Ancient Botany

People in classical Greece and Rome knew a lot about botany. As Hardy and Totelin explain, modern readers just need to adjust their understanding of botany to fit the lenses through which the ancients were looking.

This book plumbs the works of an amazing number of Greek and Roman authors for descriptions of and references to plants. Hardy and Totelin place this information in the social, economic and cultural context of the times the texts were written, using an impressive multidisciplinary approach.

Ancient Botany is organized into chapters on how ancient authors knew about plants (for instance, by reading previous authors, personal observations, and hearsay); how they understood the organization of the plant world; how they named and described plants; how they described a plant’s life cycle; and how they understood the connection between a plant and its location. Each chapter is clearly organized, well developed, and supported by copious attribution of sources.

Hardy and Totelin make clear throughout where there are problems with the sources. They note when a text uses an older text for its information, and where previous scholars have assigned a text to the wrong author.

They also note where ancient scholars warn readers about earlier authors’ incorrect information. In one example, Theophrastus, a major Greek source of plant information, notes that the idea that it is necessary to dig peonies at night to avoid being attacked by woodpeckers “seems ludicrous and far-fetched” (p. 45).

Ancient Botany includes brief discussion of modern controversies related to the study of botany. The text also includes many places where questions are still unanswered and more work needs to be done – helpful hints for Ph.D. candidates looking for dissertation topics.

Another helpful aspect of this book is how it connects ancient understanding to modern. For instance, some ancient texts include lichens and fungi in the plant world. Hardy and Totelin explain why modern science has removed them, partly because of our knowledge of chemistry the ancients did not have. The book makes a good case for the value of the ancients’ organization and description of plants, given the information available at the time.

For the ancients, plants were valued and described primarily for their practical value. These texts focus on the medical value of plants, their usefulness as food sources, and as sources of construction material and fuel. An example of this value is that the Romans were “fascinated (obsessed even)” (p. 134) by grafting to improve fruit production. Several authors use sexual analogy to describe the process, common anthropomorphizing in ancient writing about plants.

Of particular interest to ornamental gardeners, the section on Roman gardens describes serious competition among gardeners. The wealthy developed very elaborate gardens as symbols of their wealth and power. Pliny the Elder attacked these “useless” gardens because they produced no food and thus robbed the poor of the food that might have been grown there. Martial praised a farm for its focus on crops and animals. He wrote approvingly that it “Is not ordered with idle myrtle-groves,/Widowed plane trees, and clipped box-rows” (p. 165). Here he alludes to topiary art, reportedly perfected during the reign of Augustus Caesar.

Much intriguing detail can be mined from this book. It provides a convincing picture of how the Greeks and Romans understood the plant world. The reader can learn about what people knew then, where their knowledge differed from modern understanding, and where traces of that classical knowledge remain with us.

Published in the Leaflet for Scholars, April 2022, Volume 9, Issue 4.

Grow

Pacific Northwest horticulturist Riz Reyes worked with illustrator Sara Boccaccini Meadows for his debut children’s book, Grow, new this year from Magic Cat Publishing. This vibrant “family guide to plants and how to grow them” introduces the botanical relatives and superpowers of familiar plants and fungi. Each short section features a different familiar plant (including mint, daffodils, pineapple, carrots, tea, aloe, maple and eight more), with informative text and colorful images detailing the plant’s life cycle, its history with people, and a related hands-on project. This book is uniquely useful and completely enchanting!

Published in The Leaflet, Volume 9, Issue 4, April 2022

Orwell’s Roses

Orwell's Roses book cover

“In the spring of 1936, a writer planted roses.” Each of the seven sections of Rebecca Solnit’s new book starts with a version of this sentence. The writer, of course, is George Orwell. The book develops from his devotion to roses and particularly to the roses he planted in Hertfordshire in 1936.

In a 1946 essay, “A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray,” Orwell described planting “five fruit trees, seven roses and two gooseberry bushes, all for twelve and sixpence,” ten years earlier. Except for one tree and one rose bush, all were still flourishing.

A few years ago Solnit visited the garden and found the trees gone but some roses enthusiastically blooming. She became convinced that Orwell’s love of roses revealed an important aspect of his life, which is generally seen as pragmatic and focused on harsh realities. She describes this book as “a series of forays from one starting point” (p.15), that 1936 planting. It is beautifully written. Solnit could probably make a description of threading a needle delightful to read.

