Pomegranate Juice Fights Cavities

So we know (or think we know) that pomegranate juice -- like acai from Brazil, and other superfruit juices -- helps with everything from lowering bad cholesterol to inhibiting prostate cancer and reducing some of the risks from diabetes.

Today word arrives that two young men from Flatbush have discovered that pomegranate juice can help fight cavities. Here's a bit more from Touro College contact Barbara Franklin about Zev Zelman and Elliot Lutz:

The students based their research on the knowledge that cavities are not caused by the consumption of sweets, but rather the bacteria that ferment the dietary carbohydrates to produce lactic acid, which eats away at tooth enamel. However, pomegranate juice, and to a lesser degree pomegranate tea, effectively deactivate the bacteria within 10 minutes of contact. Other beverages tested that were effective included grape juice, cranberry juice, and some wines. The other beverages tested in the research had slight or no effect on the bacteria.

Feedback, please. Do you or don't you want to see TP venturing this far from Eden?

1:04 AM ET | 05- 1-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

 

Remind Me, Why Do We Hate Dandelions?

It's a banner year for dandelions around Portland, I don't ever remember them looking so fulsome and jaunty before. They're strewn like wildflowers along parking strips, lawns and empty lots (the few that are left here in Boomtown) and by and large, their arrangements are quite picturesque.

So what's the deal? Why do millions of Americans prefer using 2,4-D to kill them instead of making dandelion fritters and enjoying the show?

No doubt the answer dates back to the heyday of the British lawn, rhapsodized and defended by no less a plant lover than one of my favorite garden writers, Anna Pavord who wrote, "dandelions are bullies. They simply had to go". At least she had the good grace to feel guilty about buying a weedkiller, but buy it and publicize it she did.

Perhaps a later blog needs to throw open the debate on 2,4-D, still very much in ample supply on the garden shelf but so clearly deserving of more consumer dissuasion. But the focus here is on the dandelion itself.

It's been two decades since the New York Times reported on the "weirdo" Maine farmer who canned dandelion greens. Today, there are dandelion cookbooks, dandelion dinners (strictly upmarket), dandelion blogs and in honor of Passover, Jewish dandelion news:

Conveying the misery of the Israelites' slavery, bitter herbs vary from place to place and even from family to family. Ashkenazim favor freshly ground or sliced, fresh horseradish root, bottled horseradish, or romaine lettuce. Sephardim prefer bitter greens such as endive, escarole, chicory, sorrel, arugula, dandelion, or watercress.

Nearing holiness, let us not forget that dandelions make wishes come true. You just have to do is put your lips together and blow. But if you really can't bear them yet know better than to use herbicides (what, me, guilt you?) garden writer Anne Lovejoy suggests you love them to death.

6:51 PM ET | 04-17-2008 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

 

Talking Xeric in Albuquerque

One of the biggest water-saving heros in the Southwest these days is Scott Varner, who over the last decade has cultivated quite the crowd for the New Mexico Xeriscape Council annual conference.

The bad news is that you just missed the latest conference; fortunately, 400 of your green-thinking peers took notes.

Thanks to one of them, Susan Tweit, who both captured some of the highlights and linked to the TP blog. Other people you might want to know about are dynamo L. Hunter Lovins (Time Magazine 2000 Hero of the Planet) and landscape architect/ecological restorationist Keith Bowers, founder of Biohabitats, whose inspiring mission is nothing less than "the restoration of the earth".

Which brings me to my own meager participation in the conference, during which I made the observation that Sustainability is a very dicey assumption if we don't soon address issues of Population.

I can assure you, the idea that we need to live in places with more resources and do a lot less breeding did not go over too big. And so I invite you to step into the fray.

Q: If we continue to settle in regions where resources are limited (e.g., water in the desert SW), if we continue to procreate with abandon, and if we continue to believe we are entitled to what we want when we want it without having to sacrifice, compromise or just recycle the bloody newspaper (which is far from second nature here in D.C.), is it realistic to assume assume we can be sustained?

2:43 PM ET | 02-25-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

 

Amazon: A Reluctant Goodbye

Well, it's time to move on from our week in the Amazon. At least to the exclusion of the rest of the world. No doubt Rosario Costa Cabral and the planet's other inspirational farmers, gardeners and environmentalists will continue to be our guests on Talking Plants.

A few parting shots, if you will; not a whole lot to say, just some photos I have yet to share.

Admittedly, I didn't spend a great deal of time mastering the names and kinds of of Amazon flora (a good reason to go back). Little, in fact, was blooming but on our canoe trip, we did manage a small breakfast bouquet.

