I always look forward to visiting the Heronswood Northwest Research Nursery. When I was there last, in fall, the days were far shorter and cooler than they are now in late June. I usually take the Bainbridge Island ferry from Seattle and ride on the open deck; the city recedes and the dark green hills of the island advance.

The more I come here, the more I see the garden as a snapshot in time. It is a mature garden, with some 7000 unique entries that come into their own throughout the year. The flush of under-story plants now is largely different from what I saw in spring and fall. There are lots of anemones, geraniums, primulas, and various poppies; the singularly lovely spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza foliosa); and the exotic-looking Jack-in-the-Pulpits (Arisaema franchetianum and Arisaema wilsonii) and Paris polyphylla, a native of China. Thalictrums and rodgersias are at their peak.

The rhododendrons that in spring were almost gaudy now seem dull, but the assorted dogwoods and magnolias are flourishing. In the past, I’ve scoffed at variegation (calling it just a chloroplast mutation), but I’ve developed a taste for it, particularly in the woody plants—Prunus lusitanica ‘Variegata’, various Osmanthus, and a Kerria japonica ‘Variegata’ are all virtually luminous.

Ferns seem to be the constant exception to this successional exhibit of the flowering nursery plants. Ferns are everywhere in the garden, and they look great. And they looked great in spring and fall too. There are soft green ferns that are nearly 6 feet high and small bronze-hued ones that hug the ground and have fronds not more than 7 inches long. It’s my belief that ferns are underutilized and underappreciated in gardens. Placed properly, they require minimal care and are remarkable and beautiful in and of themselves. And they are excellent foils for other plants in a garden.

The fossil record is replete with ferns from the Carboniferous Era, but most of these represent extinct species. The ancestors of our modern ferns evolved later in the Mesozoic Era beginning 250 million years ago. Flowering plants (angiosperms), in contrast, did not appear until about 140 million years ago.

Ferns, along with clubmosses and horsetails, comprise a relatively primitive group of vascular plants, rather quaintly called “cryptogams” (or hidden gametophytes). They are spore-bearing and do not produce flowers, fruit, or seed. They have a two-stage life cycle in which the spore is a simple reproductive body that germinates and develops into a new plant. In these vascular cryptogams, when the spore germinates, it produces flattened, usually green, vegetative tissue (called a “thallus”) that is so small it’s usually unseen. On the thallus, plant sex organs (one or both) develop; this is the gametophyte or the “hidden” gamete-producing plant stage. After fertilization of the egg, the characteristic plant emerges. This is called the “sporophyte”, the stage that bears the spores. Ferns are often cultured from spores, just as flowering plants are grown from seeds (but the spore is nowhere near as neat a package as the seed).

Identifying ferns is difficult. In flowering plants, identification and classification is highly dependent on flower structure. In ferns, the position and arrangement of sori (the spore-bearing structures) are taxonomically important. Sori are found on the under (dorsal) side of the fern frond. In some groups, the sori are arranged in long strips; in others, the sori are separate, unique bodies. Another feature important in classification is growth habit (erect, prostrate, and so forth); vegetative structures such as rhizomes and leaf shape and venation are also significant. Even so, the literature is filled with conflict, contradiction, and ambiguity. The current name for the lady fern, a large, attractive, easy-to-grow species hardy to USDA Zone 5, is Athyrium filix-femina; it’s had 62 names since 1753 when it was first identified.

In nature, there are between 10,000 and 15,000 fern species in about 40 families, depending on how they’re classified. Most North American and European ferns are in cultivation, but this is not so with the ferns of the Southern Hemisphere and the Himalayas. Many eastern Asian ferns are only in cultivation there, but several are in the Heronswood garden. There is autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora, cultivar Brilliance); widely available, it is native to Japan, Philippines, China, and Korea, has an unusual bronze color, and 30-inch fronds. It is hardy to USDA Zone 5. Another is Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum), which has striking silvery or pewter shading on the frond costae and lamina. It’s native to China, Japan, Korea, and Manchuria, grows low to the ground, and has mere 15- to 20-inch fronds. It’s hardy to Zone 3.

Deer ferns tend to do well in drier soil, and several types of them are scattered throughout the garden. One is Blechnum spicant, which has upright, spiky (hence the species name) fronds standing about 30 inches tall that are glossy green. It is native to Europe and western North American and is hardy to USDA Zone 5. Blechnum penna-marina is a small deer fern native to southern South America, New Zealand, and southeastern Australia. It has the same bright green foliage as its cousin but fronds no more than 7 or 8 inches long; it would be an excellent choice for a shady rock garden. It’s also hardy to Zone 5.

Among my favorites at Heronswood is the giant chain fern (Woodwardia fimbriata), which gets its common name from the chain-like distribution of its sori. This fern is native to western North America and can be found from British Columbia to Baja California; it’s fairly common on the Kitsap Peninsula, where Heronswood is located. It has long, light green, feathery fronds. Growing in the shadows of a moist woodland, it can be 9 feet tall. The ones at Heronswood are not that tall, and in a garden, their maximum height will be about 5 feet.

When you change or add to your garden, I recommend you consider ferns. There are lots available that will answer a variety of needs. They will be stable, eye-catching components of your garden and will highlight its more transiently beautiful members.

Today, greener-than-thou gardeners crusade for heirloom seeds, while unjustly damming hybrids.  Increasingly, their anti-science credo has hardened into a Luddite fundamentalism, resulting in confusion among the public between hybrids and genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.  Clearly, the hybrid versus heirloom imbroglio is about more than the quest for the biggest, most delicious tomato.

As a third-generation seedsman, I can lend balance to this lopsided debate.  My company, W. Atlee Burpee, has provided American gardeners with heirloom seeds since 1876 and introduced hybrid seeds to American home gardens in 1934.  Since Burpee’s hybrid and heirloom sales are roughly 50-50, I’m one hundred percent in favor of both heirlooms and hybrids.

