September 20, 2010
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Daily Botanical Fruit

Morelle de Balbis Fruit

It’s mid-September (let’s pretend I did not say that out loud), and the glorious Morelle de Balbis plant is bearing ripe fruit. This process began a few weeks ago but I withheld my judgement until several were ready for picking.

I’ve had several opportunities to try them now and can report that the taste is, in a word, insipid. I read several descriptions shortly after purchasing the seeds and the fruit I am picking from our yardshare garden does not meet some of the more flattering accounts. They do have a slight citrus note, but watermelon and cherries… Please. Either my palette is unrefined or others’ are overambitious. Mind you I am basing my entire assessment on a single plant grown in a rather wet year, but still.

The texture of the fruit is very similar to a tomatillo or ground cherry. I suspect that cooking might be in order for the remaining harvest. If I can manage to harvest it all. Those spikes are deadly. Like a tomatillo, the husks pull back from the soft part of the fruit as they mature. This leaves a little bit of room to manage them but not much. Davin was unable to pick even one the other day without spearing his fingers on those spines. He claims they are poisoned in some way and that the ensuing welt was bigger and more painful than it should have been for a spine of that size. This is one crop I’d happily leave to the critters, but I doubt they’ll be bothered when there are still so many passive foodstuffs left to steal.

So let’s tally up the score. Litchi tomato is a hostile and belligerent plant that threatens personal injury at every turn and produces tasteless fruit that is damned near impossible to harvest.

Will I grow it again? YES!

Regardless of the outcome I’m glad I tried this plant and will definitely grow it again, especially when I’ve got more space. The flowers are gorgeous and have attracted an abundance of pollinators to the garden. Watching it’s progress has been a delightful experiment and a good start to my explorations in Solanum Family oddities. In the future I will grow it for show only without the expectation of a useful food crop at the end of the season.

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September 17, 2010
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Daily Botanical Flowers Houseplants

Medusa Head

I bought this Euphorbia a few months ago at the local Cactus and Succulent Society show and sale. It’s called a Medusa Head (Euphorbia flanaganii). I knew I had to have one when I saw my friend Barry’s potted up in an old clay mortar (he drilled a hole in the bottom for drainage).

It’s the sort of plant you can only picture as a houseplant. It seems too weird to come from nature, and yet it does… Somewhere in South Africa these are growing wild.

I would love to see that landscape. Wouldn’t you?

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September 16, 2010
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Flowers Houseplants

My Sinningia is Blooming!

Inspired by a tour of Erika’s unusual houseplants, I bought myself a Sinningia. I purchased it for 2 bucks at the spring Toronto African Violet Society sale, which happened to be taking place at the Toronto Botanical Gardens at the same time as the Ontario Rock Garden Society annual sale, which I was helping out with. This is all by chance, as I am not a member of either group.

But I digress (again). The Sinningia I bought is called ‘Kevin Garnett’. At the time, I had no idea what I was getting, nor a choice for that matter — I was just happy to find one at all, and so cheaply, too. Given a choice, I would have selected a plant that produces a much simpler, red flower. Regardless, I’m happy with this one, despite the fact that it’s not really to my taste. The novelty of keeping it alive and making it bloom hasn’t worn out yet.

At home, I repotted the plant up in a little terracotta pot and placed it alongside my other African Violet Family plants. I used African Violet soil and planted it shallow, exposing the caudex like Erika’s. Mine did not come that way, but I prefer the look.

It is still early days in my Sinningia growing experience and I am not well-read on the subject. To be honest, I’m kind of winging it, going on instinct more than anything else. Whether or not exposing the caudex is good or bad for the plant is beyond me; however, months later and ta-da, my plant is blooming. I must be doing something right.

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September 15, 2010
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Daily Botanical Places

Pillow Cotton

I couldn’t resist sharing another image from the presentation I am working on and will be giving later this month.

This is Giant Milkweed (Gossypium). The only time I saw it on the trip was when we travelled to the north end of Barbados to visit the Animal Flower Cave. The cave was a must-do item for me. When I was growing up, my mother, who is from Barbados, spoke of it fondly. What she described was an ocean-side cave filled with blooming flower animals: sea anemones. Unfortunately, the anemone population has dwindled significantly over the years. While the cave and the surrounding landscape was fantastic, and one of the highlights of the Barbados leg of our trip, what I saw was nothing like the cave as it would have been in my mother’s day.

