To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest

For several of her teenage years in Ireland, Diana Beresford-Kroeger lived in fear of being sent by the government to one of the infamous Magdalene Laundries, where orphans like her and unwed mothers suffered abuse and maltreatment. Her second parent died when she was thirteen, and at first it seemed no one would care for her. Then Uncle Pat relented, leading to wonderful summers in the Irish countryside.

Numerous aged women there chose her as a vessel to receive beliefs, stories, and especially ways of healing, that went back to the Druids. Much of this knowledge had been hidden from the ruling British during what the author calls the penal period. In the process, Beresford-Kroeger learned to affirm herself after her traumatic childhood, and to love and honor nature, especially trees.

Beresford-Kroeger writes winningly about this period of her life. Especially given that her parents had not paid much attention to her when they were alive, she makes clear how much these women were responsible for enabling her to develop into the respected scientist and author she became.

After college in Ireland, Beresford-Kroeger came first to the U.S. for a few years, and then settled in Canada. There she completed at Ph.D. but opted out of an academic career after experiencing much discrimination because she was a woman. Instead, she found success as an independent scholar, though she says she fears the word “success” as associated with greed.

The first 186 pages of this 284-page book tell the above story. It brings together her own amazing history, her botanist’s outlook, and the often mystical understanding of the Druids. The final section is a Celtic alphabet of trees. The Celts assigned trees’ names to each letter of their Ogham alphabet. For example, the letter H was called “Huath,” and the tree is the hawthorn. A drawing of each letter is included, plus a description of the letter:” H is designated as a vertical line met by a single horizontal line to the left” (p. 227).

Along with each letter, Beresford-Kroeger gives information about the tree, the healing properties assigned to it by the Celts, and often, how modern scientists have discovered its medicinal value – sometimes the same as the Celts’, sometimes different. The ancients used extracts from hawthorns for “unspecified weakness.” Today medicines developed from that tree are used for hypertension associated with various heart problems.

Two of Beresford-Kroeger’s previous books – Arboretum America and The Global Forest – are also available at the Miller Library. This one adds background and context to them. About a year after her parents died, she remembers standing outside one of those Magdalene Laundries and smelling fear. This book shows how she channeled that fear into a powerful advocacy.

Published in the Leaflet, June 2022, Volume 9, Issue 6.

The Garden Diary of Doctor Darwin, 1838-1865: A Garden History

This handsome book presents for the reader the garden diary of Dr. Robert Darwin, father of the famous Charles. Subtitled “A Garden History,” it brings to life the garden Charles knew as a child. As such it has some interest in how the garden might have related to Charles’s thinking about evolution and how he occasionally used the garden for plant experiments. Its primary interest, though, is as a description of a very impressive mid-19th century garden.

Susan Campbell divides the book into three parts, the first intended for garden enthusiasts, the second for “keen garden enthusiasts,” and the third for “even more serious garden enthusiasts.” Part One is the history of the garden; Part Two contains entries from the diary itself; and Part Three catalogues all the plants mentioned in the diary. As a member of only her first reader category, I can testify that all three are worthy of attention.

In 1796 Robert Darwin purchased the property near Shrewsbury that would officially become The Mount House and the site of the garden. He had recently married Susannah Wedgwood of the famous pottery family, and her money undoubtedly underwrote the purchase, though he had a thriving medical practice. On a cliff overlooking the Severn River, the site had previously been a “rubbish tip.” Given the Miller Library’s similar history of construction on a garbage dump, readers may feel connected. The garden, about seven acres when completed, included a large kitchen garden and a flower garden. A greenhouse was attached to the residence.

Charles Darwin’s recorded experiences with the garden begin with his father asking him, at age 10, to count the flowers on the peony plants (160 in 1810). While he was on his famous voyage on the “Beagle,” letters from his sisters provide much information on the garden development, and one from Charles reports he would love to be back in the gardens “’like a Ghost amongst you’” (p. 38). The Diary itself begins on September 1, 1838 and ends in 1866. It includes several references to experiments with plants requested by Charles, who was living in London, with no garden. In January 1939, for instance, Dr. Darwin records sowing Mimosa sensitiva in the family hothouse for his son.

Part One of “Dr. Darwin’s Diary” also includes descriptions of the various gardens and background on the Darwin family in Shrewsbury. Campbell turned up lots of intriguing information for this book. One example: Dr. Darwin weighed 24 stone later in life. A stone is 14 pounds! He had to be wedged into the carriage that took him on his medical rounds. He clearly was not “cleaning” the garden himself. (They didn’t call it weeding.)

Part Two, “An Almanac of Work done in the Garden,” lists items by months through the year, under categories like “Work Under Glass (Indoors),” and “Walks and Lawns.” Extracts from multiple years are presented under each category. Specific dates are not always included, but for November, in the “Fields” category, Campbell notes that “The haystack is cut for the first time” appears in the diary in 1842,1844, and 1852.

This section of the book provides a wonderful, detailed description of the work in the garden and the rhythm of the seasons. Campbell connects entries to various events in the garden and elsewhere. When the diary notes that asparagus and globe artichokes are cut down and covered in cedar boughs, she explains that the boughs “undoubtedly” came from a cedar tree blown down the previous winter (p. 164).

Rarely “Special Events” are included. A Thanksgiving Day decreed by Queen Victoria for November 11, 1849, comes with Campbell’s explanation that it marked the end of a cholera epidemic. Most entries record the routine activities of planting, tending, harvesting, and maintaining the garden.

Part Three – “A Catalogue of Plants named in the Diary” – divides the plants into five categories. Roses have one of their own; three are organized by their location in the garden, e.g., the Green House; and a final catch-all category of flowers and shrubs named elsewhere in the diary. Each entry uses the plant’s name and spelling found in the diary, and its location and source, if known. In a section on Citrus Trees, Campbell sometimes adds background information: The Shaddock tree is a native of China and Japan, for example, and the “sweet lemon” cut down in 1849, came from the doctor’s niece. Descriptions may also note how and where the plant was grown, such as the pineapple plant being potted and plunged into tar in the greenhouse.

In sum, The Garden Diary of Dr. Darwin provides not only a wealth of botanical information, but also a precise history of this particular garden and its connection to the Darwin family and to the social environment that supported it.

Published in the Leaflet, May 2022, Volume 9, Issue 5.

Me + Tree

Me + Tree (written by Alexandria Giardino, illustrated by Anna and Elena Balbusso) opens with an image of tight concentric circles. Turn the page to an urban scene with a tree stump, and it becomes clear those circles were tree rings, and immediately the sense of time and history (both arboreal and human) enters the story. The lives of a diverse range of people are intertwined with that of the tree, and their relationship with the tree evolves. Where once it was loved for its fruit and as a place to sit, court, and contemplate, its wood becomes useful for fuel and building, and all that remains is a stump.

The girl who is the “me” of the title is drawn to the stump in the bleak playground, and intuitively grasps the changes it has endured because it reflects what she and her family have experienced . As she draws her own stories on the stump, she depicts joyful times in a beautiful garden, but also the upheaval of fleeing and moving to an unfamiliar place where she feels alone. The sense of connection between girl and tree is mutual, and just as the tree sends up a sprout of new growth, the girl too begins to sense new possibilities of friendship and belonging.

Reviewed by Rebecca Alexander in the Leaflet for Scholars, May 2022, Volume 9, Issue 5.

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