Starting in the late 1940s, hybrid seed—one of mankind’s greatest achievements—transformed agriculture. The “Green Revolution”, the adoption of hybrids by developing nations, boosted wheat, rice and corn harvests—multiplying yields up to tenfold.  Hybrids saved millions from famine, dramatically lowered food prices, and helped turn countries dependent on food imports into net exporters.  On the home front, hybrid vegetables transformed backyard gardening from a chore into a pleasure abounding with the proverbial bushels of zucchinis and tomatoes.

Many of today’s heirlooms were once market varieties prior to the advent of the supermarket; others were regional, from either families or communities such as the Amish.  Heirloom devotees are justly smitten with their storybook heritage, relative rarity and unusual flavor.

But when it comes to garden performance, heirlooms prove no match for hybrids.  The cachet-free, hard-working hybrids remain “old faithfuls” for the majority of American gardeners.  Indeed, in blind taste tests, many home garden hybrids triumph over heirlooms.

What heirlooms may lack in productivity and hardiness, they make up in mystique.  True believers overlook their decreased output, lower disease resistance, and—unless they buy heirlooms each year—laborious seed-saving chores.  But they go astray when their passion for heirlooms blinds them to the virtues of hybrids.

Increasingly, NGOs and activists are encouraging third-world farmers, in Haiti and elsewhere, to grow heirlooms in lieu of hybrids.  By so doing, they are putting their sophisticated personal tastes and aesthetics before the life and death needs of the farmers and their communities—people for whom a poor harvest can be a death sentence.  This is nouveau imperialism at its most pernicious.  “Let them eat heirlooms.”

Yet hybrids have as much history behind them as heirlooms.  Farmers and native peoples have been refining and improving seed stock for millennia, selecting the best plants and jettisoning the clunkers.  Moreover, due to natural cross-pollination and mutations caused by solar radiation, the genetic makeup of the world’s plants is ever changing.  Evolution never sleeps.

Without human intervention beginning ten thousand or so years ago, the tomatoes, peppers and other produce we enjoy today would be inedible, even toxic.  For example, tech-savvy Native Americans progressively wrought extraordinary improvements in corn and potatoes—now global staples.  Gregor Mendel’s discovery of genetics in 1866 enabled humanity to fulfill these ancestral struggles to develop ever greater food quality and supply.  In short, hybrids are improved heirlooms.

In contrast to sterile GMO laboratories, hybrid seed production, created by hand in the outdoors, is about as high-tech as knitting. Hybrid research is highly creative, yet little different from what nature does on its own, combining and recombining plants’ genes.  Spurred by Mendel’s work, natural processes are accelerated in both test gardens and winter greenhouses.  Breeders work within the plant’s genetic system—not outside it.  Plus, hybridizers reproduce their plants sexually, while GMO scientists insert DNA into clones.  To conflate hybrids with GMOs, as many do, is like mistaking an abacus for a supercomputer. 

As for environmental impact, hardy and disease-resistant hybrids require fewer chemical inputs, less water and smaller space.  Since they are higher yielding, hybrids reduce habitat destruction in the third world.  You can achieve the same harvest on a quarter as much land.

Finally, contrary to public opinion, genetic diversity is actually enhanced by hybridization.  Plant breeders widen available genes by both crossing with wild species and coaxing forth traits already present in domesticated cultivars.  Ironically, while expressing unique characteristics, heirlooms, being inbreds, possess narrower gene pools.  Therefore, public institutions and private companies, including Burpee, preserve them in seed vaults.  By nature, heirlooms exist at a genetic dead end.  You can see similar situations in wild animals, livestock and pets.  Nevertheless, some heirloom plants possess great virtues such as novel colors and flavors.  We don’t have to lose our heirloom past in order to claim our hybrid future.

It’s time for gardeners to stop slinging mulch and return to the pleasures and rewards of gardening.  There’s plenty of room in the vegetable patch for both heirlooms and hybrids.

This post appeared as an op/ed piece in the Sunday, July 18 edition of the Des Moines Register.

One of the ironies of the last four year’s controversy about “Heronswood” is the status—indeed, the nature—of the original estate gardens in Kingston. Far from dying, being destroyed or ruined, the exact opposite is true.

Starting in 2003, Dan and his staff shifted from “ongoing” to “final form”, so to speak. After more than 15 years of continual seasonal change—adding plants to, removing plants from, relocating plants in—they began considering the garden as a created or ultimate form.

This makes sense on many levels. First, they had a brand new house and garden 8 miles away and in full sun. (Heronswood is in shade.) Second, Heronswood was established in 1987. It is only now entering shrub and tree “puberty” and its borders are fully established and refined after many years of careful attention and scrutiny. It has finally come into being. One could continue until the cows come home, as my mother would say, but there’d be no reason. Any further refinement is unnecessary.

Then, once I realized in 2004, that Dan had achieved this equilibrium, I began to inspect it for what it was and concluded that I had a finished garden. Since I am not a collector or explorer on Dan’s level, I was more than perfectly content with over 5,000 taxa. This is more than public gardens many times the size of Heronswood. With all six continents represented, I could explore the world in a leisurely stroll.

Thus, it is merely convenient, as well as feckless, for competitors, and mean-spirited for detractors, critics and all of the self-styled blog pundits, to dismiss Heronswood’s gardens in Kingston as “dead”. It is a bit like Venice. Go ahead and ignore or belittle it. Bend yourself out of shape. No one cares. It will be there long after your passing.

We have taken a break from public open houses for this year. However, the garden will be open next year, beginning in March of 2011. We celebrate our 135th year at Burpee!

