Garden Rant

The Total Rant Fantasy: A Vineyard In The Backyard

Two vines' worth of Niagaras from El's vineyard, plus unidentified pup

Here at Rant Headquarters, we think a nice glass of wine at the end of a long day of planting is a very fine thing indeed.  And if we're feeling really elegant, we might even take a shower before-hand.

We're all good with plants, so it's impossible to look deep into a glass of Zinfandel without musing, "Maybe I could make this stuff."  Of course, if it's been three glasses, not just one, the tone is more, "Hell, I know I could make this stuff."

So when we learned that El of Fast Grow The Weeds, one of our favorite correspondents, an architect, foodie, big reader and super-intrepid gardener, actually owns an old vineyard, we asked her to write a guest rant about her experience living our fantasy:

In the fall of 2004, we became farmers.

That is not an honest statement.  In October of 2004, we bought an old farmhouse in Michigan, and it had five of its original 38 acres still attached to it.  We were Minneapolitans at the time:  my husband and I wanted to move back to be closer to our respective Chicago/Detroit families after the birth of our daughter.  Secretly, though, I, as a frustrated zone 4A city gardener, just wished to be saved from Minnesota's short growing season.

Attached to this old farmhouse was a derelict fruit farm.  Almost all farms in the area are fruit farms of some variety or other; the region is known as the Fruit Belt , after all, so it should have come as no surprise to us that one of its five acres was a vineyard.  A vineyard!  How positively romantic, I thought: we shall stomp our own grapes, make our own wine.

There are five words in the English language that, strung together, have gotten me into immense trouble throughout my life.  These words are "How hard can that be?"

When Master Gardeners become Whistleblowers

Remember all the cheerful articles I wrote about becoming a D.C. Master Gardener? Well, the time to be coy about what's really going on is over.  Several of us, after trying to correct a really awful situation from within, have gone to the top.  We've written to the City Council, the Deputy Mayor for Education, and the acting president of the university.  The encouraging elements here are the new mayor and an evolving City Council who are focusing on the university, holding hearings, asking for input and apparently willing to see heads roll. So at the urging of a staffer at the Council, we've submitted testimony for their oversight hearings.  I've copied my testimony below the "Continue reading" at the end of this article.

I've gotta say it's weird, and not in a good way, for hands-in-dirt volunteer gardeners to find themselves in a role we basically hate - the whistleblower.  But because we're just volunteers we have nothing to lose - at least we don't THINK they can hurt us for speaking up. Funds for good urban projects are limited, dammit, and we're just trying to correct this total waste of taxpayer money.  Actually, it's worse than that because in this case city employees are working against their very own mission.

Now there's nothing left to be done, except wait to see if anybody gives a damn. 

Remember all the cheerful articles I wrote about becoming a D.C. Master Gardener? Well, the time to be coy about what's really going on is over.  Several of us, after trying to correct a really awful situation from within, have gone to the top.  We've written to the City Council, the Deputy Mayor for Education, and the acting president of the university.  The encouraging elements here are the new mayor and an evolving City Council who are focusing on the university, holding hearings, asking for input and apparently willing to see heads roll. So at the urging of a staffer at the Council, we've submitted testimony for their oversight hearings.  I've copied my testimony below the "Continue reading" at the end of this article.

I've gotta say it's weird, and not in a good way, for hands-in-dirt volunteer gardeners to find themselves in a role we basically hate - the whistleblower.  But because we're just volunteers we have nothing to lose - at least we don't THINK they can hurt us for speaking up. Funds for good urban projects are limited, dammit, and we're just trying to correct this total waste of taxpayer money.  Actually, it's worse than that because in this case city employees are working against their very own mission.

Now there's nothing left to be done, except wait to see if anybody gives a damn. 

Jury still out on real Christmas trees?

That's what this Washington Post article tells us, citing Treehugger as a source.  Even the owner of D.C.'s Eco-Green Living store is named as an advocate of the fake ones.  Hey, I know that guy - I'll send him Jade's guest post and try to bring him around.  Meanwhile, what do you folks think of the article?

All I Want for Christmas...