But I digress. When I hopped off of the last of a three bus journey, the very first plant I noticed was the Giant Milkweed. How could I miss it? It looked like an overgrown version of the milkweed that grows in dry landscapes here in Toronto. The landscape at the north end of the island, and on Barbados in general, is quite dry and flat. There are a lot of dry fields. For that reason, I didn’t see this plant in Dominica, an island that is almost entirely mountainous rainforest!

I did some research and discovered that Giant Milkweed is sometimes called “pillow cotton” because the giant pods are filled with a soft and silky fibre that was once used to fill pillows. How appropriate. You see, for a good month prior to our trip I worried endlessly about the availability of a decent pillow in Dominica and wondered aloud to anyone who would listen as to how I might pack my pillow in addition to all the books and camera gear I felt necessary. This is all because I read somewhere that there was a pillow shortage in Dominica due to a fire, and that it is hard to get stuff there period, regardless. Which is true.

I know this sounds very Princess and the Pea, but I assure you that I can sleep on rocks as long as I have a good pillow. I NEED my pillow. Of course, after all of that fuss, I forgot the pillow at home and then worried about it endlessly during our 4 days in Barbados. Where could I get a pillow? When would I get a pillow and would it take me over Liat’s minuscule carry on limit?

I should have harvested some “pillow cotton” from the Giant Milkweed and made my own while I had the chance.

Amazingly, later that night — our last night in Barbados, and well after I had resigned myself to “suck it up already”– I purchased the perfect pillow from a group of ladies (the Pillow Ladies), and at the fish market of all places!

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September 10, 2010
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Deep Thoughts

Whimsy Must Live

Over at Garden Rant, in a post entitled “Whimsy Must Die” and the follow-up “Couldn’t Resist“, people are going off, once again, about ugly, tacky gardens.

Despite the last fiasco (which I will not link to here), I find myself surprised by how many people take very real offence to a front yard covered in garden gnomes and other so-called kitsch ornamentation — most especially gardeners whose outdoor aesthetic choices are often unfairly subject to the neighbourhood judge and jury. If I came across any of the yards shown in the Garden Rant posts while walking around my own town or any other, I’d snap a few photos and walk away with a big smile on my face.

Look, I’m not above talking crap about an ugly garden (Hello, red-dyed mulch). We all have our own opinions and it’s okay to be decisive and critical about the things we see on display in the public sphere.

But at the end of the day, I’d defend the crassest, tackiest displays of pure cheese (within reason. eg. serious environmental concerns) on principle. I may believe that my own taste is IMPECCABLE and above snide remarks, but I don’t want to live in a kitsch-less world devoid of tacky ornamentation. Walking past the same tastefully designed front garden is BORING. In fact, this kind of homogenous tastefulness is slowly taking over the neighbourhoods surrounding my apartment as older Portuguese and immigrant families are being displaced by rich people who hire the same garden designers. The gardens look nice enough, but holy god is it ever getting dull.

Gone are the interesting religious shrines and tires painted white and cut into the shape of tulips. I miss them.

Case in point: There’s a garden around the way from where I live that looks like a dollar store threw up all over it. Imagine every single cheaply made plastic whirlygig and abomination on a stick you’ve ever seen — this garden has one. I’ve made many side remarks to friends in passing. “Dear god, look at all of the rubber ducks.” “Oh look, it’s got a dancing salmon, too.” Once the snickering is done, we always agree that if that garden was replaced by a cluster of ornamental grasses and some carefully arranged rocks, we’d be disappointed.

For me, it comes down to the fact that the artists behind these masterpieces are having fun. And they are fearlessly bringing their individuality out into the open to share with the world, good taste be damned.

Last week, while walking with a friend to the CNE — a yearly pilgrimage for purveyors of bad taste and even worse food — we chatted about gardening in the city and how one of the best things multiculturalism and immigration has done for Toronto (among many good things) is show the old guard keeping-up-with-the-Jones’-types how to let go a little.

A front yard slathered in melting stuffed animals fills me with as much joy and wonder as a well-tended bed overflowing with horticultural gems. What matters is the enthusiasm of the gardener and their willingness to put it out there. Call it tacky, tasteless, crass, kitsch, embarrassing, ugly, cheap, crude, or whatever you want, but the day whimsy is killed off for good will be a sad day indeed.

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