In that spirit, here is a rambling tour of just a few of the many (74) gardens there in late June. Next post will include close-ups and discuss the many more cultivars than those in the photos that follow:

So close to the sun, canted to receive the longest days. So little cloud cover—or even precipitation in the air. Crops, including tests here at Fordhook Farm, are slowly drying out: roots, trunks, stems, branches, leaves. Petals wave in slow-motion. No wind; so all the desiccation comes from high temperatures and dry air. Stillness is the only blessing the past week and the next few days. Were there wind, some of the newly planted species and cultivars might burn to death.

What to do?

Soak the smaller trees and shrubs, especially the newly planted (one year or less), as early in the morning as possible. Place the hose spout at the base of the tree or large shrub and let a medium flow soak the ground for an hour, or two if it’s a larger or newer transplanted tree.

Turn on the drip system or soaker hoses first thing and let them soak for up to an hour, depending on the genus. Watery plants—more water needed. Fruity plants or vegetables—more still. Do this everywhere every few days. If anything, go longer than shorter in time, especially in the peak of the heat wave.

Do not water mid-day—the plants have already been stressed for seven hours, and, most important, much of the water will evaporate. If that’s the only time you can do it, water even longer periods at a time than in the morning routine.

Do not spray foliage. The leaves have already shut down to conserve water inside them, so your water will simply evaporate on the leaf and, worse, fall off and evaporate on the warm ground. It feels good and makes you think it’s refreshing the plants, but it’s doing absolutely no good. Don’t do it. The roots are all that matter, especially at this time.

Unless you’re in Maine, Canada or the upper Pacific Northwest, your supplemental fertilizing time has passed. All vascular plants want now is water—roots are “ground zero” for their nutrients and air supply.

Finally, please mind that full sun gardens need more water than heavily shaded ones. But check your shaded herbaceous plants for signs of tree root water “theft”. You cannot always tell, since it changes as shrubs and trees grow. When you find noticeable flagging of stems or leaves, water heavily, as above. Since the soil is cooler from the shade, it won’t have to be watered as frequently or as much, as the full sun soil.

Repeat, as needed, or continue to more trouble spots, next morning or the morning after.

So, what to do midday, after weed patrol? FLICKS!

You want vampire movies? I give you them. ‘Near Dark’ started this last two decade-long update and extension of the “intelligent” fang-fest. And the actors! Lance Hendrickson, Bill Paxton, the incredible Jeanette Goldstein, Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Lee, along with all sorts of retread 70s actors as well as up and comers like Theresa Randle. And the odd Joshua Miller. A rollicking story, witty script and as dark a score as the southwestern night could conjure up. Great? No. Gory? Yes. Weird? You bet. Fun? Absolutely.

Then came, from the masterful John Carpenter, Vampire$. This took ‘Near Dark’ up several levels. Great action, gore, historical sweep and weirdness. But the humor and ensemble casting is very satisfying, and there’s even a bit of comedy. And few are better at music and editing than John Carpenter. Actors include Maxmillian Schell, John Woods, Sheryl Lee, Daniel Baldwin and the under-rated Thomas Ian Griffith as the “key” vampire, with a tribe of very grungy ghouls. Supporting players include Julia McFerrin as well as Tim Guinee and Mark Boone Junior as back-up for Woods’ leader of the sucker-hunters. All location shots are in New Mexico, and use student actors from Santa Fe. For the bit parts, so to speak.

Out in the big, cool box theaters, don’t miss ‘A-Team’ as well as ‘The Last Airbender’. One flick in the last century and the other moving fast into the future. It’s always good to see Liam Neeson, even in a popcorn-eater. The plot is compelling, action super energetic and camera work satisfying. As for ‘Airbender’, what’s not to like? The four elements at war! Weaponized magically by martial artists, young and old! Spectacular flick! Plus, it was filmed in southeast Pennsylvania, and we root for our own. At least some of us do.

The media-driven “race scandal” regarding the casting? Since the comics on which the series is based are Asian, and all the characters in Asian comics look like “hybrids” of Asian and non-Asian—as anyone can see—the director casted “hybrid” looking kids. There is no scandal. Unless being faithful to the source material is a scandal, but that would be news to me. It seems there are media scolds everywhere you turn these days, trying to “correct” everything politically, and failing miserably to do so. This is due to ignorance, carelessness or both. Go see ‘The Last Airbender’ it’s a great and glorious flick.

As for the Twilight series, the music is the part I enjoyed. Carter Burwell’s score, in the last one, was even better. But Howard Shore is very memorable.

I have to give the writers credit for dealing with the desire for immortality in a new way, if only stylistically. But there’s also a return to the “real” romance—the Christian subtext that is linked here and there, like a bit of code. Faust as a young girl? It will be interesting to see where the series goes.

For a fantasy of a Biblical theme, check out ‘Book of Eli’. Now there is a film with character. These two Iranian and African American twin brother directors bolted out of the blue with ‘From Hell’—a spectacularly good Ripper retelling—and this is their first new film in almost ten years. Johnny Depp, a breathtaking Heather Graham and Ian Holm played there, while Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis and Gary Oldman fill the ranks here, with moving performances by Ray Stevenson and Jennifer Beals.

At the outset, a spear slowly flashes across the screen—Iliad-like—and you know you’re in mythic space and time. Hercules-Appollo-Eli has quite a task and journey ahead. Washington’s great, and the supporting cast are superb. A genuine surprise ending makes this a keeper.

My fellow Americans, on July 4th we gather to celebrate our country’s independence and pay homage to its founders. We remember this country began as a unique adventure in freedom, individual liberty and rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The United States is today the preeminent world power and beacon of freedom around the globe.

As we glory in America’s independence, we tend to overlook the second part of the independence equation: Great Britain. In declaring independence, we broke from British rule, while inventing a nation inspired by British ideas. It was Thomas Paine, an anti-monarchial Englishman, who urged the Americans to declare independence and sever ties with Britain in his 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense”.

Just seven months before the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, with Colonists already battling British forces, Thomas Jefferson, its principal author, wrote to an English friend, “Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.”

Jefferson’s love of Britain and passion for American independence sprang from the same sources. The works of English political philosopher John Locke supplied Jefferson with the arguments for inalienable natural rights, including those of property and the right to rebel against overreaching governments. Jefferson modified Locke’s phrase “life, liberty, and property” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was Scottish philosopher Henry Home from whom Jefferson lifted the “pursuit of happiness.”

Free markets? Thank Adam Smith, another Scot. Limited government? An idea first established in the Magna Carta (1215), English common law and the English Bill of Rights (1689). Be grateful Jefferson was a voracious reader.

The Colonies did not bristle with discontent under British rule. The British treated their American subjects with what Edmund Burke called “salutary neglect”, allowing the Colonists to manage their society with little interference. The trifling duties imposed by Parliament, after the budget-busting Seven Years War, found disfavor with Colonists more as a breach of English Constitutional principles than for their rapacity.

The leaders of the American Revolution were wealthy landowners interested, not in demolishing existing institutions, but controlling them—an early form of hostile takeover. This was not a revolution to improve the lot of the masses, but to bolster the Colonial elite’s power and wealth.

The true revolution was not the Colonies’ insurrection against the Mother Country, but one of the ideas shipped over from Britain and brilliantly hybridized by the Founding Fathers. Our country’s core values—democracy, individual freedom, a free press, a constitution—were English imports, just like the infamous tea. Had the Brits imposed duties on political thought, the Colonists would have staged The Boston Idea Party.

This July 4th, eleven score and fourteen years after the Declaration of Independence, I propose that the United States join the Commonwealth of Nations, the federation of former and current Crown territories.

You may not know the Commonwealth. It’s not a military juggernaut like NATO; an exclusive club based on economic clout like the G8; nor a bureaucratic behemoth—of democracies, dictatorships and everything in-between—like the United Nations.

The Commonwealth is a “country club” we should belong to. The alliance of 54 sovereign nations—small, medium, large, rich and poor—is united by the ideals we share: democracy, liberty, the rule of law, equality and free trade.

Itself a democracy, the Commonwealth’s policies are created by consensus: no nation is more equal than any other. And their deliberations are conducted in English, the common language of the former British colonies. With members on all six inhabited continents, the sun never sets on the Commonwealth of Nations or its ideals.

As a plant breeder, I am keenly aware of the extraordinary outcomes that arise from crossing widely different strains. A successful hybrid plant demonstrates “hybrid vigor”: it’s healthier, hardier and more productive.

The same phenomenon is evident in culture, a word with roots in agriculture. Since 1776, we have gradually lost the receptivity to foreign ideas that helped inspire our country’s founding fathers. Just as Jefferson, a plant breeder himself, selected and adapted ideas from British philosophers and applied them to the Colonies, we can absorb and integrate the insights and ideas of our Commonwealth friends, and they ours.

For instance, throughout the former British Empire, people utilize the English language with a fluency, clarity and flair that Americans lack: it’s the difference between speaking and talking. Whether in Parliament, the press or the pub, Brits relish the sparky give-and-take of debate, repartee, and battle of wits, as do others in the Commonwealth states. In the U.S., verbal cleverness and wordplay are more despised than prized, and to our detriment.

So let’s break out our Latin schoolbooks, brush up our Shakespeare, sharpen our wits and join the scrum of liberal democracies that is the Commonwealth of Nations.

Jefferson would surely approve.

The above appeared in a shorter version in the Op/Ed section of The Philadelphia Inquirer on July 1, 2010.

This land is your land, this land is my land, and more crucially, this land is land.

As we celebrate Independence Day, let’s consider a new political party based, not on stimulants such as tea and coffee, but on flowers and vegetables. Hold your rallies in your yard. Everyone is welcome: north, south, left or right.

Welcome to the Garden Party, the new grassroots movement founded with the express purpose of inspiring Americans and their leaders to think and act like gardeners.

The Garden Party is inspired by the example of our forefathers. Thomas Jefferson considered himself first of all a man of the land; George Washington viewed his primary role as farmer. Both men were leaders and pioneers in agriculture, as well as statesmen. They both practiced crop rotation and careful stewardship of the soil.

Both men were eager innovators in introducing new crops. Jefferson wrote, “The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture…One such service of this kind rendered to a nation is worth more to them than all the victories of the most splendid pages of their history, and becomes a source of exalted pleasure to those who have been instrumental in it.”

The Garden Party believes that a country, once it loses its connection to the land, loses its mind as well. Our goal is to restore both. To create and maintain a flourishing and productive garden calls for planning, vigilance, patience, imagination, love, discipline, resilience, timing, pragmatism, prudence, and durable gloves—precisely the qualities our leaders now need most.

Our party’s garden-centered stimulus plan calls for reconnecting American culture with agriculture and horticulture, and bringing the country back to the country. It’s time for Americans, adrift in the gleaming void of cyberspace and the nebulae of the service economy, to come back to earth, and harvest the wisdom that grows in the garden.

Most Americans are separated by just a few generations from life on the farm. Our lives are no longer joined to the rhythm of the rising and setting sun, the seasons, plantings and harvests that defined our ancestors’ days, months and years. We have replaced nature’s cadences with synthetic manmade ones, and warm sunlight with chilly backlit computer screens. In severing our connection to nature, we have also lost touch with our shared nature as a people.