Each chapter details part of Orwell’s life and connects it to the roses and by extension, to pleasure gained from other flowers, trees, and nature in general. In a 1946 essay “Why I Write,” Orwell explained that he didn’t ever want to lose the affection and wonder he had felt for nature as a child. In an early novel, “The Clergyman’s Daughter,” Orwell creates a miserably unhappy title character, but she finds a moment of delight in a discovery of wild roses. Solnit writes that Orwell did not believe in permanent happiness but did very much believe in the possibility of moments of pure happiness – in his case often connected to roses.

The chapter “We Fight for Roses Too,” describes the origin of the suffragist motto “bread for all, and roses too” (p. 85). Surprisingly, it originated in a 1910 article in “The American Magazine” by Helen Todd. Todd heard a young woman say about a suffragist rally in southern Illinois, that the thing she liked best was that it was “about women votin’ so’s everyone would have bread and flowers too” (p.85). Todd later sent back a pillow marked with the words “’Bread for All and Roses Too.’” Solnit uses this motto as a lead-in to Orwell’s thinking – full of socialist pragmatism but seasoned with a sprinkling of floral pleasure.

Although I have chosen passages in the book that relate specifically to roses and nature, a majority of “Orwell’s Roses” deals with Orwell’s life and thinking. The chapter “Buttered Toast” describes Orwell’s experiences in the Spanish Civil War, but also notes that amid the squalor and rats he found beauty: “. . . if you searched the ditches you could find violets and a kind of wild hyacinth like a poor specimen of a bluebell’” (p. 103, from “Homage to Catalonia”).

Solnit writes that “The gardens of Orwell are sown with ideas and ideals and fenced around by class and ethnicity and nationality” (p.149), which Orwell acknowledged. She includes a brief history of roses coming from China to England and gives some of the many associations that have grown around the plant, including Elton John’s singing about Princess Diana as “England’s rose” (p. 176).

Shortly before he died in 1950, Orwell asked that roses be planted on his grave. When Solnit visited the site, they were still blooming.

Published in the Leaflet, March 2022, Volume 9, Issue 3.

Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates: Plants for a Lush, Water-Conscious Landscape

Gardeners are quick to discover that the Seattle area, and most of the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest, tend to be dry in the summer and wet in the winter, despite our collective rainy reputation. Many popular gardening books are from regions with reliable summer rains. The plant palette these books suggest don’t work here without lots of supplemental water.

For decades, the encyclopedic “Sunset Western Garden” books have provided local guidance, especially with their fine-tuned zones that not only consider the impact of winter cold, but also summer heat, rainfall patterns, and topography. While the last of these “Sunset” encyclopedias was published in 2012, these zones are now applied in a new book, “Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates” by Nora Harlow and Saxon Holt. The authors also provide the “California’s Water Use Classification of Landscape Species” (WUCOLS) ratings, a handy tool that is useful even in Washington for estimating the water needs of a specific plant.

Both authors are from northern California, but they have done their research on the needs of gardeners further north, making this book useful well into southwestern British Columbia. They recognize that “gardeners up and down the Pacific coast also share an upbeat conviction that the way we garden can make a difference.” This can be achieved in different ways, but a primary tenant is “to work with rather than fight the summer-dry climate.”

The heart of this book is an alphabetical listing of plants chosen not only from the authors’ knowledge, but also the recommendations of an impressive list of regional experts. To me, it feels a bit biased to northern California selections, but this is how the Sunset zones are handy. Knowing that around Seattle you are either in Sunset zone 5 (near the water) or 4 (nearer the foothills), you can make sure the plant will grow for you. The plant selection includes a mixture of trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, and ferns, many of them natives to the region.

The rich photographs by Holt make this book an especially enjoyable but these images are also well-crafted to give a clear sense of growth habits. Introductory essays and appendices further help with selection of plants, and how to address the special design considerations such as climate trends and the increasing dangers of wildfires. If you’re designing a new garden, or revamping an old, this is an excellent resource to consult.

Excerpted from the Spring 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Notes from the Garden: Creating a Pacific Northwest Sanctuary

Madeleine Wilde was the author of a gardening column in Seattle’s “Queen Anne & Magnolia News” that ran for over 20 years. Near the end of her life in 2018, she asked her publisher, Mike Dillon, to compile and edit those columns into a book. “Notes from the Garden” has recently been published, a treasure to be cherished by all local gardeners.

Wilde’s husband, David Streatfield, professor emeritus in Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, provides a forward that describes the structure and history of their shared garden. He notes the significant trees and garden places, but also portrays the emotional space their garden provided. It was a sanctuary. It was also a place of remembrances, including plantings that were gifts from her parents, memorials to beloved family cats, or evoke places enjoyed on their travels together. According to her husband, this was also where Wilde “contemplated the issues she wrote about. These ranged from philosophical musings to seemingly mundane garden management issues.”

