Hi Gardeners
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| Eucomis, pineapple lily |
We are getting a break from winter today with temperatures in the
40’s and at least some sun. Most of the 6-7 inches of snow we got last week has
melted. I had to drive through the
country today to a doctor’s appointment and I could see the green of the
recently sprouted wheat fields. Cows and horses were finding grass to
nibble. The Amish couple in their buggy
didn’t seem as miserable as the Amish usually look this time of year. This is the kind of winter weather I like. No white Christmas for me, I like green
ones. With climate change maybe I won’t
have to move from Michigan to get them.
I have an amaryllis that just might bloom for Christmas, the bud
is quite large. It’s a new one I bought
this fall so it’s been primed for bloom in this season. My older amaryllis usually does bloom in the
winter but generally closer to Easter than Christmas. My Christmas cacti are all blooming nicely
too. The tropical hibiscus are blooming
and the fuchsia blooms non-stop. More
people should try the small flowered fuchsia’s as houseplants.
On the porch the geraniums have a nice winter bloom going although
much of the bloom is toward the windows so you have to look at them from
outside. There’s a good-sized abutilon out there and it’s blooming too. The ginger and rosemary are still green and
two cannas are still green and growing. The eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ is
still growing. I left my huge brugmansia out on the porch, hoping it would go
dormant but it insists on putting out leaves, although they are small. All the rest of the potted bulbs I brought in
have gone dormant.
The end of the natural year is tomorrow. Despite our calendars, December
20 is the last day of the natural year based on the suns annual cycle. December 21st is the calendar date
of the first day of winter and the natural first day of the new year. The exact moment of solstice for me, at my
latitude is 11:28 am, December 21st.. Some of you reading this will have a different
exact solstice time. You can find your
exact solstice moment at this site:
While the moment of solstice is 11:28 am solstice celebrations
generally begin at midnight (12:01 am) on the 21st.
Winter Solstice marks the turning of the sun, when the sun has
reached its lowest point and most southern point on the horizon. The sun has seemed to be paused for a few
days before winter solstice but at the moment of solstice it is directly
overhead and then will begin to climb in the sky and move north again, if ever
so slowly. It has been resurrected or reborn, and since the sun means life this
is a time for great celebration.
Winter solstice has been celebrated from man’s earliest times,
long before Hanukkah or Christmas. It
amazes me that early man was so attuned to nature and the natural celestial
cycles that they knew of and understood the significance of winter solstice.
Very early in history man knew the cycles of earth so well they could
accurately predict the moment of solstice.
At the equator, near where we believe modern man originated, all
days of the year are exactly the same length- about 12 hours. But as man
migrated north and south on the planet they would have noticed that the days
length varied with the season. This is
due to the tilt of the earth on its axis.
It must have been a little disconcerting for early migrators to
see the sun getting lower in the sky and the days growing colder and
shorter. Naturally they would monitor
the skies, hoping for the sun to return to normal. The farther north (or south) you move the
more drastic the difference in winter and summer would become. But since human migration was probably
gradual people would have had time to realize that it was a cycle and that the
sun would return to a friendlier position soon.
What many people don’t realize is that the sun is not farthest
from the earth at winter solstice, it’s actually at the closest position to
earth. It’s the tilt of the earth that
determines how sunlight hits the earth and the more directly overhead the sun
is the warmer it is. You can test this
by standing directly under a light that gives off heat and then moving it so it
hits you at different angles but at the same distance away. When the light is coming toward you from a
location near your feet you won’t feel the heat as well as you do when its
overhead.
I know that for me, the longest night being over is a big
relief. I know that the change is barely
perceptual, and many cold days are ahead here in Michigan but at least it is
changing for the better. The sun is moving up and north to warm us. We will have
4 minutes more daylight by December 31st . By the end of January 52
more minutes have been added.
Christmas plants
I was wondering what to write about the week before Christmas and
a day before solstice. It seems I have
covered most Christmas and solstice topics already in other weeks or
years. So below is a series of links on
various topics that relate to holiday type plants. If you need something to read or one of these
topics has information you want, then you can click on it. I’ve included last
years article on Frankincense and Myrrh too.
Amaryllis
Did you get an amaryllis bulb for Christmas? They are
popular gifts for people who like gardening or houseplants. The bulbs you
get are primed and ready to sprout and bloom with just a little care. You can
discard them after blooming is finished. But if you give them some attention
after they bloom you can successfully get them to bloom again for many years.
Read more here.