But there was no missing the dollop of green that came floating down the river like an emerald island (below). It was water lettuce, a staple of American water features coast to coast. This is a wonderful annual aquatic; seeing it was like running into an old friend.

Perhaps it's enough to know that the places, people and moments we've been visiting in the Amazon are real and possible.

8:15 AM ET | 02- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

 

Amazon Q&A

Just to catch you up, this week we're focusing on Rosario Costa Cabral, one of the world's more inspiring farmers.

Talking Plants community member Julian Blackwood recently asked a number of in-depth questions that were beyond the scope of the NPR Amazon story. I thought I'd post his q's (edited for clarity) with answers provided by Columbia U. ecologist Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez, who is an expert in Amazonian biodiversity and has known Rosario for a decade.

Q: Since (Rosario farms on) tidal land, presumably the water is somewhat saline? Or is it backed-up fresh river water that floods her land twice a day?

A: The water is not saline. The fresh water of the Amazon actually extends far into the sea.

Q: If the flood-tolerant pepper plant anecdote was accurate, it raises the interesting question of how that particularly valuable gene combination for flood tolerance (if that's what it is) is maintained in a partly cross-pollinating crop.

A: Well, the flood threat (and natural selection) is constant as is the human selection process. So presumably if cross-pollination does occur, any non-tolerant plants that might result are quickly eliminated. But I also saw that Dona Raimunda (Rosario's mother) seems to do some hand pollination with some vegetables; she shakes the flower of onions onto other onions. She says that way she gets better bulbs. How and where she learned this I don't know.

Q: The reference to distributing cassava "seeds" (of her improved selection) presumably meant the usual stem cuttings used for clonal propagation - as cassava is cross-pollinated. But the really big question is exactly what land was she actually farming when you visited?

A: When Rosario and her family came to Mazagao they could not bring cuttings but rather seeds (although as you point out, reproduction by cuttings is the usual process). The family had been dispossessed from their farm and were not sure when and where they would plant again. Any cuttings would have probably died. She also apparently distributed seeds not cuttings; people try out the seeds on their own land, select on their own. On her own land she plants her own cuttings.

Q: I understand Rosario's farming on logged-over land. She is probably planting gaps in various glades, cropping them until soil fertility or pest build-up drives her to a new plot (similar to traditional "shifting" cultivation). Let's hope she changes plots regularly so that the soil is not exhausted to the point where only tertiary scrub can regenerate (her planting of local tree species was good news).

A: Rosario is indeed planting in gaps and she moves annuals and semi-perennials around every few years to other parts of her landholding. Of course many of her crops are actually perennials and are native trees. The problem with fertility loss in the floodplain is not nearly as great as you might have in an upland site. The twice-daily tides carry and deposit nutrients and the flooding (both tidal and seasonal) probably helps keep down some pests.

11:28 AM ET | 02- 6-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

 

A Not-So Mythic Amazonian

She likes to be called Rosario. Her full family name is nearly a dozen syllables long.

She lives as simply as a human being could hope for and it isn't because she's lazy or unambitious. She is a woman born and bred in the Amazon, and whether it's fish from the river or fruit from the forest, she knows how to coax everything she needs out of the landscape. "The forest likes me," she says. "I look after its young."

Intrigued? You ain't heard nothing yet...

The permanent Rosario household includes her mischievous 82 year-old mother and her two 40-something brothers, but at any given time on any given hammock you'll find one or two of Rosario's stepchildren (the youngest is 20), near and distant relatives, and the odd ecologically-inclined academic.

Bar none (except perhaps his wife, Christine Padoch of the NYBG), the Rosario family favorite has got to be Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez of CERC, who often comes bearing gifts of California pistachio nuts.

The Rosario family has lived on this land now since 1991. Everybody works extremely hard and the results are obvious, including the new house they were able to build out of their own lumber a year ago. The house is very open with high, high ceilings and can accommodate an untold number of hammocks; each room has a door and a single light bulb, but otherwise the house is largely empty, a blessing in such stifling heat.

Not surprisingly, though, the center of life is in the old kitchen, connected to the new house by a covered walkway. The kitchen, for my money, has the best view of any -- into that jungle of a backyard.

So many pictures, so little time...which is why I invite you back tomorrow to enjoy the Amazon slide show we're busily putting together (how many shots of the piglet and the dog can you take?). In the meantime, I will leave you with the one image that's earned pride of place on my piano and I think you'll see why...

Tomorrow, the slide show. And a taste of acai...

9:34 AM ET | 02- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (50) | e-mail post

 

Oregon to Ban Butterfly Bush?

HEAR YE, HEAR YE ...

