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Elisabeth C. Miller Library

The Garden Jungle

[The Garden Jungle] cover

I have read many books on organic gardening over the years, but never one with a focus on invertebrates. With The Garden Jungle I credit author Dave Goulson for opening my heart to earwigs. Goulson is a British professor of biology, bumble bee expert, keen gardener and advocate for sustainable agriculture. I try to be tolerant of the herbivore insects such as aphids because they feed many species of birds and beneficial insects such as beetles and hover flies. However, I didn’t know earwigs were omnivores and would feast on aphids as well as on dahlia petals. According to Goulson, earwigs don’t seek out ears to sleep in, so we shouldn’t worry.

Each chapter starts delightfully with a short recipe for treats such as mulberry muffins or homesteading classics like sauerkraut, cider and goat cheese. The book maintains a positive tone as Goulson celebrates all the creatures we encounter in our gardens, while detailing highly destructive practices committed by the horticulture and agriculture industries. He makes the case that the most egregious practice to be avoided at all costs is spraying pesticides. Another destructive habit is including peat moss in potting soil both because it destroys peat bog habitat, and also because of the massive amount of sequestered carbon dioxide released upon harvest. For each decidedly Earth-unfriendly horticultural practice described Goulson instructs readers on alternatives to achieve the same outcomes.

Goulson weaves in insights from his research, background on natural history and stories of wildlife encounters in his Sussex garden to relate why we should cherish moths, worms, and even the parasitic cuckoo bee. All are members of the garden jungle ecosystem. Once gardeners tolerate or maybe even love the creatures in their gardens, Goulson is sure that the planet can be saved.

Published in the Leaflet, volume 8, issue 6, June 2021.

Iwígara

The earliest gardeners in North America were not European settlers but the peoples of the indigenous nations, especially in our region.  “All native peoples of the West Coast engaged in some form of complex and sophisticated ‘gardening’ of their homelands.”

This observation is by Enrique Salmón, the author of a new book on American Indian ethnobotanical traditions.   The book’s title tells part of the story.  “Iwígara” (i-WEE-jah-rah) is the concept that humans are no greater than other forms of life in the natural world, including both plants and animals.

Ethnobotany, the study of the use of plants by human cultures, is an important way to understand different civilizations.  Sadly, much of the existing literature can bog down in academic minutiae.  Not so with “Iwígara” and Salmón’s excellent story-telling!  This is a lively and thoroughly readable account of eighty plants significant to the indigenous nations of North America, told using delightful legends and the common practices that have bonded peoples and the plants of their local landscape.

Salmón is an accomplished scientist and an active collaborator with others in his field and he used that network to help determine the plants to include.  He also brings a more personal viewpoint.  As a member of the Rarámuri (rah-RAH-mer-ree) nation of northwestern Mexico, he learned the plant traditions from his mother, grandmother and other family members “who were living libraries of indigenous plant knowledge that has been collected, revised, and tested for millennia.”

An example is the entry on cedar.  “Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest tell a story about a good man who gave unceasingly to his community.”  After his death, “the Creator, so impressed with the life this man had led, decided that a great useful tree would grow from the man’s burial site.”  According to this legend, this was the first western red cedar (Thuja plicata).

Indeed, this is a useful tree to many regional cultures for buildings, canoes, tools, clothing, and medicines.  Throughout “Iwígara,” well-chosen photographs, both old and new, enhance the stories.  “Cedar” is highlighted by an impressive 1914 photograph of Kwakiutl cedar mask dancers.

 

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Summer 2021

 

Flora of Oregon, Volume 2: Dicots A-F

The second volume of “Flora of Oregon” continues the excellent work of volume 1, released in 2015, by focusing on the families of dicots from A to F.  The third and final volume, in preparation, will be about the remaining dicot families.

While the keys and botanical descriptions are the core of this work, like the previous volume there are some excellent additions.  An introductory essay discusses the many considerations and importance of native plant gardens.  An appendix provides a long list of native plants adaptable to gardens and their cultural needs.  Maps show the most suitable regions within Oregon for each species, and these recommendations could easily be extrapolated to Washington.