Poinsettias
If you got a
poinsettia for Christmas you may be wondering if you can keep it as a
houseplant. Some people enjoy the poinsettia until it starts looking bedraggled
and then throw it out. But if you are a true plant lover and you can’t stand to
see a plant die, you can keep your poinsettia as a houseplant and even get it
to “bloom” again. The plant will stay pretty a long time, so enjoy it, but if
you want to keep it thriving you’ll need to treat it as a plant and not a
decoration.
Read
more here:
Christmas, and Thanksgiving, cacti
The
Christmas Cactus is a plant with a long life, even if sometimes
neglected. They brighten the winter with their cheerful blossoms and give
plant lovers something to mull over- is it a Christmas, Thanksgiving or Easter
Cactus?
Read
more here:
Holly
One of the plants long
associated with winter holidays is holly, said to bring good luck to a home.
You may picture holly as having thick, dark green, glossy leaves that remain
green all winter. Others of you may know hollies that you call winterberry
or possumhaw, which lose their leaves in the winter to display branches lined
with beautiful berries.
Read more here:
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| Holly |
Mistletoe- the strangler and the kiss
Mistletoe is not a plant most gardeners can grow. However,
it figures prominently in American and European holiday decorating and has some
fascinating history. Mistletoe is presently either collected from the
wild or semi-cultivated for seasonal use. Mistletoe is best known today
for the Christmas tradition of allowing lovers and strangers to kiss without
censor if they are standing under a clump of it.
Read more here:
Frankincense and Myrrh
Frankincense and Myrrh are two “spices” that are typically
associated with Christmas because of the bible mentioning that they were
brought as gifts to the baby Jesus. What
is ironic is that during the early centuries of Christian worship the burning
of incense, the traditional way of using the scents of Frankincense and Myrrh,
was prohibited because it was associated with pagan and Jewish traditions. It somehow snuck back into Christian rituals
and even now incense is burned in Catholic and Greek orthodox religious
ceremonies.
Frankincense (Boswellia
carteri is the most prominent species of Boswellia used) and myrrh (Commiphora myrrha is the most harvested
species) are both woody plants that grow in the same desolate dry areas of
Northeast Africa where the countries of Ethiopia and Somalia are now located
and along the coast of the Red Sea in Yemen.
There are actually several species of both plants that are harvested,
with some yielding a better product than others.
Frankincense trees grow right on rocks with a special kind of
adhesive roots. Myrrh plants are
typically shrub like. Both plants resist transplanting to more favorable climates,
although it’s been tried since the times of the Romans, with potted plants
appearing in various ancient murals.
Both frankincense and myrrh are harvested by wounding the trees or
shrubs trunks and collecting the sap that oozes out after it has hardened. It takes a lot of labor and many months to do
this in the inhospitable areas that the plants grow in and the plants were
never terribly abundant, which accounts for the value that was placed on both
spices. The lumps of resin were graded
by their color and purity and assigned value accordingly.
Religious uses of frankincense and
myrrh
The golden lumps of hardened resin were often worth more than gold
and widely traded. The ancient Egyptians
bought boatloads of the spices and camel caravans carried them vast distances.
These spices were often used as currency and taxes were paid with them. Every deity imaginable was given frankincense
and myrrh as a sacrificial offering.
From pagans to Christians the practice of using frankincense and myrrh
in religious ceremonies was passed along.
The lumps of spice resin can be ground and used in incense and
other products or the lumps can be soaked in oils or alcohol to leach out the
scent and medicinal properties. The
scents of the two spices are hard to describe, frankincense seems to have a
warmer, woodsier scent with myrrh seeming to have a smoky pine scent. The two are almost always combined in incense
for religious ceremonies. You either
like or dislike the aroma it seems.
Our early ancestors were adept in finding plants that altered the
mind and or mood. Both frankincense and
myrrh contain chemicals called sesquiterpenes that are released when the resin
powder is burned. When inhaled,
sesquiterpenes act on a part of the brain that controls emotions. They were used to alter emotions –
particularly to ease stress, grief and despair, and to allow the mind to focus
and become introspective. It helps that
the scent of these spices is also pleasing to most people and could cover the
not so pleasant smells of early communal gatherings.
Medicinal uses of frankincense and
myrrh
Both frankincense and myrrh also have traditional medicinal
uses. Myrrh was often used for diseases
of the teeth and mouth and is still used in some toothpastes and mouth washes. Myrrh was often mixed with wine and used as a
pain reliever. It has a bitter taste and
is believed to be the “gall” that was mixed with vinegar and offered to Christ
on the cross. It was not a Roman cruelty
as so often taught; rather it was traditional for Romans to offer a pain
sedative to those they crucified, most often myrrh mixed with cheap wine.
