Thursday, February 6, 2020

Balcony Herbs for You and for the Pollinators

Many of us live in apartments, without a plot of earth for a garden. If you want to treat yourself and pollinators well, what should you grow in pots or planters?

My answer is Herbs. They'll be great for you in the pot, pan, or salad, and if you manage them right, full of flowers for pollinators. Further, many herbs are very tolerant of the wind and drying conditions of an upper-floor balcony, so they'll be easier for you to grow than other flowering plants.

Basil flowers - by Natalie Ward
Basil is one of my favorites. Even though I have a back yard, it's too shady these days for basil to get the full heat and sun it needs. So, I grow it in pots on the deck.

Carpenter Bee on Basil - Gideon Pisanty,
 CC by SA 3.0
Many people trim off the basil flower spikes, because it prolongs the growth of the leaves. But the flowers are excellent in salad, and very
attractive to pollinators.

If you have a big pot, I'd recommend a mix of sweet basil, lemon basil, Thai basil, and holy basil. Put it next to your patio tomatoes to remind you to use the leaves with tomato dishes!

Thyme in a pot - Greenmars, CCbySA 3.0

I never have enough Thyme!  It's highly tolerant of drying and heat. Many varieties are winter hardy. You can find half a dozen different flavors and forms, with flowers ranging from pink to pale purple to white. As with basil, if you have a long window box, try mixing several varieties together. The flowers are edible but strong tasting, so best in soups and stews.

I hope I don't need to remind you not to use pesticides on your herbs???


Coriander/Cilantro - H. Zell, CC by SA 3.0
 A fantastic group of herbs to grow from seed in pots are the carrot family herbs dill, fennel, and coriander (Coriandrum sativum). They grow easily from early spring sown seed, but they need a but more watering than thyme does. Flowers, of course, are their way of making the yummy seeds, so do double duty on your balcony. However, these annual plants die back after the seeds ripen, so plant several waves of them spaced about two weeks apart for whole season enjoyment.

Dill in full bloom - Clement Kent, CC by SA 3.0
If you use the leaves (coriander leaves = cilantro), you can pinch one of these plants several times to get it to grow more bushy. Then when you stop pinching, you'll get an explosion of flowers.




 In summer heat, the leaves can be all too fleeting. Of course, you can dry them, but my in-laws used to freeze dill  (Anethum graveolens) just after picking, to have fresh green sprigs on potatoes or fish - an Estonian favorite!


Fennel -  Köhler's Medicinal Plants (1887)





"Above the lower plants it towers,
The Fennel with its yellow flowers;
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers
Lost vision to restore." - Longfellow, The Goblet of Life, 1842

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is biennial, so it doesn't bloom until the second year. In the ground it is quite hardy but in you may need to wrap the pots to bring it through our winters. Remember, Longfellow warned you it will grow tall! Bronze Fennel is an attractive variety.




A bed of Chives in June - Clement Kent, CC by SA 3.0

Bumblebees like Chives

Garlic Chives - Clement Kent, CC by SA 3.0
Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) make a good pot plant, although I find if not watered enough they get rather bitter. For the purple species, blooming is in early summer. Remove the flowers when they fade for a smaller bloom later in the summer.









Chive flowers are longish, favoring bumblebees.

At my friend Jon's cabin near northern Georgian Bay, chives have naturalized on the granite rocks where they grow in a very, very thin layer of gravel. They also grew on nearly bare granite at my parents' cabin near Thunder Bay. So I can say with complete confidence that they will be hardy in your pot on the balcony.


"He who bears chives on his breathe,
Is safe from being kissed to death."
Marcus Valerius Martialis, 80 A.D.

Martial's epigram is even more true for Garlic Chives (Allium tuberosum), whose leaves have the added flavor and scent of garlic. I used to grow these under the kitchen window for a milder addition to salads than a crushed garlic cloves, but they seeded so abundantly I had to exile them to the back of the yard. Flowers arrive in late summer, and are attractive to pollinators, but too strong-tasting to me to use in the kitchen.