A butterfly bush can be a gorgeous thing. I remember seeing my first dark purple one in full flower (it was the now-ubiquitous 'Dark Knight') covered in butterflies and not believing my eyes.

HOWEVER ... here in the Northwest, they are noxious weeds; if another one was never planted out here, the species would still dominate the landscape for decades to come. And by landscape I don't just mean gardens; I mean the ever-threatened wild.

THEREFORE ... it was with great pleasure I read today that the plant division of the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) is proposing to restrict its sale in Oregon. Woweee!

BE AWARE ... that the Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN) has already managed to work around the ODA ban on awful, mean, nasty ivy. Oregon nurseries can still sell Hedera helix for "indoor or containerized uses" — as if anyone's watching what Oregonians do with their ivy.

TO WIT ... I ain't celebrating just yet...but thought you might want to know it's in the works...

5:45 PM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

 

More from the Sinkhole

Here's the plant, here's the sinkhole, look inside and there's the people...

First up, let's take a look at Prichardia aylmer-robinsonii, a species of the lo'ulu palm that David and Lida Pigott Burney planted in "their" sinkhole. The plant is named after the family that currently owns the island of Ni'ihau, the only place this species is known to grow in the wild.

Alas, the palm is no "missing link" as one of our delightfully optimistic TP members suggested; at least no more a link than any other plant in the chain. But seeing it restored in the Makauwahi Cave sinkhole does feels like an Indiana Jones moment of discovery, particularly if you stumble across it as you're walking the landscape above. I mean suddenly YIKES! there's an eight-story drop into this promised land.

11:57 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

 

For Love of a Sinkhole

Q: How many paleoecologists does it take to excavate a sinkhole, find seven previously undescribed bird species and reintroduce native plant species to a place they haven't grown in for a thousand years?

A: Depends on the paleoecologists.

Fact is, some aren't mortal. In particular, keep an eye out for the pair shown below. They were recently featured in an NPR radio report that mistakenly assumed they were human, based on their oh! so convincing paleoecologist clothing.

Closer scrutiny has determined it simply isn't possible for this couple to do as much as they do in as many places as they do it and not be in league with He Who Cannot Be Named. Consequently, approach with extreme caution should the pair be spotted one fine Sunday morning within the nether reaches of Kauai's Makauwahi Cave.

We'll post more photos shortly plus details as we gather them. Until then, be very afraid.

11:10 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

Rock Star Botany 202

Mahalo! It's another splendid day here on virtual Kaua'i ... of course I haven't been to the actual island in a while, but tuning in to the island's public radio station helps ...

First, allow me a moment of preemptive denial: I am not in the pocket of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (see? no hyperlink). The only reason my Morning Edition report and Talking Plants Kaua'i stories are filled with NTBG people is that the Hawaii-based botanists on my "Must Meet List" were already working for the Garden.

Can I help it if its staff rocks?

In fact, is was on the NTBG staff that I met my first so-called rock star botanist, Ken Wood, a self-effacing plantsman who, despite himself, does justice to the romantic term ... a term taught to me by future botanical rocker Clay Trauernicht, a field botanist tragically too cute for his own good.

(Yes, Clay, you are).

But enough flirting with jail bait, today's rock star botanist is Steve Perlman, who you might have heard hunting for the rare fringed orchid.

Steve Perlman's daring hi-jinks to save Hawaii's native plants is now the stuff of legend among those in the know, as well as the subject of articles, books and an Imax film. He has risked his life so many times gaining access to endangered plants, he couldn't decide which story to tell me when I asked him to describe the scariest botanizing trip of them all.

But describe it he did.

"It's not thrill-seeking," says Perlman. "I'm there because the plants are there and I'm trying to get to them". His track record is astonishing; let's just say that if you were a betting plant lost in the wilderness, you'd be smart to put your money and your life on him. Not only will he get your seeds into cultivation, often — with the help of the world's best propagators — he'll see to it that your offspring make it into the nursery trade.

Perhaps the best-known story about Perlman (Ken Wood is often featured in this tale) is about the lengths he went to in order to collect Brighamia seed in the wild. I recommend you hear Perlman tell it himself, but here's the gist:

Because these plants prefer life on the edge — that is, on windswept cliffs facing out to sea — Perlman had to rappel down to the area where they often grew only to discover they hadn't set any seed. So he'd dangle around, hanging off the cliff, until he'd located a male plant and could collect its pollen. Then he'd dangle around some more until he'd located a female plant, and dabble on the goods.

Months later, he'd return to see if the pollinated female plant had set seed. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If not, he'd simply return again and again, as often as it took — rappelling off sea cliffs hundreds of feet above the ocean — to collect a few life-giving seeds.