Myrrh is also used in ointments to smooth and heal chapped and
inflamed skin and was used to prevent wrinkles.
It, along with frankincense and other spices and herbs, is part of the
embalming fluid Egyptians used on the dead “mummies”.
Myrrh was also used to bring on menstruation, possibly to induce
abortions. It was given to purify women
before they were “given” to a new man.
The book of Ester in the bible gives instructions to purify a woman by
giving her oil of myrrh for 6 months and then for another additional 6 months
she was given sweet oil treatments. This
would effectively mean that she would not be pregnant with another man’s child
and was probably thought to cure any sexually transmitted disease she might
also have.
Frankincense has been used since ancient times to cure arthritic
pain and modern research has found that it is indeed helpful in some forms of
arthritis. It is also being used today
for the treatment of ulcerative colitis, and there are studies that prove it’s
quite effective. In older references oil
of frankincense was referred to as oil of Olibanum or just as Olibanum.
Egyptian women used burnt frankincense ashes to make kohl- the
original black eyeliner and mascara.
Even today many expensive cosmetics and perfumes contain either
frankincense or myrrh as ingredients.
Frankincense was also thought to cure sexual diseases and inhaling
the smoke was thought to cure asthma and other bronchial conditions. The smoke
of both Frankincense and myrrh repels insects and the smoke was thought to
purge a room of disease or malevolent spirits and thoughts. And of course it made a room smell better in
most cases and would alter the emotions in a positive way.
By the middle ages the disruption of trade routes made the use of
both frankincense and myrrh too rare and expensive for most people and the use
of the spices receded to mostly religious ritual. Today however you can find frankincense and
myrrh, most often as incense or as essential oils to use in cosmetic and craft
products. They are still harvested in
traditional ways and still more expensive than some other spices.
Where Do Camels Belong?: Why Invasive
Species Aren't All Bad- book review
Author: Ken Thompson 2014
The book is not just about camels although they illustrate one of
the dilemmas nativists confront when they try to regulate plants and animals to
country of origin. Camels originated in
North America, are associated with the middle east, and the only breeding wild
populations are in Australia. So where
do camels belong? Where should they be considered
native?
Horses also originated in North America, migrated elsewhere and
then went extinct here. They were
returned here by the Spanish in the early European invasion of the continent
and have since formed wild populations here again. But now we consider them an invasive species
that must be managed. We manage them so
another truly non-native species- cattle- can use the environment.
It’s not just camels and horses that should make us pause and
think about nativism. The author explores the fact that many species of plants
and animals have obscured places of origin we are just beginning to learn about
through the study of genetics and new fossils.
If a species developed first in North America, spread to other
continents and then became extinct in America where do we say it’s native
to?
Who draws the lines in the sand to define native species? Where do we draw the lines? In America nativists often want to call
things native that were here before the arrival of Europeans. However, the first people on this continent,
those that came here thousands of years before Europeans, also brought with
them plants and animals. They altered
the landscape here just as Europeans did. Any migration of a species into new
territory will cause changes, however subtle.
Until recently we often didn’t know where one of our beloved
“natives” originated from. Just because its been here for thousands of years
doesn’t mean its truly native. If we
started eliminating species that didn’t originate on the continent we might be
in for a surprise. Many things that did
originate here probably wouldn’t do well here now, and many things that didn’t
originate here but are thriving might go extinct if forced back to where they
came from.
Nature has from the beginning of time moved species from place to
place and humans are only one of her helpers.
It’s the imperative of a species to try and conquer new territory and
expand its range. When species can’t
move to another place and conditions change drastically the species goes
extinct and other species arise to fill the niche the extinction left. Extinction and “invasion” (migration) are
part of the cycle of life on earth.
But let’s not kid ourselves.
When a plant or animal is considered “good” by humans its all right for
it to occupy vast amounts of territory and for us to control native plants and
animals that might work to eliminate it.
Millions of acres of wheat and Kentucky bluegrass (which is not native) for
example, are defended from native species like deer, Canadian thistle, pigweed,
horseweed, catchweed bedstraw, and other non-native plants like
dandelions. We spend trillions of
dollars to eliminate native plants and animals in favor of some non-native
species.
On the other hand, we spend a lot of money and time eliminating
some species of animals and plants that are not native just because they
aren’t. Plants like purple loosestrife
that really don’t impact the environment as much as some nativists would have
you believe. While a newcomer may dominate a habitat for a while, soon nature
re-establishes order and diversity if we just let things work themselves
out. No “invasive” plant has ever caused
the extinction of a native plant.