Another essay – “Insects as Plant Taxonomists” – deeply dives into the interrelations between plant families and insect families, and how they have evolved together.  The authors hope “to inspire curiosity and enlightenment about the many different insect activities that can be observed while outdoors.”  A final essay introduces the process for creating herbarium specimens and their importance to taxonomists.

 

Excerpted from the Spring 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Organic Materials Review Institute

“An international nonprofit organization that determines which input products are allowed for use in organic production and processing.” Site includes a searchable database of products and fertilizers and their permissibility in organic agriculture.

Ecoregional Planting Guides (for pollinators)

A collections of booklets that recommends the best plants for attracting pollinators such as bees, butterflies and birds to various eco-geographic regions of the United States, including the “Pacific lowland mixed province forest” (Oregon & Washington). The booklet also describes the pollinators likely to be found living in the regions as well as general information on encouraging pollinator populations. Published by the The Pollinator Partnership┢/North American Pollinator Protection Campaign.

Public Garden Search

An interactive map that locates public gardens in North America that are members of the American Public Garden Association.

Pacific Bulb Society

A site for bulb enthusiasts from all over, not just the Pacific coast. The site includes an active discussion forum and a “wiki” of information about bulbs, with a focus on documenting bulbs growing in natural habitats.

Fearless Gardening: Be Bold, Break the Rules, Grow What You Love

“Gardening is not a straight line.  There are many detours along the way, and thankfully, you never actually arrive at the finish.”  This is a motto of Loree Bohl, a Portland gardener and author of “Fearless Gardening.”

 

Bohl’s garden typifies this thinking with many, quite non-traditional plants for a Pacific Northwest garden.  She is not afraid to try new things and regards the failures as lessons to be learned, and perhaps to be tried again.  It might work this time!

 

Among her favorite plants are Agave, Yucca, and Opuntia.  She is another big advocate for using pots: on the ground, amongst the garden plantings, and hanging off walls or the rafters of a covered, outdoor seating area.

 

She credits her inspiration in part to two noteworthy and innovative West Coast, women gardeners of the past: Ruth Bancroft, who lived to be 109, and Ganna Walska, who lived to be 96.  Each crafted gardens very unlike their neighbors, starting at an age when many would be beyond new projects.  They are models of how the creative energy of gardening can lead to a long and happy life.

 

Bohl also profiles several Washington and Oregon gardens that have stretched the plant palette.  These include the McMenamins Anderson School garden in Bothell, the Point Defiance Zoo garden in Tacoma, and the Amazon Spheres in Seattle.

 

Her own garden is another fine example.  I was part of a tour led by the Northwest Horticultural Society in 2017 to Portland area gardens that included hers.  In an essay titled “Successful Gardeners Kill Plants and So Will You,” she describes how the day before we arrived, despite it being late July, a large, established Grevillea victoriae ‘Murray Queen’ suddenly died.  She was horrified, but what could she do.  For us visitors, committed gardeners all, it was an excellent lesson and opportunity to commiserate.

 

Excerpted from the Spring 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Oregon Big Tree & Shrub Measurements

The world champion Douglas-fir in height is found in Coos County, Oregon.  But what if your interest lies in smaller trees?  For example, the tallest vine maple (Acer circinatum) in the country is 46’ high and found in Clatsop County, Oregon.  This detail, along with many, many others can be found in “Oregon: Big Tree & Shrub Measurements” by Jack Black.

At first glance, this book may seem like a curiosity, one person’s obsession with finding, measuring, and photographing (typically with a convenient human standing nearby for scale) the largest and tallest of the Oregon flora.  However, the charts and especially the photographs gave me strong admiration of the diversity of woody plants in both wild and managed settings.

The roughly 200 species considered are almost evenly divided between natives and introduced species.  Short vignettes give the back story for some of the more remarkable examples.  Although Black compiled and published this book, his endnotes document the work of many individuals and organizations in finding, measuring, and recording these special trees.  It represents a real labor of love by all involved. A new, larger edition was published in 2021.

Excerpted from the Spring 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin