springs eternal

Not too long ago, I used to garden. Ask any gardener who will confirm, there's nothing like getting down and dirty working the soil with your hands. It's probably a flash-back to the time as children when we spent our summer days revelling in the dirt and sandbox. As mentioned, gardening is now an activity discussed in the past tense.

It's been three years since we sold our house and went condo and I'm still afflicted with pangs of abandonment. Not that the garden was a showplace out of House and Garden or anything but it was mine and we had an understanding: I would plant stuff and it would grow, maybe. It took me years to cultivate the three rose bushes in the back yard and when they finally produced blooms, I felt like a new mother revelling in the delight of her new offspring. My favorite was the tangerine florabunda that never failed to produce at least one flowering, while the pink hybid tea gave me a few token buds in a good year. We had a combative relationship to say or write the least. As you can tell - I'm feeling sentimental and missing them all.

Having moved into the same neighborhood, I frequently make a point of passing by the house and glance out of the car window at the new plant additions or demises. Although the house is no longer ours, I feel a sense of responsibility as to their welfare. In retrospect, it would have been better to keep them in memory. In order to cut back on the cost of annuals, perennials were planted over time in the hope they would fill in the spaces. The rock garden was now covered entirely with wood chips with no sign of my plethora of growing plants, while the rock garden shrubs were transformed into small trees. It's their house now I tell myself wondering if my beloved roses are still in the land of the living.

These days my horticultural endeavors are relegated to balcony gardening having brought along my containers and flower boxes, which are filled to capacity with annuals in the summer. It's not the same but I'm still occupied with dead-heading the flowers and watering non-stop since the earth in containers require freqent watering. Two grecian urns were also added that are also filled with an assortment of flowers. Our condo is located near the river where our municipality focuses on planting natural species that are common to this type of area, are visually attractive, yet retain the soil.

It's winter and I'm planning for summer cultivation, perhaps adding some mini tomatoes. Maybe I'll go all out and try a small rose bush, knowing from personal experience that roses make slaves of their cultivators. I'm used to it! When it's all said and done, a gardener is always a gardener, even on a balcony.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Watch your thoughts - your plant could know!

Keep this between ourselves but I always believed that plants know what we're thinking. Now there's scientific evidence lending some validity to my belief based on some recent experiments conducted by scientists in Poland. New research shows that plants "can think and remember," according to a news story published recently. Of course! Any plant caregiver can attest to this. It's just so...logical.

Plants are able to "remember" and "react" to information contained in light, according to the researchers. In their experiment, scientists showed that light shone on one leaf caused the whole plant to respond. Duh! If you were snoozing or the plant equivalent and somebody opened up flashlight beam or beacon on you, you'd react too! Unlike humans plants can't scream out: "get that stupid light out'ta or off"a my leaves or else!" I mean, plants can't really do much in the way of defending themselves against - well - anything. One can only imagine plants horror upon sensing lawn trimming equipment approaching and knowing the ensuing carnage to follow. But I digress.

"We shone the light only on the bottom of the plant (the plant used was the arabidopsis specie) and we observed changes in the upper part," explained Professor Stanislaw Karpinski from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland, who led this research. "And the changes proceeded when the light was off... This was a complete surprise."

It shouldn't be. What else could a plant do in the way of a warning to the upper leaf level that light was approaching. The entire experiment must have had the same effect as a flashing lighthouse beacon.

Seems that plants have the capacity to relay a message to all the leaves that a dose of light is imminent. There is no mention in the piece the exact reason for conducting this type of experiment but perhaps humans have a lot in common with plants. In his previous work, Professor Karpinski found that chemical signals could be passed throughout whole plants - allowing them to respond to and survive changes and stresses in their environment.

As a plant caregiver to numerous plants over the years, some successfully and some not-so-successfully, I've always had this feeling that plants decide whether to thrive or even live based on their like or dislike for the person giving them their basic necessities. Caregivers that frequently neglect to give them water for example or place them in a drafty corner with little light, are reprimanded by the plants by dropping their leaves or a not dead-but-not-quite-alive appearance, conversely, people who talk to their plants with praise and feed them vitamins are rewarded with growth and new leaves. Then again, it's just my opinion for what it's worth and heaven knows I've had many plants that have gone-to-the-composter-in-the-sky over the years.

"This requires an appraisal of the situation and an appropriate response - that's a form of intelligence," concluded Professor Christine Foyer, a plant scientist from the University of Leeds.
Of course - I could have told them that.