Oh, La La! : Homegrown Stories, Helpful Tips, and Garden Wisdom

[Oh, La La!] cover

“I am a storyteller.”

Ciscoe Morris is an expert gardener, eager to share his knowledge with those at all levels of gardening ability. But this self-assessment from the introduction of his new book is also very accurate. He grew up in a large family of storytellers and that skill came first. Later, gardening became the framework for his tales.

“Oh, La La!” is a fine collection of short essays, each no more than a few pages. You can open the book anywhere and immediately be engaged, no matter the topic. Later, you’ll realize how much you learned.

There are three main settings: his home garden, the Seattle University campus where he worked for many years, and the many locations from his travels. While the plants take center stage, the interactions of the gardener with other people and with animals – especially beloved dogs – are the memorable highlights.

I have several favorite stories. One of the longer chapters lays out the many – usually unsuccessful – ways to control moles, concluding, “if nothing else works, you can learn to live with moles.” Another lesson confirms my personal experience with the Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens var. glauca). It belongs in Colorado, safe from the spruce aphids that devastate this species in our mild, maritime climate.

Ciscoe promises this is not his last book. “I already have an idea for the next one. Oh, la la: I can’t wait to get started!” I can hardly wait to read it.

The Outdoor Classroom in Practice, Ages 3-7 : A Month-by-Month Guide to Forest School Provision

[The Outdoor Classroom in Practice, Ages 3-7] cover

How are we going to save the world? Focusing on forests is a step in the right direction. In education, the forest school has been defined in the UK Forest School Research Summary as “an inspirational process that offers children, young people and adults regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence through hands-on learning in a woodland environment.”

UK expert Karen Constable provides teachers with a wealth of ideas and experiences for outdoor learning by cycling through the year month by month. The Outdoor Classroom in Practice, Ages 3 – 7; A Month-By-Month Guide to Forest School Provision demonstrates how a forest school-style learning experience can be introduced and used in an everyday early childhood educational environment.

Although developed in the UK, the activities are meant to be adjusted to blend with existing curricular plans to fit the needs of children anywhere in the world. Entries cover managing the site, preparing resources, working with parents, and making evaluations. Risk assessment is an ongoing concern. Activities described in this book include muddy fun, looking for landmarks, creating camouflage, building fire safety, making a tabletop garden, staying dry on rainy days, and much more.

Fiddleheads Forest School in the Washington Park Arboretum is one of Seattle’s innovative outdoor preschools. Forest school programs help to build self-esteem, confidence, independence, and happy young people. Creating a love of the outdoors in real time in all weather in all seasons is best started early to last a lifetime.

Given our environmental concerns today, there is urgency to the purpose of this book. It will help to prepare children with a voice to act for preservation of our common environment. It’s our shared future, especially theirs.

Published in The Leaflet, Vol. 7 Issue 4, April 2020

Bulb

For pure opulence, nothing matches Anna Pavord’s “Bulb”, a compilation of the author’s favorites of primarily spring-flowering selections. Each is described with such heartfelt devotion that you know they must be good. She includes some newer varieties but the treasures are the older, time-tested names that just keep giving every year.

The photographs make this a book to drool over, including several two-page spreads. The text is practical, including observations such as the coloration and texture of the foliage and the ability of the flower to stand inclement weather. She has a keen eye for what goes well with each selection, including perennials, shrubs, and even trees.

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Summer 2020

Landmarks

[Landmarks] cover

In Landmarks Robert Macfarlane develops his conviction that fully knowing a landscape depends on knowing the many carefully specific words people have used to describe it. To this end he builds this book around types of land: mountains, woods, waterways, and more. Each chapter consists of a section on his encounter with an author who has written with verbal precision about one type, followed by a glossary of terms (usually not used in the first part of the chapter) gathered from multiple regions, dialects and languages of Britain and Ireland.

Chapter 10, titled “The Black Locust and the Silver Pine,” focuses on John Muir, a Scot who came to America. Macfarlane quotes from Muir’s works and notes his accomplishments, such as convincing Teddy Roosevelt to set aside Yosemite as a national park after the two men had camped there. “‘Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees,'” Muir had written, and Roosevelt listened.

Macfarlane writes with much felicity. Here he is on the bristlecone pine: “Muir loved the bristlecone pine for its extravagantly torqued and gnarled form, and for its extreme resilience to the adversities of gale, avalanche and flame that the mountains threw at it. He was a bristlecone pine himself in that respect, and though his words lay dormant for decades, they would eventually germinate and grow with astonishing consequence.”

The glossary for this chapter, titled “Woodlands,” has subcategories of “Branches, Leaves, Roots and Trunks,” “Fallen Wood and Cut Wood,” “Woods and Woodlands.” Entries give the word, a brief definition, and the source. For example, “celynnog – abounding in holly (place name element) – Welsh” or “chissom – first shoots of a newly cut coppice – Cotswolds.” Many terms have delicious sounds, though some mysterious for an American to pronounce. This glossary runs to ten pages, and like all the others in the book gives a dizzying array of specific terms, many already lost in popular usage or rapidly disappearing. We lose the way to connect closely to the land, Macfarlane believes, when we lose these words.

The pleasures of this book lie in Macfarlane’s poetic nature writing, in making or renewing acquaintance with other inspiring nature writers, and savoring all those words.

Published in Leaflet for Scholars, Vol. 7 Issue 3, March 2020.

The Ferns of Great Britain

One of the earliest fern books, ”The Ferns of Great Britain” (published in 1855), is better known for its illustrator John Edward Sowerby (1825-1870) rather than the botanist who wrote the text, Charles Johnson (1791-1880). While this was not typical, it is perhaps because Sowerby was also the publisher. There is no record of professional jealousy, as the pair produced several other books on wild flowers, poisonous plants, grasses, and useful plants found in Britain and Ireland.