Well, I don't know what you've been doing with your life, but something tells me I might yet consider doing something more significant with mine.

9:30 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

The Little Green Orchid That Could

On behalf of all your chlorophyllic friends here at Talking Plants, Happy New Year!

Now I don't mean to twist your arm, but what I'm going to tell you about field botanist Steve Perlman and his search for Platanthera holochila is likely to make a whole lot more sense if you listen to the Morning Edition feature.

It wasn't a very big plant, maybe 20 inches high. The chances of spotting it were absolutely nil. But Steve Perlman of the National Tropical Botanical Garden had seen this rare orchid years ago, before it was dwarfed by knee-high shrubs. So it wasn't entirely miraculous — but it was pretty damn impressive — when he found it growing the middle of a wind-swept, fogged-in swamp.

His timing was perfect; the orchid was ripe for picking. So he carefully removed a couple of pregnant pods for safekeeping, each filled with hundreds of dust-sized seeds.

This fringed orchid was the last of its kind on Kaua'i, and previous attempts to propagate it had failed. Since there could be no certainty that the orchid would live to see another September, the seeds Perlman was collecting this day were crucial to its survival.

One of the main reasons this particular orchid survived was because the enormous bog it was growing in was pig-proof. No lie. Hawaii's wild pigs are like living rototillers; one of the only effective defenses against them is some very serious fencing.

The next day, Perlman shipped this vial of seed pods to orchid specialist Larry Zettler, professor of biology at Illinois College. (Think: Larry, Larry, he's our man, if he can't do it, NO ONE CAN).

And now, through the magic of radio, you can Be There! when he gets the package.

About six weeks after receiving the little guys, Zettler e-mailed Perlman with good news, saying, "in a nutshell, this has not been an easy orchid to work with, but I am much more optimistic." I wrote to Zettler just the other day. Here's his response:

Hi Ketzel. We sowed the seeds that Steve sent us and they are in incubation. At last check, the embryos appeared OK. Platanthera species in general take considerable time in vitro, especially without fungi, but I'm becoming more convinced that this should be our option with this extremely fastidious species ... I find it ironic that my research with fungi may be taking a back seat with this species in favor of the asymbiotic technique which I had little faith in for the terrestrials. But that's how science sometimes works.

In other words, after intensive work growing terrestrial (ground) orchids in different fungi typically associated with the plant in the wild, Zettler's coming to the conclusion that he might have better luck not using any fungi at all. His findings seem to be consistent with a recent breakthrough in orchid growing at the Atlanta Botanical Garden (beware annoying little "chirps" at this site!).

So will the little green orchid that could ever grown on Kaua'i again? Chances are pretty damn good, given that there's not a more delicious spot in the world to set down roots if your idea of a very good time is relentless wet, muck and rain.

3:15 PM ET | 12-31-2007 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

 

Let Them Eat Leaves

The local "organigrocery" was stuffed this day before Tgiving, people cramming their baskets as if preparing for a famine. And every one of us was blissfully distracted from the true famine in our own backyards.

What's starving? Wildlife. Are you growing native oaks and cherries for your saddleback capterpillars? Black-eyed Susans for your pearl crescent butterflies? What about white, yellow, or lodgepole pine for your imperial moths?

"Plants," writes Douglas W. Tallamy in his spanking new book, Bringing Nature Home, "are the fundamental source of energy for all terrestrial creatures" (my emphasis). And note this: "Insects transfer the most energy from plants to animals".

The punchline? If you want to sustain native wildlife -- whether butterflies, birds or mammals -- you best be making room for more native plants.

OK, so it's not exactly breaking news. But if you've always thought planting natives was simply p.c., "a peripheral option favored by vegetarians and erstwhile hippies," (hey, I resemble that remark), the honeymoon's over. The stakes are the biodiversity of the world.

Many of us tend to think that the problem with non-native plants is that they may become invasive. And of course some do. But Tallamy gentles us into a different awareness.

It seems that many American herbivores -- e.g., caterpillars, katydids and beetles -- simply cannot eat the exotic plants we adore. Hence, the famine: starve the bugs, starve the birds, starve the predators (and I ain't talking about cats).

Here's a brief excerpt from this very readable and morally even-handed book:

The predictions of mass extinction (note: he's speaking of all our wildlife) are based on the assumption that the vast majority of plants and animals cannot coexist with humans in the same place at the same time. Nonsense! Evidence suggests that the opposite is true: most species could live quite nicely with humans if their most basic ecological needs were met.