Careers and jobs depend on eliminating “invasive plants”. Often the chemical and other controls we
employ to kill non-natives severely impact native plants, but that’s ok,
because after all it’s war and if we just eliminate the aliens the natives will
come back- right? The book explains why
that usually doesn’t happen.
This book explores the often futile and misguided attempt by man
to regulate how nature distributes plants and animals across the globe and
reminds us man is part of nature, just another player in the game. As the climate changes plants and animals
will have to move- or go extinct. This
isn’t new- the climate has changed before and there are species constantly
moving, changing and going extinct.
While the book acknowledges that there are times we need to
protect our own species and control some invaders, it also reminds readers that
nature has been changing things a lot longer than we as a species have been present
on earth. We need to stop trying to
eradicate plants and animals that have been here for a long time. The only time eradication works is when the
new population is small and confined to one area. That’s a proven fact. We’ll never eradicate purple loosestrife or
garlic mustard or Japanese knotweed and we should stop spending time and money
on trying.
It’s probably best that for the most part, we let nature do its
thing. Yes, the species in an
environment will change but that doesn’t mean the change is bad. If a species is thriving, it’s the right
species for that spot. Some species go extinct because they can no longer adapt
to an environment. It’s natural for that
to happen even if it makes us sad that some species we admire will be lost. Nature doesn’t get sad, she compensates and
moves on. It’s natural for local environmental niches to evolve and change,
humans are the only ones who want to freeze a slice of time, to eliminate and
prevent change.
If you are nativist, determined to grow only “native” species you
should read this book. The tide is
starting to change, and more voices are speaking out against the nativist
movement. We must acknowledge that man
is part of nature, and just as much an invasive species as any other species
that has migrated to new places. The book will at least challenge your concept
of man as either the destroyer or the “fixer” of the world ecosystem.
The book is easy to read for the non-scientist and interesting
enough to keep you reading. There are
sources and references in the back to support the authors conclusions. I recommend gardeners read the book. The book is available on Amazon and in many bookstores.
Better Fruit Cake
Fruitcake
is the butt of many holiday jokes but this fruitcake- or fruit bread will
change your mind. It’s moist and
delicious and doesn’t use candied fruit at all. It makes about 5 mini loaves or
2 full sized loaves or you can use two small Bundt pans.
Ingredients
1
cup maraschino cherries, juice drained and cut in half
1
can (20 oz.) of crushed pineapple, drained
1
cup orange juice
1
pkg yellow cake mix (2 layer cake)
1
pkg (3.4 oz) Jell-O gingerbread instant pudding mix (a holiday special edition
flavor, use vanilla pudding if you can’t find it and add 1 teaspoon ginger)
4
eggs
2
tablespoons rum or rum flavoring (optional)-it’s a mild flavor here
1/4
cup melted butter
1/2
chopped pecans
Rum
glaze (recipe below) optional
Mix
cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, butter, rum and orange juice in a large bowl with
electric mixer until well blended.
Add
cherries, pineapple and nuts and mix just until blended.
Pour
into pans sprayed with cooking spray, (greased), divide batter evenly.
Bake
at 350 degrees. Check to see if done by
inserting a toothpick in the center, which should come out clean. Mini loaves will take about 40 minutes, full
size loaves or Bundt pans about 50 min.
Let
cool completely before glazing, or decorating and wrapping. Baked loaves may be frozen for up to 6
months.
Rum glaze
½
cup rum- Note: rum flavoring won’t work well here
½
cup butter
1
cup sugar
Place
all the ingredients in a sauce pan and boil over low heat, stirring constantly
until thickened, about 5 minutes. Drizzle over cool cake.
Try to spend the first day of the natural year in meditation and
reflection about what is important in your life and what you wish to accomplish
in the coming year. Clear your mind from thinking about shopping and cooking
and anxieties about money or personal relationships. Give to charity and visit
your family with love in your heart. The old year is done, new beginnings are
here.
May
you have a spiritual Solstice and a New Year filled with joy and wisdom.
Kim Willis
“He who has a garden and
a library wants for nothing” ― Cicero
© Kim Willis - no parts of this
newsletter may be used without permission.
And So On….
Find Michigan garden events/classes
here:
(This
is the Lapeer County Gardeners facebook page)
An interesting Plant Id page you can
join on Facebook
Here’s a seed/plant sharing group you
can join on Facebook
Newsletter/blog information
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I write this because I
love to share with other gardeners some of the things I come across in my
research each week. It keeps me engaged with people and horticulture. It’s a
hobby, basically. I hope you enjoy it. If you are on my mailing list and at any
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