Spanish Tarragon - George Hull, CC by SA 2.5
Did you know that there are many species of marigolds in Mexico? Tagetes lucida is also known as
Spanish Tarragon. It's completely unrelated to French Tarragon, which tends not to thrive on balconies. But the Spanish Tarragon marigold is happy in sun and baking heat. The leaves are good in many of the same recipes where you'd use a regular tarragon. And, in late summer/early fall, you get many small yellow flowers for the bees.




Wow - so many more herbs to go! For sunny planters I'd also recommend marjoram and oregano, both great bloomers and worthy in the pot or on the pizza. But let's turn to those of us whose site faces north, or an adjoining building.



Make mine Mint! There are many species of mint (Mentha) and most of them will tolerate some shade. They are better in pots than in the soil, because they tend to runner about and take over the garden if you let them. They are of course an essential of herbal and Mediterranean teas, and of many kinds of cooking recipes. There is spearmint, peppermint, lemon mint, chocolate mint...the list goes on.

I've put multiple mints in one pot, and this works fine for the first year. But by the second and later years one has driven the others extinct.

Flowering happens frequently, and I like to add the flower spikes to fresh mint-water for summer hot days. But, please pick them off when they are done, or your plants will tend to get woody and leggy.

There are many other herbs, of course - every culture around the world has its favorites. Try some that bloom well on your balcony, and share your herbs with the pollinators!


Friday, January 24, 2020

Hops and Spice, Pipes and Paws: How Large a Tale will you Swallow?

Smoking in a Tavern: David Teniers the Younger
What image comes to mind, Dear Reader, when I speak to you of hops and spice, pipes and paws? For me it is one of those archetypal Dutch Tavern scenes of perhaps four centuries ago. The pipes of the smokers, the dog on the floor (proving that taverns in old Holland and restaurants in present day France are more civilized than we overly prissy Canadians), the jugs of spiced wine or the mugs of hopped ale were essential elements of a school of Pays Bas artists such as Matthijs Wulfraet, David Teniers the Younger, and Gerrit Dou (a student of Rembrandt).



Self Portrait - Gerrit Dou
Let’s start with pipes, shall we? Although pipes had been used for smoking substances such as hashish in Asia and the Middle East, it’s fair to say they were invented by Native Americans, who domesticated tobacco (Nicotiana rustica). Native Americans were also one of many groups that domesticated the Calabash Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) for containers and food, but I find no records of their using gourds as pipes. Instead, South Africans seem to have placed a meerschaum bowl inside a curved calabash holder to create the classic calabash pipe, which became a fad when adopted by King Edward VII. This is now associated with Sherlock Holmes because it is a large but light pipe easy to clench between your teeth while delivering lines on stage. But, its use postdates the naming of the Pipevine, Aristolochia macrophylla, which I will sadly concede was named in recognition of its floral form matching clay or meerschaum pipes, not Sherlock Holmes’ calabash.


The big-leaved pipevine was commonly planted in North America a century or two ago, to shade a porch or verandah and give partial privacy. The large green leaves grow exuberantly and the peculiar fly-pollinated flowers provide sculptural interest. The leaves drop in the fall, allowing winter light to reach the porch.

But it’s not for its fly pollinators that I recommend this native vine to gardeners. Instead, its third merit to me is the fact that its leaves are the sole food the caterpillars of the beautiful Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor, will eat.

Battus philenor. John Abbott, 1797
There are many pipevine species in North America and the Pipevine swallowtail likes all of them. Pipevines make a toxin, aristolochic acid, that deters herbivores. But the swallowtail caterpillars take it up and store it, the same way monarch caterpillars store cardiac glycoside from milkweed leaves. The adult swallowtails also taste bad to birds.

Around the world there are many swallowtail species whose caterpillars eat pipevine plants, and share the unpalatability to birds, but the Pipevine swallowtail is our only member of the group. But although it is relatively rare, you will see other swallowtails and unrelated butterfly species that mimic the Pipevine swallowtail. This is an example of what is called Batesian mimicry, where the mimic species gets the benefit (avoiding being eaten by birds) without the cost (methods to handle and store the toxic compounds). The Viceroy butterfly is a Batesian mimic of the Monarch, and the Spicebush swallowtail is a mimic of the Pipevine.