I found this passage particularly compelling as an argument against my own kind of shape and leaf-centric garden:

For the past century we have created our gardens with one thing in mind: aesthetics. We have selected plants for landscaping based only on their beauty and their fit within our artistic designs. Yet if we designed our buildings the way we design our gardens, with only aesthetics in mind, they would fall down. Just as buildings need support structures...to hold the graceful arches and beautiful lines of fine architecture in place, our gardens need native plants to support a diverse and balanced food web essential to all sustainable ecosystems.

I've no doubt many of you have been gardening with natives for decades, but I would love to hear from folks who are creating change/seeing change in unexpected places. Louisville, anyone?

2:40 PM ET | 11-21-2007 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

 

Tales from the Woods. Yours.

Man what a week we're wrapping up here at TP. So many new folks, so many smart folks and damn if you aren't an opinionated lot. Loggers, mill owners, non-profiteers, academics. Hortheads, spider freaks, xeriscapists.

My kinda folk.

First, a little housekeeping. If you've nothing more to say on the matter than Yes or No, I'd love to get your feedback on whether you've been posting because you heard the Sugar Maple story.

OK, now YOU...

Bill on the VA. woods:

a nearby crossroads...totally rural farmland of split rail fences and fields of straw and its thick summer air filled with setting sun softly illuminating barn swallows after darting dragonflies, mayflies, Lady Bugs, buzzing bumblebees and all their companions

Nice, huh? That crossroads is now called Tysons Corner.

Laura on a wooded refuge in Iowa:

Eden Valley. In the middle of the beautiful Iowa fields and prairie is this place that if filled with limestone bluffs and forests. I love to go at least once a week and escape.

Bruce on growing up around chestnut trees:

I can't tell you how many times over the years we had to have burrs dug out of our feet. Those things *HURT* a great deal. We'd go out and collect the chestnuts, pierce them and roast them. Good eats.

Mike on other painful chestnut memories:

About 30+ years ago a neighborhood friend and I were sitting on the edge of our driveway eating raw chestnuts that we had gathered from breaking limbs out of my fathers tree. Everything was going fine till my father walked up...

Rob on clearcutting:

A "clear cut" type harvest is a closer mimick of natural disturbance, and actually are rarely found anymore-modern sustainable forestry usually uses shelterwood cuts with seed trees left for regeneration (a "heavy thin").

Jason on clearcutting:

The notion that a clear cut is mimicking nature doesn't make sense. In nature...the trees are never removed from the site, but stay there as part of the ecosystem, supporting ecosystem recovery to a more natural state.

Matt on clearcutting:

...just as widely used now as they ever have been. The difference is that now foresters generally utilize an "AMZ" or aesthetic management zone to shield public eyes from viewing the harvest.

And Jim, who lives by the saw:

I work as a logger in the mid-coast area of Maine. I sold the skidder and use horses now. Each cut is different...I particularly like the fact that here folks can speak to their issues and perceptions. We can all learn from each other.

12:02 PM ET | 11- 5-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

A Good Lumberman Is Not an Oxymoron

I got thinking about good lumbermen after a comment posted yesterday by TP community member, Rob Spence. It was in response to my post about the felling of big trees.

Who is to say that (even) sustainable forestry does not include the taking of some large diameter timber? Big trees grow back too, they just take longer, maybe longer than we personally will be alive.

I know someone who undoubtedly signs execution orders for big trees. And much to my (naieve) amazement, he is a fierce environmentalist and a devoted steward of the forest.

And a lovely guy.

You might have met him briefly if you heard this week's Sugar Maple story on Morning Edition. His name is Jamey French. And we could probably get him to swing by the TP blog if anyone has any thoughtful questions for him.

6:24 PM ET | 11- 1-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

 

The Mighty Have Fallen

What mighty have fallen? Well, if we're talking about the building of America on the backs of the American forest, just about all of them. But if the subject's sudden catastrophe, I think of two species: the American Elm and the American Chestnut.

I want to talk about the chestnut, because it was very much on my mind as I visited the forests of Vermont and New Hampshire, places once stuffed with these towering and beneficent trees.

(Before I go any further, if you're already hooked on the topic, you should know about the just-released book, Mighty Giants: An American Chestnut Anthology, a project celebrating the 25th anniversary of American Chestnut Foundation.)

If you're new to this story, let's cut to the chase: within 50 years of the arrival of an Asian fungus we now call chestnut blight in the late 1800's, an estimated FOUR BILLION TREES were LOST. We're talking GONE.

You could just see the trees dying. You could see them changing from time to time. One would die; the leaves would turn brown and fall off in the middle of the summer ... people couldn't believe it. They thought they'd come back.