The 10,000 years of agricultural development could be viewed as the prelude to the information age. Seeds were the microchips of their day; agricultural knowledge was the software. The earliest gardens anchored early settlements of locavores, giving rise to closer communities, tidier social arrangements and an ever-accelerating culture. Seeds, plants and gardening know-how went viral—migrating from person to person, farm to farm, continent to continent. Those who heeded the wisdom of the gardener flourished; those who did not perished.

Yet, agriculture lives on in our national imagination and memory. Through the clutter of mass media, we can still remember the seeds sown by Native Americans, the Pilgrims’ first harvest, the beauty and bounty of depression-era and World War II victory gardens, and our own family beds, borders and plots. The garden remains our terra firma: a vulgarity-free zone, a serene and verdant refuge from the mass media carnival.

You wouldn’t know it from reading the news, but the United States remains the “breadbasket of the world.” Our country is unrivalled—for both the stunning variety and abundance of the crops we grow. The early European settlers were rightly dazzled by the extraordinary richness of the American soil. The country’s range of terrain and climate makes agriculture perhaps the most exceptional aspect of American exceptionalism.

The Garden Party does not propose that Americans stop everything, start a garden or reinvent themselves as 21st century farmers. Our goal is simpler and more dramatic. We want Americans not necessarily to assume the life of gardeners (it would be nice)—but to adopt the wisdom of gardeners.

Like the American people, the garden abounds in diversity, different plants coexisting in dynamic equipoise—a good model for our increasingly unbalanced political discourse. We need to develop a politics of nurture on a scale with our immense natural and human resources. As a society we seem increasingly fractured and fractionalized and have lost our sense of the wholeness, richness and beauty of the American narrative.

The nation’s first “apolitical party”, The Garden Party can serve us as a living central metaphor, the axis where the American people and the American land come together, connecting our past, present and future. The wellspring of creativity and innovation, The Garden Party is a garden of ideas. Join us.

The litter layer of the soil is home to a myriad of small creatures. Most are familiar to the gardener, who has dug a little and turned over stones and compost piles. For the most part, these are unremarkable; the group includes worms (annelids), millipedes, centipedes, and roly-polys (a crustacean) that scurry for safety when uncovered. One creature that may not be so familiar is the pseudoscorpion.

Pseudoscorpions (order Pseudoscorpiones) are arachnids, as are spiders, ticks, mites, and true scorpions. Arachnids have eight legs, two body sections, and no antennae. They are close relatives to the insects, which have six legs, three body sections, and one pair of antennae.

Pseudoscorpions are tiny (2-4 mm; there are 24.5 mm/inch), and in a superficial way, they resemble their larger cousin the true scorpion but lack its stinging tail. Pseudoscorpions are not only small but secretive, and for these reasons, and perhaps because of taxonomic complexity made more problematic by their small size, pseudoscorpions have not been extensively studied. Compared with other arachnids relatively little is known about them. Pseudoscorpions are also a small (though well defined) group. Roughly 100,000 arachnid species have been described, and of these, only about 3000 are pseudoscorpions. In the continental USA and Canada, there are about 350 pseudoscorpion species.

Pseudoscorpions are “cosmopolitan”. In addition to the soil litter layer, they are found in a wide variety of habitats that include soil well below the litter layer; compost piles; tree hollows; rotting stumps; under bark and stones; caves; marine intertidal zones; in the nests of insects, birds, and mammals; and sometimes in houses.

They are predaceous, and have one pair of relatively large pincer-like claws (called pedipalps), hence the resemblance to true scorpions. In the interior of the pedipalps is a poison gland that pseudoscorpions use for defense and to capture prey. As with many arachnids, they inject their prey with digestive juices to predigest them before eating them. They feed on small soil invertebrates (mites and collembola–springtails) and various flies, ants, beetle larvae, booklice, and an occasional caterpillar. In houses, they kill and eat the cloth moth larvae that are so destructive to woolens.

Some pseudoscorpion species perform elaborate courtship “dances”, but male and female never touch during mating. For reproduction to occur, the male produces a spermatophore, which is capsule or mass containing sperm. The female searches for this and rubs over it to absorb the sperm that will fertilize her eggs. Pseudoscorpions have a silk gland. The females may store her eggs in a silk sac to protect them. When the eggs hatch, she will tend the young for a short time. She will have only one brood in a year with fewer than 25 young. In some pseudoscorpion species, males are very rare, suggesting that parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction in which the embryo develops without fertilization) may occur.

Pseudoscorpions, like all arachnids, are wingless. This has not inhibited their dispersal, though; they have evolved an effective method of getting around–they are “phoretic”, meaning that they hitch rides on other animals. They use flies, beetles, and wasps as well as small mammals and birds. Pseudoscorpions clinging to insects have been found preserved in 25 million year old fossilized Baltic amber.

Pseudoscorpions are harmless to people, and if you have seen a pseudoscorpion, it may well have been in your bathroom sink. One species–Chelifer cancroides–is common and often found in houses. It is attracted to the moisture of bathrooms. Once on the slippery porcelain of a sink, it may fall in and be unable to get out.

In a square meter of the litter of a temperate forest like those in the eastern USA, you might find as many as 5000 pseudoscorpions. But their distribution is spotty. One sample of leaf litter might yield dozens of pseudoscorpions, while another might have none.

If you’re inclined, an easy way to isolate pseudoscorpions is by means of a Berlese funnel, named for its inventor, Italian entomologist Antonio Berlese (died 1927). A Berlese funnel is easy to construct and use, and there are many internet sites that describe how to make and use one; the following site is one of many but has good illustrations: http://pnwsteep.wsu.edu/edsteep/SoilInvertebrates/Berlese.doc; verified 17 June 2010. Sample your compost pile or the leaf litter in a familiar woodlot. If you are successful and want to try identifying your finds, see Photographic Key to the Pseudoscorpions of Canada and the Adjacent USA (http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/ejournal/b_10/b_10_main.html; verified 17 June 2010).