The truth is that I really don't want a damn thing for Christmas.  We all have too much stuff.  We buy too much stuff. We throw away too much stuff.  Most of it comes from somewhere else and is made by people who are unfathomably poor.  The big news story of the season is never about generosity or forgiveness;  it's all about whether the retailers are making enough money and whether we are charging enough on our credit cards to keep the whole crazy ship afloat.

Harumph.  There's always one person in a family who decides that they're just not doing Christmas anymore, but they never convince anyone to join their side.  They end up being the lone, weird, anti-Christmas spinster aunt who spikes the nog on Christmas morning and grins absently through the bonanza of ripping paper and squeals of delight from the children.  (Because it's really all about the children, right?)

So I'll probably never be that drunken spinster aunt. I'm already happily married, and besides, I just can't face a drink before lunch.  I do, however, try to look for small, meaningful, and even handmade gifts.  And in that spirit, I present my list of gift ideas for gardeners.  This list is not for you, because you are a gardener and you already know that the only thing you really want is a truckload of aged, earthworm-infested horse manure.  It's for your friends, your family, and the vast unwashed non-gardening masses out there shopping for us.  Think of it as a public service.  Chime in with your own ideas.

Good news, bad news

According to Editor and Publisher, Garden & Gun (which we’ve posted about before) has been voted the 2nd hottest new magazine launch of 2007 by the Media Industry Newsletter. Cited are its “enterprising concept” and “top editorial team.” I’m always thrilled when new magazines make it. I’m a magazine editor, after all—constantly taunted by my more rabid blogger/webdaily friends who claim that print periodicals just don't know they're dead. But having a magazine with garden in the title named a hot launch is even better. That’s the good news.

The bad? Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be a cool mag, but I could do without the gun part. (A free subscription might change my mind.)

Bloggers v. City of Buffalo in Landscape Architecture Magazine

Looks like nothing gets past the folks at Landscape Architecture Magazine. Their December issue includes  the story "Turf Wars: Landscape vs. Law" with the subheadline "Suburban spitfires battle ticky-tacky totalitarianism".  I love it!

Writer Linda McIntyre reports first on Project Laundry List and a clothesline battle in Oregon, then moves on to the Main Event (for us) - Jean Dickson's infamous battle to save the shrubs in her Buffalo front yard.  McIntyre traces the story to Elizabeth (our very own urban spitfire) and readers of GardenRant and others who e-mailed the mayor to defend Jean's viburnums and black-eyed Susans. Michele is quoted as reminding us that Jean "endured five or six visits from inspectors," so clearly there's still some of that spitfire energy smoldering even after he backed down.  And I opine about naturalistic front yards and my hope "that the public will become more educated about different styles of well-maintenance landscapes, especially the more environmentally responsible ones." 

Hmm.  I said it and probably will again someday but reading it just now reminds me that there's a fine line between stating a fact and sounding like one of those high-minded nags I steer clear of at parties.  I hope my friends will tell me gently before a full-scale intervention is needed.

Thanks, Linda, for reporting the story.  The cause is a good one - absolutely - but I bet our readers especially love the "Bloggers Buck City Hall and Win" element of the story.  High five, everybody!

In case you're new to GardenRant and don't know the story by heart, it starts here, and links to every exciting installment are provided at the end.

An amaryllis by any other price will grow as well

I’m not ashamed to say that I’m tempted to browse gift catalogs at this time of year, in spite of the waste of trees they represent. But outside of one or two vendors that cater to serious geeks and are reasonable, many of the “gifts for gardeners” offerings are overpriced and wasteful examples of their kind.

Among the strangest phenomena are the many amaryllis offerings. A reputable bulb company will sell you a single amaryllis (actually hippeastrum) bulb for anywhere from $5-10. However, if you choose instead to select a gift “presentation” complete with one bulb and a nursery pot from a certain holiday gift catalog, you will find yourself paying $27. Choose a ceramic cachepot and you’ll be paying $54. One bulb. The same one you paid $8 for, and we won’t discuss shipping.

As for forced bulbs, the sky’s the limit. It’s a wonderful idea to send someone something that will burst into flower after they have received it, but I would want to make sure they could replant the bulbs if they wanted to and that the gift would really look as it does in the catalog. I sent a lucky bamboo set to my mother-in-law once only to find the glass container was not included. She got two pieces of bamboo and maybe some stones. How impressive.