One of the eye-witnesses account from Mighty Giants. This is from a NYTimes account, summer 1911:

Chestnut Trees Face Destruction -- Trees Worth Millions Dying in This State from a Canker for Which There Is No Remedy. Eats Beneath The Bark -- Sprays and Other Attempts to Check Spread of the Paraside Unsuccessful -- Trees in Botanical Park Doomed.

Nothing new under the sun. Not with what worries us today. But optimism abounds about the future of the chestnut and our ability to undo damage (could it be?) from very un-Pollyanna-like people like Bill McKibben, who wrote the short introduction to this softback book.

... the story of the chestnut echoes like a fable -- a fable about carelessness, and about the hard work and hard love needed to make up for that carelessness. A fable we need to start telling more and more, for the hope it gives and the lesson it provides.

OK, so it's a little Pollyanna-ish but the point's this: people have been and continue to be devoted to the return of the chestnut. And who's to argue with their vision, their certainty, that the job can be done.

American Chestnut memories, anyone? Bring 'em on...

Frank Meyer, "intrepid and tireless plant explorer" for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tracked the source of the chestnut blight back to China in 1913. (His pix alone is reason enough to see this book.)

2:00 PM ET | 10-31-2007 | permalink | comments (14) | e-mail post

 

Talking Forest

So let's talk about the forest.

Forgive my earnesty, but I'm increasingly aware that outside of my loved ones, there's nothing more important to me than the forest. Admittedly, not a particularly striking revelation coming from someone who loves plants. But I wasn't like this till I moved to Oregon, and now wherever I travel, I seek out the region's deepest woods.

The forest works for me because I need the relative silence of the woods to shut me up, shut me down, help me connect to what I think matters (that is, the forest itself). That's why I prefer hiking alone unless I'm with an equally willing silent partner (the dogs do nicely). I need the girth of trunks and the filtered atmosphere to see exactly what's in front of me -- which then makes it possible to tune everything else out.

What wild places keeps you sustained, sane, balanced? And what are you doing to help protect them?

This is a genuine question; no imperious tone here. I'm just curious what organizations you support, how you support them (money counts, most assuredly), plus what recommendations you have for others who want to give back to the plants, trees, forests -- but don't know where to start.

Boy I'm boring when I'm earnest...

7:32 PM ET | 10-29-2007 | permalink | comments (14) | e-mail post

 

Shout-Out for the Sugar Maple

Out of my own harrowing frustration trying to boil down a complex and nuanced story, today's Morning Edition feature now spills onto the page.

The saga features that incomparable big-headed beauty Acer saccharum -- also known as the fiery Ms. Sugar Maple -- and her possibly fatal choice of a landlord -- often high-on-octane and always unpredictable -- the notorious Climate Change.

A quick count of the supporting cast, all stars in their own right, include Ecology, Entymology, Sustainable Foresty, and those three evil stoogies, Forest Fragmentation, Greedy Development and All-Terrain Terror. Plus the one player absolutely everybody's sweet on, Maple Syrup.

Without her, no one would bother seeing the show.

Can you imagine the trouble I had handling this cast, trying to keep one from overshadowing all the others?

Frankly, the whole story's a bit out of control. Imagine trying to predict the ending! Will Man save Ms. Maple? Will Climate Change conquer them both? And even if you don't like the way it's headed -- with Ms. Maple's friends the cold-loving Conifers getting the heave-ho first -- tell me this:

Do you think there's still time to change the ending?

4:56 PM ET | 10-28-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

 

As the Santa Ana Winds Blow

Here's a few insights about the current fire that speak to our concerns and questions about our relationship with the natural world.

NPR's John Nielsen on the ways of these winds:

When the winds are moderate, they blow air pollution out to sea and make life in Southern California more pleasant. But last week, after a gigantic mass of air formed over the high plateaus, the Santa Ana winds turned into monsters.

California Nurseryman Trey Pitsenberger on certain futility:

We can prepare and plant fire resistant plantings, build our homes of more fire resistant materials, and change our neighborhoods design to better resist fire but when the Santa Annas start blowing, look out!

The L.A. Times on our continued uneasy relationship with beauty:

Brush thrives on occasional disaster. Old undergrowth chokes out new life; fires clear the ground and fertilize and freshen the soil. We know that even as we fight the flames and grieve over their aftermath. Southern Californians have chosen to live where wildness is still a visible, occasionally destructive and often awe-inspiring force.

Please enlighten us with your thoughts about why we continue to be surprised by such catastrophe, and what us run-of-the-mill passionate environmentalists can do.

11:00 AM ET | 10-24-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

 

Greetings from Stump Town

I was heading for the chiropractor's yesterday and had to merge onto I-5 heading south out of Portland. Usually, that merge is no problem, but in the lane to my right was a big old truck with a body that went on for miles.