The general ecology of pseudoscorpions is another area that has not received much attention. Recent research, however, indicates that pseudoscorpions may be a good indicator of biological diversity. So if you find them in your garden or compost pile, consider that a good sign.

We live in a time that merits its own version of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles McKay’s classic 1841 study of human follies and frenzies, such as witch hunts, alchemy and bursting financial bubbles. Our current repertoire of fallacies is rich in conspiracy theories, apocalyptic prophecies and alien abductions.

One such delusion is now in full bloom. The movement to legalize medical marijuana is proceeding apace without significant care or consideration on the part of the government, the medical and scientific community, or the public.

With California leading, fourteen states have now legalized medical marijuana, with legalization under consideration in 11 other states. This rampaging weed of a public policy seems eerily immune to the kind of scientific testing and review routinely accorded to the regulation of food, medicine and over-the-counter drugs. You would think that marijuana — classified as a schedule I drug, one with a high potential for abuse and “no currently accepted medical use” by federal law — would get special scrutiny before it’s approved as medicine: you would be wrong.

With medical marijuana, the public and policy-makers alike have thrown caution to the smoke-filled winds. California’s medical marijuana laws are a hodge-podge, changing from county to county, like something dreamed up by Cheech and Chong. Today there are 1000 marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles alone — a greater number than all the city’s Starbucks, 7-11s and MacDonald’s combined. Far from being clinical, some shops feature carnivalesque hucksters out front to lure new clients. Pretty much anyone claiming a headache can get a prescription. State lawmakers seem to have learned nothing from California’s experiment.

I do not propose denying medical marijuana to those in chronic pain from cancer, AIDS or other ailments. But as a horticulturist, I worry that these patients are using a garden-grown substance that offers dangers more significant than the relief it affords. They are subjects in a loopy social policy experiment.

Marijuana’s value as pain relief, as well as its overall safety, deserve investigation. Right now the scientific findings are far from conclusive. The AMA has sensibly urged the federal government to loosen restrictions that impede serious research.

Yet, the very public that wants its food grown organically and sustainably and flees from corn syrup, sugar, butter and salt as from a plague, blithely overlooks pot’s uncertain provenance. They seem indifferent to where their pot comes from, who sows the seed and grows the plants and where, and what manner of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and growth stimulants are used to enhance it.

Today’s pot is far stronger than the weed that gave boomers a halcyon buzz in their youth. Seeking relief for pain from a few puffs of medical marijuana can result in a doubling of your heart rate, anxiety, panic, hallucinations and psychotic episodes. Some help!

While there is scant evidence to support marijuana’s medical benefits, there is plenty confirming its dangers, findings substantiated by significant increases in marijuana-induced emergency room visits in the last 15 years. And pot messes with your head: significantly impairing short-term memory, verbal skill, judgment and perception. Anyone who’s talked to a pothead will testify to these effects.

Statistics on pot are bummers. Pot-using teenagers have poorer grades and poorer attendance. Of those arrested, 41% of adult men test positive for pot, 27% of adult women. Six to 11% of fatal accident victims test positive for THC. A painkiller, indeed.

Since pot’s potency can vary dramatically, patients have no guidelines for dosage, so it’s hit or miss, you might say. This problem, and many of medical marijuana’s other perils, can be effectively addressed by marinol, an approved prescription medicine that offers calibrated doses of pot’s key THC isomer.

The medical marijuana debacle deserves serious attention from the Administration, the Courts, Congress and the FDA and AMA. What are they waiting for? Unchecked, this latest extraordinary popular delusion will have serious social and medical consequences.

Most scourges of our native trees were inadvertently introduced to North America. Think of chestnut blight; it wiped out the American chestnut throughout its entire range in about 25 years. And Dutch elm disease virtually eliminated the American elm and changed the look of American cities in a similar period of time. Both diseases are caused by fungi that were unintentionally imported on wood intended for furniture manufacture.

Gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar), which defoliates about 2 million acres of hardwood forest in any given year, is a different story. Gypsy moth is native to Europe, but in the late 1860s, artist, amateur entomologist, and French émigré E. Léopold Trouvelot imported gypsy moth to his home outside of Boston. Only a few years earlier (1862), Lincoln had established the Department of Agriculture (now USDA); so even then, in the midst of the Civil War, there was an awareness of the need for a controlling authority over, among other things, importation of exotic animals and plants.

However, Trouvelot was quite accomplished and no doubt could have obtained (if he did not and if one was required) a permit to import gypsy moth. He intended to breed them with native silkworms to develop a disease-resistant strain that he could use to launch a commercial silk industry. Trouvelot eventually had as many as 1 million caterpillars in cultivation. Unfortunately, some escaped.

Soon Trouvelot lost interest in entomology and concentrated on astronomical illustration. His work became well known for its detail. He produced as many as 7000 drawings and lithographs (See for example http://www.lib.umich.edu/divine-sky-artistry-astronomical-maps/drawings.html; verified 22 May 2010.) and published 50 scientific papers. A crater on Mars bears his name. Trouvelot returned to France in 1882. That same year the first gypsy moth outbreak occurred at Medford, MA, on the street where Trouvelot had lived.

Today, with no hope of eradication, we "manage" gypsy moth. Management strategies are based on the insect’s life cycle and biology. Its life cycle is relatively simple, involving four developmental stages—egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa, and moth (adult)—in one generation per year.

