from the garden bookshelf

January is a good month to curl up in a sunbeam and read garden stories. This is also the month the gardening catalogues start filling up my mailbox. Filled with inspiration by the time March comes, I'll be ready with my early seeds.

Reading now: a little lore and history and the garden science of garlic  ..mmmmmmmmgarlic Not only is garlic my favourite fender of aphids, but I eat it daily. There's nothing like walking down Algoma Street when The Growing Season is cooking up something delightful - and the aroma of warm roasting garlic fills the street. 

In Pursuit of Garlic: An Intimate Look at the Divinely Odorous Bulb

Liz Primeau 

Greystone Books 2012

978-1553656012

A couple of reference books arrived in my stocking this year. I can't say enough for illustrated garden reference books - everyone should have them. These two include interesting sidebars of lore and historical notes.. which I always enjoy.

Edible: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Food Plants

National Geographic 2008

978-1426203725

A Visual Dictionary of Herbs: A Comprehensive Botanical A-Z Reference to Herbs

Jessica Houdret

Anness 2000

978-1842150733 

For the Culinary gardenerd: a Shakespearean cookery. I really love this one. I'll have a lot of fun with it over in my food blog (when I feel like eating again). :)

The Shakespeare Cookbook

Andrew Dalby and Maureen Dalby 

British Museum Press 2012

978-0714123356

first  arrivals 2013

Bazinga!

Named Euglossa bazinga by biologist Andre Nemesio, it is a species of Brazilian orchid bee that has fooled scientists by it's similarity to other species. The recently discovered bee was named for everybody's favourite supernerd, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, and is in headlines everywhere. 

The Big Bang Theory has kept us laughing this past year - many, many afternoons spent at my mother's condo watching the dvds, getting our nerd on. (I wonder if this bee news will help my mother appreciate the Bazinga snuggie we gave her for Christmas? The only response I've had is an eye roll - even after I pointed out it could be worn like a cape..) 

A quick Google image search for the Bazinga bee brings up a page of Sheldon and bee appropriate photos (all but the horses in the snowy mountains?)..It's beautiful blue and green bee... I'm wishing I could be there to photograph it too.

published in
Zootaxa
December 2012

fowl-less waterfront habitat

Prince Arthur's Landing
15 March 2012

Considered in the waterfront's rejuvenation was a well considered planting plan, deterring geese naturally: smart and pretty. #TBay

Morden Roses

Morden Blush ~ Parkland Rose

The Parkland series roses were developed to survive harsh Canadian winters by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) at Morden Research Station in Manitoba. Exceptional for their hardiness (to -35C), they require minimal care and pruning, and are reliably disease resistant. Profuse and repeat bloomers, I haven't met one I haven't loved.

A Rose By Any Other Name

A walk through the Morden Research Station (PDF)

In the news recently....

"The decision to discontinue the program under the auspices of Agriculture Canada came in 2008 as part of a departmental review of federal research priorities.

It placed work such as the development of the Parkland series of roses long associated with Morden near the bottom of the list compared to other agri-food research. As a result, the decision was made to phase out the ornamentals program and turn over the remaining materials to private industry or other groups."
excerpt from:
Famed rose program leaving Morden
Local bid not awarded program in privatization by federal government
By Lorne Stelmach
The Morden Times

The story continues:

"Following a departmental review two years ago, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada decided to discontinue its involvement in the rose breeding and research program. The program was opened up to applications and has now been awarded to the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association.
CNLA Rose Program Research Coordinator Rick Durand says the program will continue in southern Manitoba. He explains all the roses that were growing in containers at the AAFC Morden Research Station have been brought to Morden Nurseries, Aubin Nurseries at Carman and Jeffries Nurseries at Portage."
Nurseries Take Over Rose Program
by Kelvin Heppner    

steinbachonline.com/agriculture_news
18 August 2010

"....rose expert and author Bob Osborne of Corn Hill Nurseries, N.B, "The past several decades have been a tremendously exciting time for the northern rose grower. No longer do we need to look with envy at pictures of English gardens draped with colourful and climbing roses. Thanks to Agriculture and AgriFood Canada breeding programs, we now have at our disposal a veritable cornucopia of roses that are hardy, easy to grow, beautifully formed and disease resistant to boot."
Canadian genetics live on!
From setback to opportunity: Canada's grower industry embarks on a new era with the takeover of AAFC's ornamental breeding program

By Rita Weerdenburg

LandscapeTrades.com

May 2011 

Morden Blush ~ Parkland Rose

Morden Arboretum Research Station

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Station

The Renaissance of Bees

The Renaissance of Bees

Woolfson, Jonathan

Source: Renaissance Studies
Volume 24, Number 2,
April 2010, pp. 281-300
Blackwell Publishing

ABSTRACT

Insects have occupied the planet for over 400 million years, humans for a mere one million. Their impact on human development has been incalculable. They are likely to outlive us. This article explores selected cases in attitudes to the honeybee, an insect with a particularly intense history of interaction with humans, from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries, mainly drawn from England and Italy, but with forays into other parts of Europe. It is argued that the Renaissance of bees is a mixed phenomenon, characterized by the elaboration of ancient and medieval ideas about these creatures; a heightened tendency to moralize about human society in the light of them; and a new curiosity for understanding them better through direct observation. The study of attitudes to bees sheds light on religion, politics, science and gender during the Renaissance.

Jonathan Woolfson ¹

  ¹ Istituto Lorenzo de'Medici, Florence

 I am grateful to audiences at the Warburg Institute, Sussex University, and the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Atlanta for response to versions of this article. Thanks especially to Susan Brigden, Peter Burke, Rita Comanducci, Martin van Gelderen, Claire Preston and Flaminia Pichiorri. For general orientations to the subject of this article see Peter Burke, 'Fables of the Bees: A Case-Study in Views of Nature and Society', in Mikulas Teich, Roy Porter and Bo Gustafsson (eds.), Nature and Society in Historical Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 112–23; Claire Preston, Bee (London: Reaktion Books, 2006); Bee Wilson, The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us (London: John Murray, 2004); Max Beier, 'The Early Naturalists and Anatomists during the Renaissance and Seventeenth Century', in Ray F. Smith, Thomas E. Mittler and Carroll. N. Smith (eds.), History of Entomology (Palo Alto: Annual Reviews, 1973), 81–94; and Hattie Ellis, Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honey Bee (London: Sceptre, 2004).

gardenerd

also

(JSTOR) Scientific Theory in Erasmus Darwin's "The Botanic Garden" (1789-91)
Clark Emery
Isis, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sep., 1941), pp. 315-325
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society

gardenerd 

World Food Day 2008

World Food Day 2008
Lakehead University Agora

World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Roots to Harvest, along with the Food Security Research Network, Advanced Institute for Globalization & Culture, Food Action Network, and LUSU hosted World Food Day today in the Agora.
The Boreal Edge Farm, Belluz Farm, Jeff's wheat mill and Brule Creek Farm, Seeds of Diversity, the Good Food Box, were among the many display booths; and Dr. Mustafa Koc co-founder of the Centre for Studies in Food Security visited Lakehead as keynote speaker.