So, from pipes to spice we go!

Spicebush swallowtail - Benny Mazur, CC by SA 2.0
Several native shrubs have the common name “Spicebush”, but here we’re interested in Lindera benzoin, which gets the common name from the aromatic fragrance of its leaves. Lindera grows in
partial tree shade but blooms more abundantly early in spring if it gets some sunlight. The dainty yellow-green flowers don’t make a huge show but are pleasant when winter is ending. This native Carolinian forest shrub should be used more in our parks and ravines, so we can enjoy the Spicebush swallowtails that will come to it.

I’m writing this during the winter holiday, when of course spiced wine has been popular since the time of the Romans. So I can’t resist a spicy diversion. In 1,390 a mediaeval cookbook (by "the chief Master Cooks of King Richard II") gave this recipe for Ypocras: “Pur fait Ypocras …grinding together cinnamon, ginger, galangal, cloves, long pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, cardamom, and grains of paradise ("spykenard de Spayn", rosemary may be substituted). This is mixed with red wine and sugar”. I have read of this drink as “hippocras” - after steeping the spices in the sweetened wine for a day, the spices are strained out through a conical cloth filter bag called a manicum hippocraticum or Hippocratic sleeve (originally devised by the 5th century BC Greek physician Hippocrates to filter water).

"...we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon,
over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!"
Ebenezer Scrooge offered Bob Crachit a variant on hippocras called smoking bishop which was popular in 19th century England.




But what are we to do if we want native tastes in our holiday drinks? If you are lucky enough to have a male and female spicebush plant, the berries from the female can be used as spice. If you don’t have berries, the twigs and leaves can be steeped to make a tea. When my bush is bigger, I shall make this and call it “swallowtail tea”!






Hildegarde v. Bingen,
by W. Marshall
Some people enjoy hopped ales more than spiced wines. The seed clusters of the hopvine have been used in beers in Germany at least since renowned herbalist, mystic, abbess, and composer Hildegarde von Bingen wrote of them in the 11th century AD.

Giant Swallowtail near Ottawa - Gordon Robertson
When Europeans arrived here, they found shrubs and small trees whose seed clusters looked just like hops, and named them Hop Trees (Ptelea trifoliata). They grow wild along the Lake Erie shore in places like Point Pelee and Turkey Point parks, but with climate warming now survive Toronto winters. The seed pods are more decorative than the flowers, but I want to see them in our cityscape because the caterpillars of our largest butterfly, the Giant Swallowtail Papilio cresphontes eat the leaves. I wrote about hoptrees and giant swallowtails last fall.


I’ve taken us from pipes to spice to hops, with some deviations on the way. But what about paws? Admittedly, I am dreaming about getting a puppy in the new year, but here I’m thinking of the delicious and underused native Carolinian fruit tree, the Pawpaw or Asimina triloba. Pawpaw is now being grown in Toronto by connoisseurs who value the wonderful fruit. It fits into this article because of the beautiful native Zebra swallowtail  butterfly, whose caterpillars eat only pawpaw leaves.
Pawpaw flower - Krzystof Ziarnek CC-by-SA 4.0

I first saw these  lovelies during my two year exile in Virginia. The Palace of Neurons where I worked had large grounds running down to the Potomac River. In the moister soil near the river, Pawpaws grew in abundance as an understory tree. That’s plant geek for “grows OK mostly in the shade of big trees”. Pawpaw trees are very rare in Carolinian Canada, but we know our indigenous peoples used the fruit, because there are little-known groves of pawpaw trees next to some of the canoe trade routes inland from Lake Erie. In the spring, male Zebras patrolled streams leading to the Potomac Pawpaw groves, looking for newly emerged females. In summer, second brood adults perched on blue pickerelweed flowers (Pontederia) in the
Zebra Swallowtail - Clement Kent, CC by SA 3.0
ponds.

Given the delicious fruit and the spectacular butterfly, we definitely needs more “paws” in the ravines running down to High Park and in partly shaded places in our gardens.