These mundane issues are typically very practical advice. I learned that re-planting annual nasturtiums in the mid-summer as a way to eliminate an infestation of black aphids. To enjoy early spring ephemerals, bring them inside, washing off bulbs, roots, and all. This extends the life of the flowers with the added bonus the plant can be restored to the garden without harm, allowing the leaves to naturally mature. I noted that bulbs, especially those that are spring blooming, are a frequent component of these essays, with several columns providing guidance for the heady rush of shopping for the best selections before planting in the fall.

As I read Wilde’s articles, in my head I was responding to her ideas as I would with any friend who is also a keen gardener. Most often, this was agreement over shared experiences. Sometimes, I felt the need to disagree, but I might do that with any friend I trusted not to take offense. Throughout, it was a healthy dialog, very much alive and vibrant.

Spring is celebrated for its exuberance, but this is not always a good thing. “The brilliant dandelions appear to double in numbers and showiness every hour. The chickweed mats ooze across the terrain, while that perky pest, named shotweed, seems to be in fast-forward on its second go-round…All dedicated gardeners have their special choice of vigorous thugs to conquer. The ridiculous absurdity is that each year we think we can control all this extravagantly beautiful spring growth. I try to stay amused.”

Excerpted from the Spring 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Sustainable Food Gardens: Myths and Solutions

Robert Kourik has eight books in the Miller Library, the earliest from 1986. In all of these, he emphasizes the importance of adopting gardening practices that work with nature. He is especially interested in the root systems of plants and ways to maintain soil integrity while conserving water and nutrients. Based in Santa Rosa, California, at the southern edge of our region, his writing is easily transferable to Pacific Northwest gardeners.

In the years since his first book, he has continued to learn. His newest title, “Sustainable Food Gardens,” takes the reader on this educational journey. Many of his opinions have evolved in the last 35 years and some have completely changed. Kourik is a good teacher. He has conversational approach to his writing and is good at providing sources and reasons for his opinions, recognizing that some contradict traditional thinking.

At well over 400 pages with large outer dimensions, this is a hefty book. I think it is best treated as a reference resource, to read individual chapters as needed. Important concepts are sometimes repeated if relevant in multiple chapters. While some may be frustrated by this structure, I found it very useful. It is also important to know this does not have a dictionary of food plants. While there are recommended choices for certain situations, another book is likely required for choosing your food crops.

Kourik encourages the food gardener to be realistic about the scale and setting for their garden. What works on a large organic farm, might not be as effective on your small backyard plot or p-patch. Some sustainable planting practices are only intended for warmer climates. Be realistic, too, about the amount of maintenance a food garden requires and don’t over commit yourself.

One chapter is devoted to container gardening, recognizing this may be the only option for many urban gardeners. The intricacies of drip water systems are thoroughly presented, as are the many other concerns of soil choices, fertilizing, and plants that are best suited for this growing environment. But Kourik recognizes that the simplest approach is often the best. “The quick-and-dirtiest way to grow plants like tomatoes on a deck or driveway is to buy a sack of potting soil or compost, lay if flat on its widest side, slit it open, and plant it with tomato or pepper seedlings.”

Excerpted from the Spring 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

The Ultimate Guide to Urban Farming: Sustainable Living in your Home, Community, and Business

Typically, I don’t like books that claim to be the “ultimate” in the title as they usually disappoint. I brought this bias to a book from 2016 (but new to the Miller Library) titled “The Ultimate Guide to Urban Farming” by Victoria, British Columbia author Nicole Faires. I can’t claim expertise on urban farming and its many aspects, but I was very impressed by the thoroughness of this manual on the topic.

It’s important to first know the scope. This is not about edible landscaping or urban homesteading, the latter a term the author describes as “dabbling in a wide variety of self-reliant skills to raise food and make things for their own family like knitting, canning, and beekeeping.” By contrast, the goal of an urban farmer is “intensive food production near or in a city” with the intent of selling most of that food to others.

The author used the city of Havana, Cuba as a model. Forced to become self-sufficient without reliance on petroleum products following the end of the Soviet Union, this city of 2 million gradually developed a localized food system that she encourages Canadian and American cities to embrace. Faires also recognizes that “farms” come in all sizes, suggesting that balconies and window boxes, even indoor light gardens have the potential to be productive income sources.

After these preliminaries, the rest of “Urban Farming” is a systematic and meticulous review of the many, many crops one can consider, including those that might be used for purposes other than food. Besides the expected guidance on planting and growing, this includes the intricacies of harvest, storage, and selling your products. Raising a wide-ranging variety of animals for profit, including fish and shellfish, is also explored.