For a few years, I have been putting together my own bulb gifts and they’ve mostly been successful (except for some of the hyacinths the recipients insisted in keeping in hot, dry offices—they were a bit stunted). It’s fun and nothing needs to be shipped. Though, that’s the one thing I’d like to copy from our catalog friends: their shipping expertise. I’d like to send some ready-to-go hyacinths to out-of-town friends without squashing the emerging bud. Or, the heck with that—maybe I can get into this racket and convince people they need to pay $60 for my top-quality hyacinths in their special Victorian keepsake pots. Shipping not included!

By any means necessary! Kill all the bugs!

That’s the message of a hot new game offered by iwin.com, Garden Defense. Here’s the blurb:

Backyards across Lindencroft are under attack by merciless, flower-eating pests! Using your arsenal of trigger-happy lawn ornaments, protective plants, and battle-hardened bugs, help the Smiths to repel and defeat the enemy, one garden at a time.

It’s a fantasy warfare game where players advance from level to level, facing ever more formidable armies of flying and crawling insects. The bugs must be defeated using a series of goofy weapons, starting with the lawn ornaments, but moving on to gnomes armed with rocket launchers. It sounds kind of funny and I can see where it could be entertaining. (If you’re a gamester type. The user-reviews I’ve seen have been glowing, commending the game for its graphics, humor, and addictive power.)

And yet. I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but with a name that could as easily be on a bottle of pesticide by Ortho or Scotts (in fact, isn’t it?), this game seems to reinforce the notion that most bugs are there to be annihilated. That they are invasive aliens rather than partners and cohabitants in the natural scheme of things.

That said, there are two mitigating factors here. In view of all the other hideously violent video and online games, their protagonists often serial killers, terrorists, or mobsters, with explosions and dismemberments celebrated every few seconds, it does seem a bit quaint to get excited over a few bugs. I guess. And then, I haven’t been able to play the darn thing. There’s a free trial if you follow the clicky above, but it’s only for PC-users. Wah.

Somebody of the PC persuasion want to try this out for me? Got some time to waste? If so, let us know if the bug-lovers among us should be even more worried.

Now here's a way to save trees that might just work - CatalogChoice.org

I love this - a nonprofit that will get all those retailers to stop sending me their catalogs.  It's called Catalog Choice on here's a segment on Bill Moyers's Journal about it. 

What's the problem?

• There are 20 billion catalogs mailed every year in U.S., 63 for every citizen - adult, children and infants - and together they weigh 40 pounds, on average. 
• The rate of return is 1.2 to 1.5 percent, so at least 98 percent of all catalogs go right into the landfill because most of that stuff isn't recycled, and few catalogs are made from recycled paper in any event. 
  

But it isn't easy for regular consumers to get ourselves taken off the lists of recipients, so the Catalog Choice website is doing it for us, for free.   As the catalogs start coming in, just tear off the page with the address label on it and recycle the rest.  Then on the Catalog Choice site log in and list the catalogs you no longer want to receive.  Done.

And on a gardening note (back on topic, Susan!), included in the list of retailers who are partnering with Catalog Choice to use responsible direct mail practices, like Land's End and L.L. Bean, is good old Gardeners Supply!

Just in: USDA Fines Scotts the Max for Release of GM Turfgrass

Here's the link to the press release, and thanks to Mary Ann Whitman for alerting the Garden Writers Listserv.

Should Public Rose Gardens Showcase Toxic Perfection?

Let's pay a visit to the Folger Rose Garden, the visual centerpiece at the front of the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries Building in Washington, D.C., right on the Mall.  I decided to check it out because a friend who works nearby had told me "It's sprayed so much, it glows at night." 

It's a Victorian-style garden comprised mainly of hybrid tea roses, which, particularly in this hot and humid climate, require the regular spraying of fungicides and pesticides to perform as required. After all, they're here to do a job - to enhance the aesthetics of this wonderful building using historically compatible plants and style.  But a mere 9 years after it was created, to my eyes the garden is already an anachronism because we've turned a corner (finally) in the U.S., and toxic landscaping practices are no longer acceptable.

Here's another good photo, showing a larger view.

Next, I spoke with Shelley Gaskins, the horticultural curator in charge of making those gardens perform their job duties.  Very nice person.  She confirmed the regular schedule of spraying for these roses, even the 'Knockouts' now included in the collection, and the reason for it: in such a high-traffic area, it's not acceptable to let the plants defoliate (lose their leaves and look crappy).

So of course I asked the obvious question: Has any thought been given at the Smithsonian to switching to plants that don't need such a toxic diet, like the new easy-care roses?  The answer: People don't have the same emotional reaction to shrub roses as they do to hybrid teas, which we associate with our grandmothers.  In other words, the Smithsonian believes or maybe even knows that this is what tourists want.  I have to say I think that's probably true, but should tourists get what they want in this case?  How about transitioning to a garden that would showcase a different kind of beauty, one that not only looks more natural, but IS more natural.  Not to mention toxin-free.

I didn't say all that, I just asked the final question:  What would it take to get the decision-makers to plant something different?  Lobbying.  I should have guessed, this being Washington.

THE NATIONAL GARDEN'S TOXIN-FREE ROSES
Now just 3 blocks away is a very different kind of rose garden - an organic one.  It's a feature in the new National Garden, next door to the U.S. Botanic Garden.  Because most of the space is devoted to the sparse, ultra-native Regional Garden, which we hope will fill out and lose its sparseness in due time, the very formally-styled First Ladies Water Garden and  Rose Garden look a bit out of place here.  And the weird mix of styles probably reflects the various funding sources but hey, at least the roses don't get sprayed.  Margaret Atwell, the rosarian for this garden, tells me that unsuccessful plants ARE being ripped out.  That's the kind of tough love I give almost all of my plants. 

Both gardens - the National Garden's organic rose garden and the Smithsonian's stinky chemical garden - have plant labels, which is a good thing.  But if the chemically addicted roses are going to stay there, how about adding a sign telling the public the kind of care required for them to look so good?  At least educate.

GRANDMOTHER'S ROSES
Now can we please revisit the notion that our grandmothers grew hybrid teas?  I remember the Iowa garden of my own grandmother as a riotous mix of colorful plants that included roses of some kind, but what impressed me no end was the swarming mass of pollinators it attracted, especially hummingbirds. And the childhood memory that I DO have of hybrid tea roses is of a neighbor's large rose garden, which was always infested with Japanese beetles.  We kids loved grabbing them and dunking them in the many nearby insect traps.  Helping to protect this man's plants from insects was a mission we totally bought into.  So, is that the kind of old-fashioned gardening we still want to teach?

Credit for top photo. Others are mine.

Still planting bulbs? Go for it!

Word is coming in slowly from the edges of the late-fall-bulb-planting frontiers. A few weeks ago, I dared fellow gardeners to plant their tulips bulbs not only well past the recommended time, but also to throw them all in big holes. The heck with all that fussy spacing. And I added the incentive of sending them free bulbs with which to experiment (all gone, sorry).

One of the recipients, Peter Hoh, has reported in:

We had our first hard frost November 7. Already, the top inch of soil is pretty much frozen solid. 
I'll blame Elizabeth for leading me astray. She assured me that it was not too late, and she encouraged me to consider the Big Hole method of putting them in the ground. 
So here they are.

The pressure! And here’s Christopher C.:

When you are gardening in the wild it is pointless to try and win the battle with the varmints like voles, chipmunks and squirrels who find tulip bulbs to be tasty morsels. Even viewed as an inexpensive annual chances are good you will never see the tulips come spring.
These tulips were a gift so I had to make an effort. I planted them surrounded by what looked to be some left over deer netting.

Oh dear! I have faith in these bulbs though, and I am looking forward to seeing images of the results next spring. I must add that both these guys planted their bulbs WAY more tidily than I’ve ever done. Is it a gender thing? Or am I just a slob? Don’t answer that.

Images courtesy of Peter Hoh (first two) and Chris C. (final image)

Butterfly Tourism

The Associated Press reports on a new plan by the Mexican government to preserve the 124,000 acre "insect mecca" in central Mexico where Monarch butterflies congregate every year.  The basic plan is to stop logging and increase tourism to bring a little cash into this already impoverished area, which will only be more impoverished without the logging.

I am so up for a trip to Mexico to see the butterflies. Who's with me?  I used to live in a community that was a stopping-off point for monarchs (Santa Cruz, CA) and lemme tell ya, there is a way to do this sustainably. The sight of thousands and millions of monarchs in flight and at rest all around you is nothing short of miraculous.  Just give the tourists a few viewing platforms around the edges of the preserves and we'll be happy.

Fortunately, the LA Times tells you where to go and when. (Tip for the Mexican government: Before the AP breaks a big story about your plan for butterfly tourism, at least register mexicobutterflytourism-dot-com or some such thing.

The upscale way to do this trip is to stay at the Hotel Virrey de Mondoza in Morelia and sign up for their butterfly tour.

Dude.  Mexico in the winter.  Monarchs everywhere.  I'm outta here.

Who Are the People In Your Neighborhood?

University of Illinois biologist Jim Nardi really knows how to look through a compost pile. He's the author of a new book called Life in the Soil:  A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners, and he sent us this utterly cool image as his guest rant.  His explanation follows, but meanwhile, we've got a copy of Life in the Soil to give away.  Tell us about the most interesting thing you've ever found underground, bug or otherwise, and the book is yours.  And now we turn it over to Jim:

Garden soil and a backyard compost pile may not have the great diversity of soil creatures found on the forest floor of an old growth forest, but they still have all the major members of a healthy soil food web.   My friend Mark Sturges in Bandon, Oregon recently sent me a cup of compost from one of his bins, and we set about imaging the inhabitants of this compost. 

Quite a crew of organisms participates in decomposing the plant materials. Beetles such as the primitive carrion beetles (agyrtid beetles,f) and their larvae (g) along with several species of scarab (dung) beetles (i, j) help shred and mix the decaying matter. These beetles are assisted by mites (h) that live as stowaways on beetle bellies and under beetle wing covers.  These hitchhiking mites help their beetles compete with fly larvae for the coveted decaying matter; mites tag along to feed on eggs and young larva of flies such as those of soldier flies (k) and flies related to fruit flies (l). 

Countless bacteria (a), fungi, potworms [arrows in b point to small potworms, c shows larger potworms] and springtails (d) along with a few earthworms participate in converting compost to humus.  Protozoa (arrow in a) that feed on bacteria (and even some fungi such as the insect-eating Beauveria shown here (e) on the remains of an agyrtid beetle) represent the smallest predators of the compost. Nematodes (b) that feed on the bacteria, fungi, and protozoa represent larger predators. 

And in this bin, the rove beetles (m, n) with their sickle-shaped jaws are the largest predators. The food web of each compost and garden soil has its own unique mix of species.  Sizes of all organisms are indicated with scale bars [1000 µm = 1 mm].

[Update:  Oh yeah, here Jim's book, Life in the Soil.  Available whereever books are sold.]

Welcome, USA Weekend AND BoingBoing Readers!

UPDATE: A shout-out to BoingBoing for picking up Jim Nadi's post, above.  And....

Thanks to Fran Sorin for her GardenSmart piece on garden blogs in USA Weekend.  If this is your first time here, I'll share links to some of my all-time favorite posts.  Most of us check GardenRant first thing in the morning, when we're too bleary-eyed to get any real work done.  I hope that we become one of your favorite time-wasters at the office, too.  Feel free to post a comment (if you're new to this, just click the Comments link at the bottom of each post to read what everybody else is saying and join in) to let us know what you think.

OK, some favorites:

The Ministry of Controversy category includes some of our most outrageous and entertaining posts.

Unusually Clever People includes everything from gossip about celebrity gardeners to some of our most esteemed garden writers and designers.

I Don't Have a Garden, But I Watch One on TV is filled with crazy and not-so-crazy garden videos, critiques of HGTV, and more.

Our Hottest Rants of 2006 is a great round-up of the posts that got the most comments last year. Wonder what will make the list this year?

Who do we think we are?  All your burning questions are answered on the About Us page.

Check the lefthand sidebar for our manifesto, more categories of posts, and for links to some of our favorite garden bloggers, plant catalogs, and other horticultural resources.  Oh, and if you'd rather read GardenRant by email or in an RSS reader like Google Reader, see the links in the bottom right sidebar. And, just in time for the holidays, you can even browse our line of GardenRant swag. Enjoy!

Heroes of horticulture

Maybe you’ve already read in Garden Design about the 2007 Landslide winners. Since 2003, the Cultural Landscape Foundation has been selecting a roster of endangered cultural landscapes, calling for nominations that adhere to a specific theme. This year’s theme was Heroes of Horticulture: “significant horticultural features that have stood steadfast in the face of almost insurmountable natural and cultural odds”

This is an interesting program that I’d never heard of until now. I became aware because photography of these heroic cultivars is on view at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography in Rochester, NY, starting December 1. The show is up through March 2, after which it may travel. You can view all the heroes online at the link above, or you can see one or two of them in person—they’re distributed throughout the country.

I’m showing favoritism by spotlighting Buffalo resident John Pfahl’s shot of a rhododendron collection in a Meadville, PA cemetery that was planted over 100 years ago. There are 1,500 plants and some are 35 feet tall. (Meadville is also where you went to view blacked-out Bills’ games in the pre-satellite era, if you were that rabid.)

And here is Mark Klett’s photograph of a wild-growing Desert Ironwood (Olneya tesota), that has survived all kinds of natural and manmade vicissitudes and is now a treasured feature of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Here are a couple more of the heroes:
Tree Peony Collection, Pavilion, NY
This started out as a nursery in 1935; now it is an amazing collection that many of my friends have visted. I am hoping to finally see them this spring.
Bamboo Groves, Avery Island, Louisiana
Jungle Gardens was also started in 1935, and contains bamboo and other species from all over the world, some of the earliest introductions in the US. Tropical storms and lack of skilled maintenance contribute to the collection’s fragility.

There are many others, all beautifully photographed and each with a fascinating story. Many are not actually at risk right now, but they require care and stewardship to stay that way. Next year, the Landslide awards will go to “marvels of modernism,” so if there’s an a circa-fifties/sixties abstract/geometric park or playground near you that may be fated for the wrecking ball, contact TCLF by April 30.

Actually, I think I know of one, and it has been threatened. I’ll be posting on it soon.

Has it come to this? Artificial turf fields counting as open spaces

by Susan
"Is it still 'open space' if the grass on the ground is plastic?" asks a Washington Post writer.  Good question, because the State of Maryland is about to award at least $7 million in money for open spaces - intended to preserve and develop parkland - to cover 14 playing fields in fake turf.

Later on in the Post article, the state's decision starts to not look as bad as the headline, though, because we learn that the funds are typically divided between preservation of natural places and upgrading other types of parklands, like recreational areas.  And on playing fields, the fake stuff is far less resource-intensive to maintain, though the article left out any mention of its environmental advantages, or the fact that much of it is made from recycled rubber, not plastic.

But here's what the article does tell us: that the fake stuff doesn't do what real turfgrass does - produce oxygen, filter rainwater or cool the air.  So we learn, despite all the turfgrass-bashing we're reading these days, that real grass doesn't look all that bad compared to "plastic."  And remember that on playing fields - and that's what we're talking about here - we have to have it, real or fake, and the drain on our dwindling water supply from keeping the real stuff alive is HUGE. 

Now on a super-local note, in nearby Silver Spring there's a big plot of artificial turf in a busy pedestrian area, a temporary solution awaiting more development, and it's WILDLY popular with the public.  It's taken on a life of its own, with fans and defenders and lots of press coverage.  (That link includes a photo of the rather post-Apocalyptic landscape, which you can click to enlarge for the full effect.)  And sure, I like seeing people lying out in the sunshine, playing, and just hanging out in what looks almost like nature but really isn't, at least the plant part.  But that's a big deal to people like us.  So in the end it's just SAD that people love this safe, sterile product and are turned off by real dirt and real plants.

But getting back to Maryland's decision about funding open spaces, it's seems so complicated, but maybe it isn't.  A sensible-sounding spokesperson for an enviro group suggests to the Post writer that there's plenty of really important natural land "at risk" that could better use the money.  That sounds about right to me.

Photo credit: Go Mustang Sports.

Trees for Christmas? Get Real!

Before we get all confused by admonitions to "Save a tree - go artificial" let's reread this terrific post from December of 2006.

by Guest Blogger Jade L. Blackwater of Arboreality

While perusing Christmas trees at our local Linvilla Orchards this season, I heard an ecstatic boy in the next row over scream, "Look Daddy!!  REAL Christmas trees!"  Perhaps he was just an overzealous five-year-old, whose sense of memory ended at three days ago, thereby negating all memories of Christmas past.  Or perhaps this boy truly never had the pleasure of a "real" Christmas tree in his home.

Folks who know me know how much I love trees.  I could wax philosophical about the benefits of the presence of a real tree - living or cut - in the home for Christmas.  But rather than bore you with all my personal sentiments, I'd like to use the season of the festivals of lights to illuminate the tangible benefits of bringing a real tree into your home for Christmas.

Shout Over The Wall And Vote

The fence won't help

Last Saturday,the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its fourth report on global warming, and there was no mincing of words. 

Rajendra Pachauri, the scientist who heads the panel, warned, “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases--China, where they are building a carbon-spewing coal plant per week, and the U.S., the world's biggest economy headed by the world's most puzzling president--to finally do something constructive.

Yet, what are our leaders doing?  Have they started taxing carbon emissions?  Have they finally leaned on those idiots in Detroit to start producing cars with better gas mileage?  Have they given any substantial push to alternative fuels?  Have they rethought farm supports away from oil-intensive agribusinesses?  Have they really even admitted that there is a problem? 

Nope.

But does anybody out there actually believe we couldn't do better, given even a smidgen of real political leadership?  I mean, the ingenuity just never stops here in America when it comes to small consumer goods.  Have you looked at an iPhone?  You can do anything with one short of uproot dandelions.

It's a good bet that there are solar panel people out there producing technologies that are nearly as nifty.  If only they could get a bigger slice of the corporate welfare pie, we might have something. 

Meanwhile, there is Angela Belcher at MIT using viruses to grow batteries.  So can anybody tell me why we are not driving electric cars?  If General Motors were made to pay for the carbon emissions it engineers, trust me, Angela Belcher would be invited to lunch at the Renaissance Center in Detroit at least once a week. 

We gardeners have to get political.  I know, most of us are not activists by nature.  The world is ugly and uncontrollable, so behind our walls (if we're really lucky) and hedges and collapsing stockade fences (now we're talking about me), we make paradise for ourselves. 

Self-sufficiency is the gardener's most striking trait.  As every beginner's gardening book points out, "paradise" comes from the ancient Persian word for "enclosure." 

But our many beautiful bulb- and basil-filled enclosures are now threatened on a scale not seen since the end of the last ice age.  Our sage enjoyment of our own lives may only last a few more seasons, if we don't start shouting uncharacteristically loudly, and now. 

The IPCC policy-makers' summary promises that with rising temperatures there will be "complex, localised negative impacts on small holders, subsistence farmers, and fishers."  They don't mention the ornamental growers--maybe nobody at the U.N. is thinking about their spring lily order at present--but you get the picture.

Even if global warming proves to be nothing but fun for us Zone 3, 4, and 5 gardeners--and I have big, big plans regarding Bing cherries--we won't be able to hide from the larger issues.  When places like Phoenix and Atlanta and Athens become uninhabitable thanks to heat waves and no water supply, let's face it, we are going to spend a lot of time yelling at strangers to get off our strawberries. 

I have enough trouble with weeds.  Adding climatic refugees to the mix doesn't strike me as pleasant at all.

In the past, I've almost always cast my votes based on some (frequently mistaken) perception of political courage, and never on individual issues. 

But as a gardener, I think I have to vote global warming in the next election.  While John McCain has broken my heart by saying all kinds of things I don't think he believes out of sheer ambition, he certainly towers over the other dwarfs on the Republican side who don't think carbon emissions need to be capped or Detroit ought to rethink anything.  On the Democratic side--though I fear it would be a bit like having a second grade teacher as president--maybe the draft Al Gore movement is not so stupid after all. 

Giving Thanks

Let's keep it simple today, shall we?  I am grateful for:

And all of you for your wicked, madcap, outrageous and outspoken participation in the world of plants, both real and digital.