There are two gardening notes to the pawpaw, though. It needs to be cross-pollinated so two genetically different trees should be planted within half a block or less of each other. And, it suckers from root runners. My trees do this but I find pruning the suckers at ground level once or twice a year controls them nicely. For a very nice dive into pawpaws, go here.


So, Dear Reader, that’s my tale: of Hops and Spice, Pipes and Paws.

Clement Kent

p.s. if you missed the previous post on Project Swallowtail, please give it a look. Project Swallowtail will be increasing the host plants above in order to have more of these beautiful butterflies.

Project Swallowtail!

Giant Swallowtail - Gordon Robertson
Today  it's my pleasure to pre-announce Project Swallowtail!
Zebra Swallowtail - Megan McCarty
This initiative to increase pollinator habitat in a large chunk of downtown west Toronto is led by WWF Canada in collaboration with many other groups, including my own Horticultural Societies of Parkdale and Toronto.






Blue dots on the map show just some of the gardens and Block Ambassadors already included.


Kathy's Garden, Stanley Park - Clement Kent
What are we going to do? Simply, we're going to help your block get a much higher density of pollinator-friendly plants over the next several years, with the goal of greatly increasing pollinator numbers and health. We want to do this in a way that allows birds, butterflies, and bees to move
freely for park to park and home to home. And, we'll be using some locally rare but very visible species such as the swallowtail butterflies shown above to make it easy to see when your block has become a hotspot of pollinator diversity.

LEAF Young Urban
Forest Leaders
We're also going to involve local kids and young adults in several ways. Mobile apps to help them identify plants and pollinators will be rolled out, with awards going to young pollinator experts.

Perhaps your block will become part of a neighbourhood where collaborator LEAF helps young naturalists learn about, map, and plant an urban forest?

Or maybe your or your neighbours' kids will go to High Park to learn about native plants and animals from H.P. Nature?

Block Ambassadors

Would you like to help us enrich your block for pollinators? We need Block Ambassadors! You don't need to be a gardener or a naturalist - just someone who likes talking with neighbours and promoting this project. We'll ask you to donate a few hours a month of your time to helping your neighbours get the plants and the help they need. You can reach us at clementfkent@gmail.com [this address will change very soon now!] See our map of ambassadors in your vicinity.


Collaborators:




Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Which flowers attract the most pollinators?

People often ask me "Which plants are best for pollinators?" There's no perfect answer, but I usually urge people to plant native perennials. But, is this right from the BBB (Birds, Butterflies, and Bees) point of view?

Professor Christina Grozinger
The perfect pollinator plant depends a lot on where you are planting it. A 20th floor balcony demands different choices than a back yard flower bed.  Experienced gardeners are good at helping you decide which plants will thrive in your location, but when we throw in the BBB perspective there is simply less expertise out there.

That's why it's nice to report that a number of pollination scientists have actually tested this. No one study covers the entire range of horticultural conditions but we can piece together a pretty good set of answers by looking at half a dozen papers published this decade.

I started off down this winding garden path by reading a recent article from the University of Pennsylvania titled "More Than Meets the Eye? The Role of Annual Ornamental Flowers in Supporting Pollinators". This is an open source paper (yay, authors!) from the lab of Christina Grozinger, a well respected pollinator biologist.

Emily Erickson
I was interested in this article because it looked at annuals, which are much more likely to be found in say a window box or balcony planter than perennials. Emily Erickson, a Ph.D. student in Christina's lab, went deep rather than wide. That is, instead of looking at 25 different species of ornamental annuals, she looked at just 5 species (Alyssum, Egyptian Starcluster, Lantana, Marigold, and Zinnia) but she evaluated 5 different strains of each species. This is really important because plant breeders don't usually select for things important to pollinators: nectar and pollen. Instead breeders look for color, size, and length of bloom. Some ornamental strains of common annuals are literally castrated - they provide no pollen to avoid mussing up your flower arrangements. Not so good for many pollinators!

By looking at many popular strains of some of the most often recommended annuals for pollinators, Emily was able to say not only which species of annual attracted the most butterflies, bees, and birds but also whether it matters which strain you find at the garden center. The short answer is yes, it very much matters.