I had to fade back to slip in behind it and so got a long, sad look at its cargo: naked creatures formerly known as trees. Not all that unusual a sight on this highway, but at least one in the bundle was a big tree. I mean a BIG tree.

My heart sank. Having just returned from the Northeast, where sustainable forestry is how families have stayed in business for generations, I was reminded of the clear cuts you still see in the NW.

Of course the big trees in New England vanished hundreds of years ago; it's a rare giant that goes to market. Which makes it all the more painful to see one rolling down a 21st century highway.

I was ashamed.

4:05 PM ET | 10-18-2007 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

 

A Boutonniere for Frankenstein

One of our more prolific friends from the Talking Plant Flickr party recently posted a photo that defied the dictum, Seeing Is Believing. It was, she said, an aster, but I couldn't believe my eyes.

In a follow-up e-mail, our friend Aleth wrote that her picture may have come out a bit bluer than the real thing, but at the time I didn't realize just how much bluer. So I starting a blogging tirade about genetic tinkering and plant colors that better suited M&M's.

Fortunately, before I posted it, I heard again from Aleth, whose follow-up pix of her new purchase showed the plant in its truer color. It was indeed an aster, the recently annointed Henry III, and not nearly as Frankenstein-like as I'd feared. I am so relieved she sent the follow-up pix before I made a total ass of myself and wrongly maligned Henry's parents, Yoder Brothers for unleashing a monster.

Still, I'm stumped. What happened to the aster and it's essential asteraceousness? Why is it posing as a marigold, or mum?

Right now, in fields and streams across the country (even in the Santa Fe neighborhood I write from, where asters are blooming amidst yellow chamisa, a.k.a. Chrysothamnus nauseosus!), asters are strutting their lean, lanky, and button-eyed blossoms. They are looking gooood.

SO...I'm throwing it out to you guys. How much genetic tinkering can you take?

11:13 AM ET | 10-12-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

 

The World According to Elspeth Bobbs

Introducing one of the country's most enchanting -- and disarming -- gardeners.

After a few hours in Elspeth Bobb's company, amidst so many accounts of the joys and bores in her garden ("Wretched catmint." You don't like it? "I'm not a cat!"), I keep coming back to something her husband once said to her who knows how many decades ago.

"If you weren't deaf, you'd be a menace!"

Indeed, this is a woman who likes to take things on and stir them up. And yes, she's pretty darn deaf.

Even if you listened to NPR's Morning Edition story today featuring Mrs. Bobbs, you'd know nothing of her hearing loss. Somehow, it just didn't seem relevant, given her penchant for turning adversity to advantage. But the fact is, she hasn't heard a human sentence for the last 49 years.

"I can hear birds now, and dogs barking, and people talking," she says, one year after having a cochlear implant, "but I can't hear what they say". Instead, she uses her high tech lip-reading skills for conversation, and draws from memory the colors and nuance of sound.

One of Mrs. Bobbs' greatest gifts as a gardener is her perspective: Aim high and enjoy whatever happens. It's a set-up of the cleverest kind; she simply cannot fail.

"Exactly, exactly!" she says. "I don't feel disappointed. For instance, this was all lawn," she says, pointing out a huge area now dominated by art installations, islands of plants and mulch. "After the drought in the 70's, the lawn was an absolute disaster. So we just covered it with plastic and put bark on top. Then I said, well we can't have this, so I thought up something that didn't need water and put in a labyrinth. I like to have a project."

Once the labyrinth was in -- an inviting construction made of wood and lined with fine gravel -- Mrs. Bobbs was persuaded to dabble in the altogether unfamiliar. She now has a vibrant and colorful undulating sculpture created by Santa Fe artist Hillary Riggs, in the shape of a logarithmic spiral.

"It's all done by mathematical principles," says Mrs. Bobbs. "It's all about patterns. I've had a lovely time with it ".

A quick word about Elspeth Bobb's water use: All her planting beds are under drip irrigation, and she draws from her own well. Several xeric experiments are underway at the garden; working with her gardener and her daughter, she's currently evaluating plants that need no water. Hands down winner to date? Sunflowers.

One last anecdote from my time with Elspeth Bobbs...

While I was taking her picture, she wondered if she should put on her favorite button. Something told me she didn't mean a nice old lady decorative broach. Before I left, she brought it out, a small round campaign-like button. It featured a large scissor cutting through the slogan, "If You Cut Off My Reproductive Choice, Can I Cut Off Yours?"

"I'm sorry to say," this 87-year old spitfire says anyway, "I'd prefer less people, and more gardens".

