Global Warming & Heathers
I have been gardening for days. I am behind on several posts I have written but not iploaded. Instead, heathers are on my mind.
A part of my garden is heathers. The logic, in terms of indigenous species, is a bit convoluted. The islands where I live broke off from Scotland several million years ago. There are ericaceous species on both sides of the pond but on mainland America,, which was never part of Scotland, there are neither calluna nor carnea, the two species that survive in our difficult winters (or at least my site, which is open to the full blast of winter wind straight off the deep ocean).
I am very fond of heathers. There are rich in color, texture, shape and bloom and above all, look pretty in mud season. Once established, they live forever, inc thru the summer drought months without water. I have an entire section of my garden for alkaline plants and another for acid. These are in the acid section and no doubt acid rain has done them a world of good without any additional help from me.
In my weeding, I examined several new varieties I had planted early last fall. They did not look happy. So I called my supplier and we discussed what could be wrong. After a long conversation, she mentioned that in some parts of the world where snow cover isn’t consistent, as England, there is center browning and die off on this variety but if there was any green at all left, they would recover. She asked me if we had consistent snow cover. I replied, morosely that we DID, before global warming.
This particular species is a deep, dark green with vivid heliotrope bell flowers. Bees love them. They are cheerfully dramatic in otherwise subdued times of the year without being inappropriate.
Sure enuf, when I went back to the garden, there were a few hopeful sprigs of green. Otherwise, they looked pretty sadly brown. Now, I know they will come back & be as beautiful as their neighbors in another few weeks, but I find this a difficult thing to accept.
It is difficult only because flowers are such a delicate and lovely part of creation. They offer such innocent joy. Heathers ask so little of the gardener. They blend so willingly and politely with other species, esp the conifers of a boreal forest such as I am have been part of- at least till global warming pushed that too further North. They never invade another plant’s boundaries and in my garden, tolerate the crocuses among them as graciously as they do the traffic of my animals passage.
Heathers are not as spectacularly dramatic as polar bears, but it somehow seemed as sad to me that global warming has marred their gentle glory as it has put the fierce polar bears into the status of endangered species.
A part of my garden is heathers. The logic, in terms of indigenous species, is a bit convoluted. The islands where I live broke off from Scotland several million years ago. There are ericaceous species on both sides of the pond but on mainland America,, which was never part of Scotland, there are neither calluna nor carnea, the two species that survive in our difficult winters (or at least my site, which is open to the full blast of winter wind straight off the deep ocean).
I am very fond of heathers. There are rich in color, texture, shape and bloom and above all, look pretty in mud season. Once established, they live forever, inc thru the summer drought months without water. I have an entire section of my garden for alkaline plants and another for acid. These are in the acid section and no doubt acid rain has done them a world of good without any additional help from me.
In my weeding, I examined several new varieties I had planted early last fall. They did not look happy. So I called my supplier and we discussed what could be wrong. After a long conversation, she mentioned that in some parts of the world where snow cover isn’t consistent, as England, there is center browning and die off on this variety but if there was any green at all left, they would recover. She asked me if we had consistent snow cover. I replied, morosely that we DID, before global warming.
This particular species is a deep, dark green with vivid heliotrope bell flowers. Bees love them. They are cheerfully dramatic in otherwise subdued times of the year without being inappropriate.
Sure enuf, when I went back to the garden, there were a few hopeful sprigs of green. Otherwise, they looked pretty sadly brown. Now, I know they will come back & be as beautiful as their neighbors in another few weeks, but I find this a difficult thing to accept.
It is difficult only because flowers are such a delicate and lovely part of creation. They offer such innocent joy. Heathers ask so little of the gardener. They blend so willingly and politely with other species, esp the conifers of a boreal forest such as I am have been part of- at least till global warming pushed that too further North. They never invade another plant’s boundaries and in my garden, tolerate the crocuses among them as graciously as they do the traffic of my animals passage.
Heathers are not as spectacularly dramatic as polar bears, but it somehow seemed as sad to me that global warming has marred their gentle glory as it has put the fierce polar bears into the status of endangered species.
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