The Sowerby family included four generations of noted illustrators from the late 1700s to the early 1900s. For this book, John Edward Sowerby created forty-nine, exquisite copperplate engravings and, in a bit of mid-19^th century marketing, sold the finished books in three versions. The images could be left uncolored for 6 shillings, be partially hand-colored for 14 shillings, or fully colored for 27 shillings, a range of about $42 to $189 in US dollars today. The Miller Library copy is partially colored, the best of both worlds as it shows both detail and beauty. Johnson’s text was also outstanding, describing Blechnum boreale (now B. spicant or Struthiopteris spicant), the deer fern as “a highly beautiful fern, well worthy of cultivation as an evergreen little liable to injury by frost, and, during the summer presenting an elegant contrast in its varied fronds.”

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Ferns of Great Britain and their Allies

The Victorian fern craze of the late 19^th century was noteworthy for its inclusiveness. All classes of English society were engaged, and participants included men, women, and children. One of the leading botanical authors and illustrators of the time was Anne Pratt (1806-1893) who because of a childhood illness was encouraged to pursue botanical illustration. That she did very well, publishing more than 20 books popularizing botany.

Her ”Ferns of Great Britain” (1^st edition 1855, the Miller Library has an undated edition from approximately 1871) was one of her major works and was later combined into a six-volume work that included flowering plants, grasses, and sedges. Her writing shows a clear understanding of the science of her subjects, but she also appreciated the pleasures for the amateur: “It is pleasant to see the rambler in the country searching through green lane or by dripping well for the feather fern.”

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

How to Know the Ferns

While the Victorian fern craze of late 19^th century Britain had less impact in North America, one noted author who recognized the need for a guide to the ferns of the northeastern United States was Frances Theodora Parsons (1861-1952), who wrote the field guide “How to Know the Ferns” (1899). Parsons was very active in New York City and State politics and active advocate for women’s suffrage. Her autobiography, written late in her long life, talked little of her botanical writing that included three other books. However, during her active botany period, before the death of her second husband in 1902, her books were very popular.

She recognized that “in England one finds books of all sizes and prices on the English ferns, while our beautiful American ferns are almost unknown, owing probably to the lack of attractive and inexpensive fern literature.” Unusual for the time, her books were both written and illustrated by women, the artists being her sister and a long-time friend. Parsons books were also noted for the covers of their bindings, designed by book cover artist Margaret Armstrong.

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Our Native Ferns

Edward Joseph Lowe (1825-1900) had the financial means to be an astronomer, a meteorologist, and an expert on ferns, the latter for him being “a matter of everyday life.” He wrote several very popular books in the last half of the 19^th century, during the “fern craze” that engulfed England at the time. In “Our Native Ferns” (1867-69), he focuses on many of the highly coveted mutations, including Athyrium filix-femina var. multifidum, which he describes as “a most beautiful, symmetrical, and graceful Fern, although a monstrosity.” This book was a catalogue to these many forms, which were the most desirable objects for fern collectors.

Lowe used a third technique for producing his images. Although his title pages lack credits, it is widely known that his images were from the printing company of Benjamin Fawcett (1808-1893) that used a centuries-old technique of wood blocks, but with a difference. Fawcett’s blocks were engraved in aged Turkish boxwood using the especially hard end grain, allowing for very fine lines and detail. For each color, a separate block was used that were carefully aligned and pressed on the page.

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

The British Ferns

William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865) was the first director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew in Britain, an institution that grew to prominence during his 24 years in that role. He was very interested in all plants and led some of the first plant explorations to isolated places in Europe, including Iceland. He was especially interested in non-flowering plants, with ferns as his favorite.

He wrote several books on ferns beginning in the 1830s, most with botanically detailed and precise descriptions spanning several volumes. In addition to his explorations, he had also had a large herbarium of preserved plant specimens from around the world, so his range was global in scope.

Recognizing the popular interest in ferns, he published for the more casual botanist and gardener “British Ferns” in 1861. He described his subjects as “general favourites with the lovers of Nature and of the horticulturist, in consequence of the extreme beauty and gracefulness of their forms.” Walter Hood Fitch (1817-1892), a protégé of Hooker’s, captured that beauty in hand-colored, lithograph images such as the Osmunda regalis or the “Osmund Royal fern.” Hooker translated “osmund” as meaning domestic peace in Saxon.

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

The Fern World

One of my favorite fern authors is Francis George Heath (1843-1913). A prolific writer, he was keen on popularizing ferns with a well-honed eye and wit. He wrote at least one book about ferns for children and in all his books, he encourages fern tourism. His favorite destination was his home shire of Devon, located in the west of England with long, wild coasts on both the English and Bristol Channels.

In “The Fern World” (1877), he explains his reasoning behind this push for seeking ferns in situ. “It is too frequently the custom of our botanical writers to describe with painstaking minuteness only the structure and peculiarities of the organs of plants—but tell us nothing of the life of the plants.” He was fond of pointing out contrasts, whether it be to distinguish between the rugged scenery of Devon and the “pretty, and quiet, and pastoral” look of Somerset directly to the east, or between a “Lady Fern” (Athyrium filix-faemina) and the “Male Fern” (Dryopteris filix-mas) included in the same plate. Of the former he comments, “Poets may fairly claim the right to describe the Lady Fern; for this beautiful plant is unquestionably the fairest and most delicately graceful of ferny forms, whether large or small.” He describes the “Male Fern” as so designated “on account of its remarkably erect and robust habit of growth.”

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin