Horticulture & Conservation Biology

I recently penned a reflective essay for one of my classes on why I was a horticulturist and why I held such strong convictions about the environment. Here is what came out:

I am a horticulturist, which I suppose in some skewed way also reads plant biologist or plant ecologist, at least to me. In fact many would likely disagree with this assertion citing my confusion over exactly what I wanted to do with my life or more accurately my plethoric and renaissance interests. The fact is though that my basest instinct as a horticulturist is driven by my love and appreciation of the natural world. Isn’t that true of all horticulturists in some way? Whether it’s an artist’s approach to beautifying space for aesthetic enjoyment or elucidating the physiology of crop plants grown for sustenance, any horticulturist is synonymously a biologist.

My love for plants began at a very early age. When I was four I helped my grandmother plant squash seeds in her garden and tend them throughout the growing season. When I was nine I spent my summer walking up and down the road by our house with my elderly neighbor Janet, exploring the diversity of wildflowers that grew in the ditches. I learned to recognize plants that were poisonous and to recognize which ones might be nice to have in the backyard should my yearning to enjoy them persist further. I also learned about edible plants and basic botanical terminology. Janet was a botanist and had raised a daughter to be one as well. Janet’s primitive and simplistic lifestyle sparked my puerile fascination. She and her husband were people who lived almost solely off the land, but were dubbed old-fashioned and outdated by others who knew them. Aside from early exposure to the meaning of sustainability and small scale farming, something this farm kid was largely unaware of at the time given John Deere combines and tractors in the driveway, she taught me how important it was to love the natural world, especially that which was around you wherever you were. It was this synchronous rhythm of daily walks, often two miles or more total, that made a permanent impression in my mind of the importance of conserving and respecting natural resources.

Even after we moved to the farm where I spent the rest of my childhood, and where my parents still reside and operate our nursery, this instinctual rhythm continued to fester. We were blessed with ten acres of oak and hickory timber where my botanical curiosity was allowed free reign. I’ve now walked the same paths in that woodland for twelve years, ritualistically in spring and sporadically in summer and fall, unfortunately only when time permits. I often refer to myself as a vernal gardener, one who is fascinated by the ephemeral and rejuvenative disposition of spring. Spring’s annual process of renewal nearly founds my other ten months of work. Plants like spring beauties, dog-tooth violets, false rue anemone, bloodroot, and ladyslipper orchids are harbingers of an ephemeral season of enduring afflatus. A recent walk in my timber revealed a solemn and retired nature on the verge of reposal for yet another year. In a few short weeks crunchy leaves will gave way to tenuous flowers and the joys of my childhood will once again cover the understory of the woods.

The biologically imbued world I grew up in is not easily accessed by all. The majority of our population lives in urban environments where the best example of nature is a trash-strewn park. Slowly though horticulturists and city planners are awakening to the need to increase the green space in our living environments. Our understanding of living in accordance with nature grows with each new tree we plant, each child who is exposed to fuzzy caterpillars, and each tomato we harvest from an organic community garden. If the question must be answered simply, this is why I am a horticulturist, a biologist, an ecologist. Aside from statistics, fancy computer models, gadgetry, and well-conceived experiments, we have much to do to increase awareness. Any Joe on the street with a void of appreciation for the natural world around him will care even less about the arduous efforts aimed at its conservation if he is not first exposed to its joys. I don’t know what kind of a person I would be like without those ritualistic forays of my childhood summers. I don’t know what kind of professional I would be if I hadn’t paid attention to the wise counsel of my grandma as she schooled me in the ways of home gardening. But I do know what kind of professional I won’t be if I don’t extend the same enlightening opportunities to the world around me.

Gardening with a Y

I've been gardening with a y my entire life: because I am one. As it turns out, pundits don't see my generation as becoming viable consumers of green goods. How wrong they are, at least in my humble opinion.

Click here for the latest Young Retailer column in Green Profit penned by yours truly.

Some worthwhile reading

I have to admit that I'm always a fan of the people around me, professionally and personally. I just found out about some recent PR that I'd like to share with you. My dear friend Stephanie Cohen, perennial maven of the national scene, was featured last week in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Check out this link to learn about the well-known horticulturist and co-author of Fallscaping, the latest and loveliest treatise on autumn garden design.

Additional tidbits from the E-Gardening Almanac in the coming days...spring cleaning, crocuses, and the return of songbird songs.

The Deliverance of Geese

Sitting here on my couch writing, I just heard the familiar sound of a Canada goose passing over. The gift of a cacophonous honk was not grating or discordant. It was deliverance from the icy clutch of winter, resolute in its grasp.

Yesterday was my birthday. My mom and I each year without fail always have a brief conversation comparing the weather of the present to the weather of the day I was born. I can recall the story without taxing a nerve. It was 65 degrees, the hospital was under construction, and the unexpected heat was stifling. But my mom always reminds me that five days later, when she and dad were ready to go home, the "normal" weather of March (if such an assertion could be true) had returned.

This annual parable of the weather of March is a rational reminder that spring is elusive, fleeting, and innately ephemeral. It's upon us when we least expect it but when we want it most, and away when we're none to eager to let it leave. This ritual of the vernal gardener grows pangful with each succeeding year our love of all things spring becomes hedonistic. It takes form in the pleasure in the chilly mornings and warm afternoons. The delight in silver maple blossoms that in due time litter the yard like pomengranates. Perseverant snowdrops and crocuses that push through the crust of snow and remain lovely tinged in hoarfrost. The return of melodic songbirds that with cheery presence garden with us through the rest of the season.

It's in the form of clamorous Canada geese that fly over at 7:00 PM delivering the windfalls of spring and the laurels of a new gardening season.

E-Gardening

My recent column in Garden & Greenhouse is about e-gardening and the many resources that exist in the virtual garden known as the Internet. Rife with potential and ideas, the Internet is my proverbial garden during the melancholy days of winter. Collectively my column and this post will do nothing to suffice for the trove of information that exists but here are some additional resources that I thought you might find helpful:

Blogs:
Kathy Purdy of ColdClimateGardening.com has been kind enough to compile a list of garden blogs on the Internet. It can be found here. Enough said; it's an exhaustive listing.

Favorite plant sources:
Here are a few that if you haven't already checked out, you should.
Plant Delights Nursery
Seneca Hill Perennials
Arrowhead Alpines
LaPorte Avenue Nursery
Gardens North
Odyssey Bulbs
Sunshine Farm & Gardens
Bluestone Perennials
Squaw Mountain Gardens
Hollingsworth Peony Nursery
Rainbow Iris Farm--shameless self-promotion

Plant organizations worthy checking out:
In no particular order, some worthy plant specialist organizations include:
American Iris Society
American Hosta Society
American Hemerocallis Society
American Peony Society
American Horticultural Society
African Violet Society of America
American Fern Society

Others are listed here in a tremendous directory.

Other online resources:
A few that couldn't fit in elsewhere:
ISU Extension's Horticulture & Home Pest News
OSU Horticulture & Crop Science Extension Resources

Happy e-gardening! If you stumble across additional resources that you think should be mentioned, drop me an email and I'll post them here.

Credence of a Green Thumb

Gardeners are a passionate lot. It’s passion that drives all gardeners. From the simplest of activities, such as the sowing of seeds, to the tedious work of pruning a storm damaged tree, the drive to beautify the space around us is an austere, and noble, act of humanity. The eloquence of such a statement seems to place a formidable load to bear on the shoulders of a self-declared weekend gardener who relishes in the simplistic prettiness of a four pack of petunias. It’s also weighty for an elderly gentleman who grows the healthiest, most robust crop of tomatoes each year with monkish devotion. It’s mere baggage for the obsessive plant nerd who delights in the selfish pleasures of collection, organization, and then appreciation for the beauty with which they’ve just reigned over. But it isn’t a haul, a weighty hindrance, or a toted cargo. It’s innate in all of them and all of us because we are gardeners. High philosophy, maybe but surely you’ve related with at least one of the actions of the gardeners above. They’re real people.

Instilling passion within those around us is as much our propagative duty as is the habitual dividing of irises or daylilies. We can’t help it. Such joy, revelry, and beguilement only see fruition in their conveyance to another party. Children, grandchildren, neighbors, or friends all have been the recipients of a compassionate gardener’s will to see such humble, green-thumbed charges bade to a new generation. From callused hands and sun-burnt cheeks has come the onus to break the crust of a new garden somewhere. Maybe it was at church. Maybe it was somewhere in your community. Maybe it was in your own backyard, your own plot where you could plant passion year on year, season on season, generation on generation for whatever reasons you wanted to. Sustenance. Beautification. Jealousy, even. The advent of a new garden anywhere cancels out all self loathing sins which might otherwise taint the good name of the creating gardener. A new garden anywhere is yet another square of earth stewarded for the benefit of the world.

I recently told my college advisor that gardening was all about people. But I quickly added to that statement that gardening, in its primacy, was as much about beauty as it was about people. The two are intrinsically linked. Our idea of beauty has been concocted by those bipedals who we’ve succeeded. Artisans, musicians, politicians, explorers, chefs, religious leaders, mystics, and yes, gardeners have all molded the very human concept of what it means to be aesthetically delightful. Certainly we don’t all agree. Do we ever? Despite the supposed misgivings of those we might consider to have less refined tastes than ourselves, each of us has a truly unique gift at creating an aesthetic marvel that will be appreciated by someone somewhere. I’ll say it again: gardening is all about beauty. All that we do, either with conscious intent or subconscious happenstance, in some way big or small adds beauty to our world. The analytical, ivory tower-based pundits would suggest that a multitude of social problems plagues our world. Some politicians with presidential aspirations have called the solution hope, others simply change. Though not running for any office, or for that matter any contest that might measure the gamut of attachable values to this blog post, I contend that all we need to do to make our lives and our world a happier place is convince people through demonstration that we in fact live in a most lovely world, comprised so in the most abecedarian ways. Here’s my gardener’s manifesto.

Notes on the New Year

With the New Year comes new changes here at the E-Garden Almanac. Within the next few days, this blog will be hosted at my newly updated website http://www.kellydnorris.com/. This blog address (http://e-gardenalmanac.blogspot.com/) will redirect to the new subdomain at http://blog.kellydnorris.com/. I'd encourage you to update your bookmarks accordingly or just signup for my web feed by subscribing at left.

If your group is in search of a speaker for your next show, conference, or meeting, I really hope you'd consider giving me a call. A complete list of topics I currently lecture on is available at my website above under Speaking Engagements. I'm eager to work with your group and interact with gardeners across the country.

One of the magazines to which I contribute, Garden & Greenhouse to be exact, has revamped its website. Click on the name to check it out. You can access my current column as well as the columns of fellow contributing editors like Ann Hooper and Barbara Sue Schubert. An archive of previous articles is also available for your perusal.

I hope this New Year finds you well, even if it is only day three. 2008 is going to be a great year in the garden. I can feel it. Here's a belated toast (beverage=your choice) to armloads of flowers, an abundant harvest, and trowels full of joy this gardening season!

Parting thoughts...

The eve of 2008 draws nigh in but a few moments and I have yet to post something this month. It's never too late! A recent December ice storm has presented opportunities for winter garden photography and some reflection on the bones of the landscape. Winter is truly an asset to the gardener keen on adding perceptive value to his or her gardenscape.