Here are the 25 ornamental annuals Emily Erickson tested for attractiveness to pollinators:
Erickson et al 2019, Figure 2. Environmental Entomology. Copyright © 2019, Oxford University Press

Could you pick the best BBB plant by eye? The results are surprising. The most attractive strain, by number of pollinator visitors, was Alyssum 'Snow Princess', and in second place Alyssum 'Frosty Knight'. Snow Princess had more than three times as many visitors as the average strain tested.

Why? Well, one factor is that those two Alyssum strains have been bred to be sterile - they don't set seed. This means sterile flowers keep on providing nectar and pollen much longer than a flower which has been pollinated and turns its energies to setting seed. Florists and garden show exhibitors know this trick - a mesh bag or old stocking tied over a spike of delphiniums or larkspurs will give many more flowers in bloom for the vase than a flower spike in which pollinators have had access.

The other three Alyssum strains are all fertile and had average numbers of visitors, except for 'Wonderland Deep Purple', which had the third lowest visitor count of the 25 strains. Strain matters!

"Egyptian Starcluster" is a more awkward name than Pentas, the scientific genus name. This species is hyped as great for pollinators, but had the lowest average visitation over the 5 strains, as well as the lowest and second lowest strains. I'd avoid it! Here are quotes from three different websites:
"Pentas is one of the best pollinator friendly plants you can grow."
"Colorful pentas, also known as Egyptian starcluster or star flower, are one of the best choices to attract pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden."
"Vibrant blooms are a magnet for pollinators."
Zinnia 'Peppermint'. Clement Kent, CC-by-SA 3.0
 Emily Erickson noted not just the number of pollinators but the kinds as well. Alyssum had mostly bees and flies visiting, while marigolds had bees and some butterflies. Lantana had almost entirely butterfly visitors, while Zinnia had a good balance of types of pollinators. Please note that among Zinnia strains, you're best off with those that are not too doubled. In the picture from my back porch this summer on the left,  are three blooms from the seed strain 'Peppermint'. The one on the right is so doubled that the actual florets (the little yellow bits in the center) are covered up. That flower may be nice to our eyes but it will get no pollinators. The one in the middle is what you are aiming for.



Monarch on Zinnia. Clement Kent, CC-by-SA 3.0
If you buy zinnias at a store, look for a broad central region with actual florets, such as the one on the right from my garden. These really do get a great stream of butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.

Well, it's time for me to help with dinner. Next time I blog, I'll look at scientific studies of pollinators on perennials and herbs, with some delicious advice for balcony gardeners.


 
 






Saturday, October 26, 2019

More succulents we will have on Monday, October 28th 2019

At Barry Parker's talk we'll have divisions of other succulents. Two that I'm including are the Queen of the Night cactus, which has grown reliably in a pot for me for thirty years, and was probably as old when I got it from another indoor gardener. I'm just bringing one cutting, but in the spring I can provide many more. I'm bringing the pot inside this weekend for the winter. It has extraordinary, gigantic blooms! For more details, click on the above link.

Another plant I'm contributing is from southwestern Morocco and the Canary Islands. It's variously called either Caralluma (the older name) or Apteranthes burchardii. There's a nice snippet about it here. Like the Stapelia or Carrion Flower that I am also contributing, this is one of what I call the stinking milkweeds. That is, it's a succulent in the milkweed family with fleshy stems, no leaves, and grows in very dry areas. Unlike the giant carrion flower, this has clusters of many minature flowers at the tips of the stem in early summer.
Caralluma europaea - Wikimedia

Caralluma fimbriata
If you ever want to amuse yourself by specializing in one kind of houseplant, the Carallumas are an option. A quick waltz through some of the species:
Caralluma acutangula - from Wikimedia







Thursday, October 24, 2019

Stinking milkweeds - excellent succulent houseplants!