In late summer, female moths lay masses of eggs. Larvae overwinter in the eggs and hatch as caterpillars in spring. It is the caterpillar that is destructive. It prefers oak, aspen, and willow but will feed on almost 600 species of trees and shrubs. Some trees are resistant—dogwood, ash, locust tree, yellow poplar, and some maples, for example. Evergreens are generally resistant, but blue spruce and white pine are not. The caterpillar is thus "polyphagous", and caterpillars live to eat; smaller young ones feed during daylight, while older ones feed under cover of night. The gypsy moth expands its range primarily by "ballooning"; young caterpillars spin a silk thread that is caught by wind; they are usually carried no more than 300 feet. This stage lasts about 7 weeks. In early summer, caterpillars enter the pupal stage and develop into moths. Moths emerge from their cocoons in 10 to 14 days. The moth itself is short lived (about 14 days) and eats nothing; its biological function is to mate and reproduce.

Population dynamics of gypsy moth are unusual, going through boom and bust cycles. The pest may exist at low numbers for many years, but over one or two generations, its numbers can climb rapidly—an "outbreak". The population then collapses just as quickly. During these episodic population explosions, whole forests can be defoliated. Healthy trees usually survive single defoliations, but several years of defoliation in combination with other stresses such as drought or pathogens are lethal. These same population dynamics are seen in Europe, where the insect is native.

Small mammals (for example, mice) feed on gypsy moth eggs and are largely responsible for keeping gypsy moth numbers in check. Several insect parasites also prey on gypsy moth. But what tips the balance and causes an apparently stable population suddenly to explode is not known. Outbreaks tend to be regional, though, and because of this, it seems likely that weather events or some other broad, general influence may upset an otherwise stable biological balance and initiate an outbreak.

Crashes in gypsy moth populations are better understood and seem to be caused by the rapid spread of two gypsy moth-specific pathogens within the crowded, outbreak population. One of these is a virus and the other a soil-borne fungus that is highly virulent during wet, humid conditions. Under non-outbreak conditions, neither pathogen exists at a high enough level to check an outbreak.

Since it escaped from Trouvelot 140 years ago, gypsy moth has spread to only 30% of susceptible U.S. habitat. USDA Forest Service is charged with managing the pest and has concentrated on minimizing the rate at which the pest spreads—the Slow the Spread Program (STS), was funded by Congress in 2000. The overall strategy, conducted in cooperation with state DNRs and local municipalities, involves quarantine and suppression in infested areas, eradication in the pest-free areas where isolated gypsy moth are found, and suppressing the rate of spread in the transitional areas between infested and pest-free areas.

STS suppression efforts focused along the 1000-mile leading edge of the gypsy moth infestation zone include the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. The primary tactic is aerial spraying with an insecticide composed of Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki (Btk), applied in May through June when young caterpillars are present. In 2009, 440,000 acres were treated. Btk is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that kills caterpillars when they ingest it. It has been used as an aerially applied insecticide for at least 30 years and is considered safe to humans, pets, live stock, and property. But it is controversial because it is not specific to gypsy moth; it also kills any other moth or butterfly caterpillar that eats it. Gypcheck, another insecticide that’s used, is specific to gypsy moth caterpillars. Gypcheck is based on the gypsy moth-specific virus that is so virulent in gypsy moth outbreak populations. However, Gypcheck has been used only where endangered or threatened moths or butterflies are present, since, it is difficult and expensive to make.

Mating disruption is a strategy that is particularly well suited for low-density gypsy moth populations. It utilizes pheromones, chemicals that insects produce to communicate with each other. Gypsy moth females attract males to them by releasing a sex pheromone when they are ready to mate. Aerial applications of a synthetic gypsy moth sex pheromone mask the female’s scent and confuse males so that they cannot find females. Moths are at the end of their life and die without mating. About 100,000 acres in Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin were treated with synthetic pheromone in 2009. The pheromone has no effect on humans or other animals and is not long lasting in nature.

Despite these efforts, gardeners and homeowners still encounter gypsy moths, and there are simple ways to reduce their impact. Look for egg masses in late summer through spring; they usually contain 100 to 600 eggs, or more. They are tan, roughly tear-drop shaped, and about 1 to 1.5 inches across. They are laid in protected places such as under tree branches and loose bark. In residential lots, they are also found on manufactured objects (lawn furniture, fences, grills, sides of houses, boat trailers). Egg masses found after early May have probably hatched. Gypsy moth can cause skin irritation; use gloves when handling egg masses, caterpillars, or pupae. Egg masses should be scraped into soapy water infiltrated with an emulsion of water and vegetable oil, or microwaved for a minute or two. Simply crushing them will not kill all eggs.

Gypsy moth caterpillars appear in midspring and are easy to distinguish from other common leaf-feeding caterpillars (See the following link: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/gypsymoth/id.html; verified 22 May 2010). They’re initially quite small but grow to 1.5 to 2.0 inches long. Older caterpillars have coarse, black hairs and 11 sections with colored spots; the first five pairs of spots are blue and the last six are red. They do not produce webs or tents as do webworms and tent caterpillars.

Insecticides, both biological and synthetic, can be sprayed in early spring if caterpillar numbers warrant it. The most common one, the Forest Service’s choice, is Btk, which is sold under various labels (Foray, for example). Check with county agricultural agents or garden stores for recommendations and spraying schedules. Certified arborists will spray for gypsy moth also.

Mechanical barriers work well in small suburban lots but are not practical for larger areas. "Sticky" barrier bands target young caterpillars that have fallen from trees or that have been transported by wind. These should be installed in early spring when the young caterpillars are hatching. One method is to wrap duct tape around trees at 5 to 6 feet above the ground and cover it with a sticky compound such as "Tanglefoot", a commercial product, or petroleum jelly. Caterpillars trying to climb up trees to feed will be caught and can be scrapped off into soapy water or a sealable bag. This type of barrier also works for other caterpillars such as tent caterpillars.