Check out the slideshow from Mrs. Bobb's garden, La Querencia, courtesy of Scott Varner at the Xeriscape Council of New Mexico.

3:00 AM ET | 09- 3-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

Lawnless Revolution Makes Headlines!

It's Labor Day Wkend and I'm blogging. So who needs a life when you've got a url?

Just wanted to give you Talking Plants loyalists kudos for helping me get a story on the air about xeriscaping. Hard to argue with the TP vox populi after you so clearly made the point that lawns are so 20th century and Strategic Gardening (a.k.a., water-wise, water-smart or dope-slap gardening) is here to stay.

Tune in Monday to NPR's Morning Edition and hear the report your comments inspired. Or catch it online if you intend to sleep in, as any sane laborer would.

And no, I'm not offended that my ground-breaking story's been buried on Labor Day morning. That's what mothers are for -- to listen, when no one else is around...

2:32 PM ET | 09- 1-2007 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

 

Colorado Grass Controversy Take Two

Rather than sending you on a hyperlink hunt, I'm going to recap a continuing blog saga.

Talking Plants reader Luanne Stehno lives in the Denver 'burb of Arvada. Several years ago, she entered a city-sponsored contest and won a xeriscape garden. This past summer, someone complained that Luanne's mass planting of blue grama grass was way too high.

And indeed it was, according to Arvada city code, which places a height limit of 12 inches on "grass and weeds". And 12 inches is typically as high as blue grama gets, according to the city that sanctioned its planting.

Unfortunately, two things happened.

For one, Arvada had a particularly wet growing season, resulting in exuberant grass growth.

For another, plants can't read.

Maria VanderKolk, assistant to the Arvada's city manager, sent Talking Plants a very thorough letter detailing Arvada's side of the story. We thank her for pointing out that Arvada "wholeheartedly supports lawns planted with drought-tolerant varieties," adding, "we also believe those lawns should be maintained."

Call me wild and crazy but this whole affair seems a brilliant opportunity for Arvada -- a city that prides itself on being named "Colorado Energy Champion" of 2006 -- to ditch its landscape code in favor of one that addresses a more 21st century aesthetic and resource awareness. Already, as Ms. VanderKolk points out, Arvada shows more flexibility than nearby Denver, whose tolerance for seas of Colorado's state grass stops at 6 inches.

No doubt changing city code will be an enormous hassle; I don't underestimate the effort. But I'll bet lots of Arvadians will step up to the challenge.

Just ask Luanne Stehno.

11:54 PM ET | 08-26-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

Take This Lawn And XERISCAPE!

Well, what a lively discussion we've been having about lawns in Arizona. I've had to beg for kindness, edit out four-letter words, interrupt with a little levity ... yes indeed, this one had legs.

So what did John Tynan and Rene Gutel do after the the City of Tempe popped 'em one on the nose?

They xeriscaped, what else ...

If you'd like to know how John and Rene went from scorched lawn to desert bloom, check out the family's blog.

And yes, folks, I heard you loud and clear: I'll pitch a story about xeriscaping to She Who Must Be Obeyed (aka, my editor) and see if we can't get one on the air.

11:27 AM ET | 08- 7-2007 | permalink | comments (27) | e-mail post

 

Take This Lawn and Kill It!

And now this, ripped from a private communique to Talking Plants:

John Tynan and his wife Rene live in Tempe, Ariz., where the operative word is "drought". Being of reasonably common sense, they know better than to waste precious resources on maintaining a grass lawn.

However ... their preferred choice of landscape -- let's call it Postmodern Parched -- has offended their lushly-lawned neighbors, who evidentally reported the Tynans to the Tempe Taste Police.

Let's examine the evidence. First, the Tynans' front yard, featured below, at first glance not a particularly offensive sight, but that's clearly in the eye of the beholder.

Now let's look at the offended neighbor's yard, where someone clearly knocks his or herself out to have a "perfect" (also in the eyes of the beholder) lawn.

I'll have an update soon on what John and Rene have done to maintain calm in Tempe. But theirs is not a new story. In fact, I was surprised these kinds of notices were still going out, particularly when no mess is apparent. So tell me: Has this happened to you?

10:17 AM ET | 08- 2-2007 | permalink | comments (86) | e-mail post

 

The Most Dangerous Plant At A Nursery Nearest You

Here's hoping this is not the first you're hearing about the dangers of the beautiful, bold-leaved Ricinus communis, otherwise known as the castor bean plant. Its name might not ring a bell but perhaps you've seen its foliage.

The problem is those spiky, Sputnuk-like seedpods, or more exactly, t