Celebrating our upcoming talk on succulents by Barry Parker, here is one of the more unusual succulents in the milkweed family. Stapelia is an African genus of leafless succulents from near-desert regions. The swollen stems look a bit like cacti, although there is no relationship.
Stapelia grandiflora stem and bud. Clement Kent, CC-by-SA 4.0

These beauties spend the winter in my kitchen window, as they won't tolerate temperatures below about 10C/50F. Most importantly, in winter they need to be kept almost bone dry. I water them perhaps once a month between November and May, and only very sparingly.

view of bud from above. Clement Kent, CC by SA 4.0
All of this changes when they go outside after it's warm enough. I give them a week in partial shade to prevent sun scorch, then move them to the sunniest part of my porch. Then I begin a regular program of watering with occasional infusions of soluble fertilizer. By July or August I'm greeted by the huge buds, about 3" wide by 4" long.

Several days will pass as the buds grow, and grow, and grow. Finally, one morning before I'm up, they will open.





When this happens, there's a treat for many senses. The nearly foot-wide blooms are a rich golden-orange with dark purplish-red stripes. The hue deepens to the same red meat color at the center of the flower, where elaborate floral parts sit.

freshly opened Stapelia flower, 10" wide. Clement Kent, CC by SA 4.0

The flower is densely covered in long hairs or cilia. Brush them with your fingers - some say it feels like fur.
Stapelia grandiflora closeup showing hairs. Clement Kent, CC-by-SA 4.0
 So far we have sight and touch covered. Take the next step: get close to the flower and take a whiff.

Phew!!! smells like rotting meat!  You've just discovered the most powerful lure in this flower's pollination bouquet. It looks and smells like a rotting carcass, to attract its pollinator: carrion flies.

Let's look again at the center of the flower. See the white egg clusters? They are from the greenbottle fly, one of the first flesh-feeder to arrive at dead animals in the wild.
greenbottle fly eggs on Stapelia - Clement Kent, CC-by-SA 4.0

Click on the video below to see the hatched eggs - a.k.a maggots - waving in the breeze as they try to find the yummy dead meat. Mama greenbottle makes a flying visit.




If you sit and watch your flower for a bit longer, you'll see other visitors.




If you should be lucky enough to have two flowers open at the same time, and the flies carry the pollinia (specialized pollen clusters) from one to another, then you'll eventually see a very milkweed-like seed pod develop, and open to reveal seeds with fluffy appendages to help them fly.

If you want to share with friends, or just have more for yourself, use a clean knife to cut one of the stems (or just snap it in half). Don't get the white sap on your skin - it is irritating. Let the detached stem sit in an airy, dry, sunny place for several days to heal. Then plant it in very free draining material, like you would use for a cactus (gravel is good). Don't water more than once every few weeks until you see signs of new growth. 

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Balcony and Apartment Gardens with Succulents

Barry Parker taught Animation at Sheridan College, and his students work at Nelvana, Pixar, Disney, etc. Barry also helped design animation programs in India and Singapore and has been an international judge at film festivals. 

Barry Parker tufa trough with alpine scene
one of Barry's troughs
But I know Barry best as a fantastic gardener. The garden he and Michel LeFebvre created in Toronto was a wonderful place to learn about new plants and new techniques, all arranged and executed with a very acute sense of design. He ran courses on how to make your own tufa containers for succulents on your porch or balcony.                                                                                                                                                                        But, (alas!) on retirement Barry left us for a lovely second floor apartment with two balconies in Montréal. He now gardens mostly in pots, growing a wide range of succulents and other plants, often from seed. When I visited him in September he had some very nice aloes he grew from seed with fascinating new colour patterns on the leaves - and they were blooming too!                                                                                                                                                               
seed-grown agave by Barry Parker
one of Barry's seed-grown aloes
So, I'm very happy that Barry will be speaking to us on Monday October 28 (details above). All year long, members of the Horticultural Societies of Parkdale and Toronto have been making divisions of succulents to bring to this meeting. A little bird even told me that one of Barry's larger agaves will be at the meeting to be given away. I myself have divisions of my night-blooming cactus and of my Madagascar Milkweeds (Stapelia) and their Canary Islands relatives Caralluma to give away.                                                                                                   We really hope to see some apartment/condo gardeners at our meeting. Attending the meeting is free as always, but for this special event we are giving new members first choice of the succulents and indoor gardening books (1 per new member, please!).