Excerpted from the Spring 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Vegetable by Vegetable: A Guide for Gardening Near the Salish Sea

Marko Colby and Hanako Myers are organic gardeners in Quilcene, Washington, growing both vegetables to sell in markets and vegetable starts for home gardeners. From their experiences answering the questions of their seedling buyers, they have put together a small (83 pages) but very useful book titled “Vegetable by Vegetable: A Guide for Gardening Near the Salish Sea.”

The sub-title recognizes the similarity of climates over a wide range of coastal British Columbia and Washington. As an example, they note how the growing season around Puget Sound is more comparable to northern Vancouver Island than to much closer areas just east of the Cascade Mountains.

The advice is very direct and encouraging. For tomatoes, “few varieties have complete resistance to fungal disease and some amount of disease is normal (Try not to worry too much!).” I recommend you give this user-friendly little book a try.

Excerpted from the Spring 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

A Beautiful Obsession

I was fortunate to hear Jimi Blake speak at the virtual annual meeting of the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon in November 2021. He radiates enthusiasm for garden plants of all kinds, especially ones newly available to keen gardeners, expressed in a lovely, Irish lilt.

Much of that energy, if not the lilt, is captured in a new book, “A Beautiful Obsession” written with Noel Kingsbury and focused on Blake’s Hunting Brook Garden near the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin. This is not one of the Irish gardens with a favored, western exposure to the Gulf Stream. Instead, it is at a thousand feet elevation with acidic clay, making its limits for plant hardiness similar to many Seattle area gardens.

This is a very personal space. One of his garden areas is named in memory of a former partner. Another after a long-lived canine companion.

Blake’s story is compelling. The youngest child of a large family growing up on a farm, he learned gardening at an early age, greatly influenced by his mother and older siblings. After formal training and a long apprenticeship at an estate farm, he took over a portion of the family property to create Hunting Brook.

From the beginning this was intended as teaching garden. A classroom was built into the new house and courses are taught almost year-round. Teaching about gardening, providing space for retreats, including young people in recovery from drug and alcohol problems in Dublin.

It is also a very kinetic space, as Blake is frequently swapping out old plants for new, and bringing tender plants out of protection every May, only to be returned in October.

Kingsbury acts as the observer as they walk together through the garden, often quoting Blake’s comments about the plants, why they were chosen, which ones may soon be removed. It is not as polished as many books about a collector’s garden, but I liked that informal quality, making reading as much fun as admiring the vivid photographs.

Readers of “Gardens Illustrated” magazine have appreciated Blake’s seasonal selection of plants over 2021. A plant directory in the book provides a similar sampling of his personal style. For example Red Tussock Grass (Chionochloa rubra), native to New Zealand: “I know I use the word ‘favourite’ a lot, but this is my favourite grass. I was delighted to find hillsides of it in New Zealand with sheep grazing through it.”

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2022

The Book of Difficult Fruit

Book of Difficult Fruit cover

Fruit might be considered difficult because it’s hard to grow, arduous to prepare, almost impossible to buy or else fraught with emotional associations.

Kate Lebo’s talent lies in weaving her personal fascination with the various fruits — and a couple of non-fruits such as wheat and sugarcane — with her efforts to use it in some way. Every chapter has at least one recipe. I’m most tempted to try making huckleberry pie, juniper bitters, pickled rhubarb, and whipped vanilla body cream. She explores historical uses, native habitat and growing requirements. However, the entries are not encyclopedic. Instead, each entry is also an opportunity to remember and reflect on her personal relationships, her own and others’ health challenges and the foods used to manage those challenges.

While preparing for her grandfather’s funeral she discovers an elderberry shrub covered in fruit in her parents’ backyard. She also discovers a missing set of aunts. She includes a recipe for elderflower cordial and throughout the book the mystery of the missing aunts reveals a confounding secret in her own family.

In the chapter on dandelions, filed under F for “faceclock,” an old common name, we learn a little about folklore and childhood rituals of blowing seeds off the puffy seedheads. We also learn how Lebo would weed her dandelion-choked lawn when depression prevented her from doing anything else. The recipe for faceclock greens, fennel sausage and barley soup is recommended for early spring preparation and sounds delicious.

Nothing makes a librarian happier than to help a patron find answers to questions within the books we’ve spent years curating. Even better is when that Spokane, Washington based patron writes a book filled with those answers and recalls the hours she spent researching in the Miller Library (in the chapter on juniper berries). Kate Lebo’s book of essays is compelling, sometimes humorous, and always insightful.

Published in the Leaflet, Volume 8, Issue 12, December 2021