Older caterpillars are more mobile than young ones and crawl from tree to tree. They hide from predators such as birds during the day and are attracted to bands of fabric such as burlap placed around trees. These bands can replace or supplement the sticky barrier bands. They should be installed in early to midsummer. The cloth strip should be 12 to 18 inches wide and long enough to wrap around a tree completely without a gap. The cloth is secured to the tree trunk with a piece of twine that is tied around the cloth’s center; the cloth is then folded down over the twine to cover the cloth’s bottom half. These bands should be placed above sticky bands at 5 to 6 feet above the ground. Caterpillars that hide under the flap of the band can be captured and killed in soapy water. When an infestation is high, bands should be checked every day in the afternoon.

Look for pupae as well as moths in late summer. Pupae are dark brown, about 2 inches long, covered with hairs, and are found hanging in sheltered spots such as branches or in leaf litter. Female moths have white to cream-colored wings, a tan body, and a 2-inch wingspan; they do not fly. Males are smaller, dark-brown, and have feathery antennae. Pupae can be crushed. Male moths cruising for females will be attracted to and caught by ordinary commercial pheromone traps.

Over time, barring some technical or natural breakthrough, the pernicious gypsy moth will infest all of the hardwood forests in the USA and Canada. It may well change the composition of these forests. The best we can do is reduce its spread and moderate its effect. The Forest Service STS program has been quite successful. It has reduced by 70% the Gypsy moth rate of spread from its historical average of 13 to 3 miles per year. Gardeners can do their part too by recognizing this pest, knowing its habits, and killing it whenever they find it.

They don’t make Mother’s Day like they used to. Signed into being with Woodrow Wilson’s 1917 Presidential Proclamation, the U.S. Mother’s Day holiday has been tainted with rampant commercialism almost from its inception.

Anna Jarvis, a stalwart Philadelphian, had made the holiday her mission since her mother’s death in 1905. Her late mother, Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis, herself a woman of spirit, had advocated for the creation of a Memorial Mother’s Day to honor the significant role of mothers in their families, churches and communities. In her native West Virginia, she had created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address local issues of poor sanitation and epidemic diseases. During the Civil War, Jarvis’ mére urged the Mother’s Day Work Clubs to tend to the wounded of both the Union and Confederate soldiers. She was the real deal.

The younger Anna Jarvis, having achieved her goal of a Mother’s Day national holiday, was soon appalled by the commercial debasement of her noble cause. This was not the Mother’s Day for which she and her mother had militated. “I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit,” she declared. She disdained the purchase of flowers and greeting cards as suitable maternal homage. Greeting cards, she said, were “a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write.”

In 1923 the doughty Ms. Jarvis launched a lawsuit against New York Governor Al Smith over a Mother’s Day celebration. When the suit was dismissed, she publicly protested, was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. This determined and feisty woman, as well as her mother, should be remembered today, beacons of integrity and fortitude in the sea of greeting cards, chocolates, flowers and restaurant dinners.

Mother’s Day is now observed across the nation by the ceremonial ka-ching of cash registers and swiping of charge cards. In terms of consumer spending, the holiday is second only to the Christmas-Hanukah-Kwanzaa juggernaut.

Americans are expected to spend $126.90 on Mother’s Day gifts this year, on average, with total spending likely to reach $14.6 billion. The breakdown? 1.9 billion spent on flowers, 2.9 billion on restaurants for Mother’s Day dining; 2.5 billion for jewelry for Mom. Another seven billion, give or take a billion, will be divvied up between Mom-inspired purchases of clothes and accessories, gift certificates, spa services and personal electronics (Hey, what mother doesn’t want an iPhone?) And those greeting cards so execrated by Anna Jarvis, the mother of Mother’s Day? Total sales of $671 million. Ka-ching!

Mothers—and Mother’s Day—deserve better. A woman, your mother, risks her life to bring you into the world, and to thank her you take her to Red Lobster? She nurtures and guides you from infancy into adulthood—and she gets a bouquet of commercially grown flowers? She transforms your family house into a home, and you reward her with earrings?

Mother’s Day gifts will never—can never—have a tangible value commensurate with a mother’s love, wisdom, sacrifices and hard work. What’s missing in the Mother’s Day trove of flowers, jewelry, nice restaurants and high-tech gimcracks is something more profound and more important: symbolism.

Symbolism speaks to the soul, engages the imagination, and provides lasting inspiration. You won’t find it online, in a department store or boutique. You can’t buy it, and it’s not for sale. There’s only one way you can get it or give it: you create it.

This year, for Mother’s Day, honor your mother as she deserves to be—create a garden for her.

People knew what was up in Neolithic times. Ten thousand years ago, there were annual celebrations honoring the Mother-Goddess, who was worshipped around the world as a symbol of fecundity and renewal. People made sacrifices to her. The Mother-Goddess gave birth to agriculture, and with it, culture and society. I wonder if they called her Mom.

A Mother’s Day garden mirrors the motifs of conventional Mother’s Day offerings—but revealed in their pure, original, authentic splendor. In the garden there are flowers and fragrance, beautiful things to see, delicious things to eat. The garden itself is a sanctuary, a spa for the senses. You could look at it as a restaurant, where your fellow diners are butterflies and hummingbirds.

The garden represents a sublime reflection of mothers and families. New life arises here, provided with a compatible habitat (e.g. the flower bed), nurtured into growth and bloom, and furnishing the seeds of coming generations. Are we not all seeds, and our mothers master gardeners? Yes, we are, and yes, she is.

Brothers and sisters, for our Mother’s Day offerings, let us replace products with produce, Red Lobster with red, ripe tomatoes, earrings with ears of corn. Let’s convey our gratitude, not with greeting cards, but with a message inscribed in flowers, fruits and vegetables, redolent with flavor, fragrance and color.

The garden connects us to the earth, the elements, the seasons, the past and future, the sun and stars, the life of the planet, the very origins of life. Now that’s a gift worthy of Mom.

Ms. Jarvis would, I think, agree.