Spring arrives with bagpipes playing

 First it was the snow drops, poking through the snow, though hardly a harbinger of spring as they sometimes bloom in January. A little patch of yellow crocus is next to appear, followed by the hellebores. Depending on snow depth, they’re eager to flower as soon as the snow melts.

In my garden I have another plant that’s in the race to announce spring has arrived. It begins to flower even before the crocus or hellebore. It’s Erica carnea, better known as heather or winter heath. When the snow bank beside the driveway first receded back around the middle of March, grubby little specks of colour were already visible, although to the casual observer in the rush from warm car to warm house it could easily have been mistaken for a piece of faded debris.

After a few sunny days and enough rain to rinse off the winter layer of dust and grime, it’s now blooming beautifully. When the weather finally warms up it will be buzzing with pollinators, an early food source for them, same as crocus.

I have two varieties, 'King George', with flowers that open as a pale pink, deepening as the season progresses and 'Springwood white'. By crossing Erica carnea with a related species, Erica Erigena, many cultivars have been developed in shades of pink, purple, and red. These are in a series called darleyensis but the full range is rarely available. I’m happy with the two that I have.

The evergreen leaves of Erica are small and pointy with bronze tips. When in bloom, the leaves are almost hidden by the masses of tiny flowers that last well into May. After flowering is finished, it can be pruned to create a bushier plant, something I’ve never felt the need to do. New flower buds are produced in late summer to early fall.

Now this is not the heather that turns the highlands of Scotland purple each summer, although you could easily pretend that it is. That plant is Calluna vulgaris, known as common heather and it is in the same family.

Calluna grows almost to the height of a swirling kilt on the acidic, peaty soils of Scottish moorland. It also likes more than a wee dram of moisture and there’s no shortage of that in Scotland. As they say there, if you can’t see the hills, it’s raining; if you can see them it’s going to rain, but when the heather is in bloom on a summer’s day, the hills are glorious.

The heather of Scotland is hardy enough to grow here if given the same conditions, however, the soil around Southern Ontario, being mostly neutral on the pH scale, doesn’t suit it. Even though ericaceous, the term used to describe acidic soil, comes from the plant genus, and despite being in the same family as Scottish heather, Erica carnea can tolerate slightly alkaline conditions.

Same as it’s highland cousin, Erica likes its share of moisture, providing the soil drains well, but it doesn’t grow near as high as the Scottish heather. My patches are in full sun and aren’t much higher than an old shag carpet, which makes it an excellent good ground cover that crowds out any competition.

Rated as a zone 5 plant, it is hardy enough, and it’s always done well in my garden, but without the protection of deep snow, would be best covered in winter with evergreen boughs or a coarse mulch. Deer are said to eat it, so I would think rabbits would too, but they haven’t bothered mine. Given the right conditions, heather will look after itself.

When I pause to admire my heather, I swear I can hear bagpipes playing in the distance.

Honeybees are busier than we thought

Did you know that a good part of your honey may have come from insect poop. Yes, you heard that right, and I apologize if you’re drizzling honey on your cereal right now. A study of the DNA in honey carried out by Noah Wilson-Rich, an entomologist who founded The Best Bees Company, revealed that fact and other valuable information. The study sampled urban hives in major cities across the US and the preliminary results are surprising

AnatolianAuthentic Honey

We naturally assume that honey bees are busy collecting nectar and pollen from flowers, and we know they do because we watch them doing it. It’s a biased perception, however, as it’s easy to see the plants that bees are visiting in our gardens. We’ve not been paying attention to what they do at higher altitudes, and that’s one of the major discoveries that was made when the DNA in honey was studied.

The main sources of sugar in the honey tested did not come from wildflowers, but from trees, and not only from the blossoms; it also came from the excretions of sap-sucking insects, particularly aphids, those pesky critters that drive gardeners wild when they find them munching away on plants.

What goes in one end of a hungry aphid is the sap that the plant depends on to grow and flourish. Too many aphids and the plant can die. It’s what comes out of the other end of the aphid that attracts the bees. It’s a sweet, sticky substance called honeydew. Besides nectar from flowers, honeybees are slurping up honeydew, and there’s often plenty of it. We might see only a few aphids on plants in our gardens; up in the treetops there can be tremendous numbers — easy picking for bees, and there’s even more food available when a tree is in bloom, far more than in a garden below.

Whether from nectar or from honeydew, the study determined that 75% of the sugar collected by honeybees came from trees and not from wildflowers, especially in an urban setting. Although more native wildflowers than ever are being introduced into urban gardens to benefit pollinators, there’s often a far wider range than is present in a natural, rural area. In Boston, where interest in urban beekeeping has grown dramatically, the honey sampled contained the DNA of 411 plant species. Because of this larger diversity of plants, the hives there appeared to be healthier and more productive than rural ones.

Another discovery made by the researchers was regarding the types of trees and flowers the honeybees
preferred. Surprisingly, the flowers and trees favoured by them are not necessarily native ones. Honey bees don’t seem to care where lunch comes from. Even though coniferous trees are predominant in Seattle, the bees there favoured non-native linden and cypress trees.

Preferences varied from city to city because of the popularity of particular plants in a specific region. For instance, in New York, where even luxury hotels keep rooftop hives, the top three plants were locust and linden trees, and the flowers of sedum. In Portland, Oregon, known as the city of roses, no surprise that roses were in the top three along with begonias and sweet chestnut trees.

In San Francisco, where non-native eucalyptus trees have become an invasive species, there’s currently a debate going on whether to fell them or give them protection. The honeybees are not fussy. They’re such generalists, they don’t care that the trees are from Australia. They love them. Making up their top three favourites there are pine trees and rosemary.

Next time you hear buzzing in your garden, remember to look up, way up.

Sick Seedlings

Starting seeds indoors is always fun, but sometimes it can be disheartening, especially for beginners when newly sprouted seeds begin to grow and then overnight the seed tray looks like a mini tornado swept through. Seedlings are left horizontal, dead and dying, and appear to have had their stems pinched right at the soil level.

What happened is a disease called Damping Off. It’s caused by any of a number of fungi that occur in all soils and tends to attack slow-growing or weak plants. As the name suggests, the disease prefers damp conditions, exactly what is required for growing seedlings. There used to be commercial fungicides designed specifically to control damping off but they are no longer available to home gardeners.  A few precautions, however, can reduce the likelihood of damping off. 

Use clean containers and a soill-free potting mix for starting seeds. Fill seed trays or pots right to the brim with the soil and avoid spreading seeds too densely. This allows for more air movement at the surface. A small fan blowing across seedlings can be helpful, but keep in mind this can rapidly dry out the soil.

If you start your seeds under a plastic cover, which is the usual way, remove the cover as soon as germination has taken place as fungal growth loves the high humidity under the cover. For the same reason don’t overwater and avoid watering from above as this ensures the soil surface remains damp and conducive to fungal growth.

Many untested suggestions such as sprinkling cinnamon on the soil surface have made the rounds online, and though cinnamon does have anti-fungal properties, the only hard evidence is on cinnamon oil, rather than the powder (which may not be pure cinnamon), so I’d save it for the hot chocolate and apple pie.