LONGER DAYS AND SHORTER NIGHTS

     Every year about this time I write a similar post. I tell about our longer days and how it influences plant growth. I've been reading posts for about three months telling about blooms and seeing all kinds of plants that are flowering.

     So now it's my turn to tell about growth and development of plants here. 

     First, daylight yesterday was 14 hours and 58 minutes. The sun rose at 6:01  and set at 9:03. When we get the longer hours of sunlight plants grow and develop very rapidly. The leaves on native plants are ready to come out. That's just in time for songbirds to nest. The leaves provide protection and food. 

   Today I planted corn but in pots in case it freezes. I have transplanted tomatoes into bigger pots. I won't put the tomatoes in the garden until June 8. The bluebells have bloomed and are now shutting down as they go dormant about Aug.1. Some of my friends have planted lettuce and radish as they are regarded as cold crops. 

    As a young person we could play baseball until 10:00 PM. As an Arctic person we could be active 24 hours a day and a lot of us tried it. 

   So I will enjoy the short, vigorous growing season we have.

AUGUST

      August is the border between summer and autumn ; it is the most beautiful month I know. Tove Jansson

      Summer is rolling along . It's August and that's time for changes. 

     This year has been very, very dry. Plants are showing signs of stress. Much grass has stopped growing. Tree leaves are fading and becoming a paler green. They are just waiting for the last chlorophyll to be used up and then they will turn color. The height of the blooming season is over. Some late blooming plants now have their turn to show colors.

     Since this is the second dry year in a row, we start to see some trees die back. Many of the tops are dead. Native trees are coping but non native trees are suffering. 

    On my walk last night I took a camera and picked up a few of the signs of August. 

      I also found this plant in the forest. It's an invasive but I don't know the name.

 

SPRING

       We had a very short spring this year. April was cold and frosty. When May  got hot and we had a couple of very hot spells. It was dry last summer and also the winter. So with very dry conditions you know what happened. We had some major forest fires. You know because many people suffered with the smoke from our fires. We still have about 60 wildfires and 10000 people away from their homes and farms. 

      Today's sunrise was 5:19 AM and sunset at 9:48 PM That means we had 16 hours and 29 minutes of daylight. With the long days our plants advance and mature quickly. My blue bells matured and now are going into dormancy. The bleeding heart is almost finished blooming. Some peonies are blooming. Irises are just ready to pop open. My tiger lilies are ready to burst into bloom. 

     So spring weather may have been  rather short but I'll take May's fine weather. So far June has been nice but not too hot. I've got my tomatoes planted so I'm ready for summer. 

NOT BRAGGIN...JUST SAYIN

      My Christmas cactus is setting blooms for the third time this year. It bloomed in early November and then again in December. And now it's in bud again. I thought they were to bloom only once. 

     I started this plant close to 10 years ago. The micro manager insisted that it be placed in a certain space. She's the plant waterer. She thought that since it was called cactus that it didn't need much water. It was not in a good place for light. The plant did not grow. 

    Three years ago I took over the management of the Christmas cactus. It developed quickly. Last year it bloomed. This year it's been very surprising. 

    For a little history of this plant. I started teaching in a new school in 1969. The vice principal had a few plants and he knew a few things about plants. He retired about 1974 and didn't want his plants and gave them to me. So one of them was a large Christmas cactus with dark blooms. 

    I kept the plant until 1997 when I retired. I "dragged" the plant home. The Micro Manager complained that the plant was too large. I took some cuttings and started several new plants. I kept one and gave the others away. So the plant I have now dates back to 1969. 

    This is a plant I won't part with as I always remember Nap with this plant. 

I'M NOT READY FOR FALL

   There are small hints of fall but I'm not ready for fall. 

    We have had a heat spell for about 6 or 7 weeks. Not a really uncomfortable hot but hot none the less. Our highs have been mostly 28C to 30 C. For many people this is not hot at all.

    But what I'm trying to say is that with warm summer weather ,it's hard to get your head ready for fall.

    If fall comes quickly your head has to adjust to things very quickly. Today our high was 19 C. Most of the day it was 13 C with sometimes a strong wind. So definitely a touch of fall. 

   However, there are other signs of fall. All of my garden flowers are finished blooming and the plants are starting to look pretty ragged. 

    Leaves are falling but they are the ones that have been damaged over the season. Insects have chewed much of the leaf and the leave has quit functioning so weakens and drops. Some leaves have been eaten by leaf miners. 

So no matter what I'm going to have to be ready for fall. I have to be ready cooler temperatures and changes in leaf color and leaves falling. 

    After all that whining, I do like fall. 

My Zinnias Perform Well

    Well, I think they're Zinnias. I could stand to be corrected. If I'm wrong, I know people will very kindly correct me.

    This is the first year I grew zinnias. Gardens and plants around here are short in variety. How come I grew zinnias?

     Well, I've only grown white petunias in my carport planter and this year I planned to grow petunias in the carport planter. In fact, I bought some petunias as bedding plants.

     One day in the spring my neighbor came over and asked me if I wanted some seeds. His sister is a seed distributor and had given him some out of date seeds. Neighbor didn't have any use for him. These were the type of seeds that are implanted on a piece of fabric and all you had to do was lay the strip on the ground and carefully cover it with the correct depth of soil. He gave me Alyssum and another variety of seed. I planted all the seeds in the one variety and threw the package away. I didn't expect any of them to grow. I watered the carport planter very well. I didn't water the Alyssum that much. The seeds I didn't know the name of germinated and grew well. None of the Alyssum germinated. They have been blooming for three weeks and they are zinnias. 

     Now the big surprise is that the micro manager really likes the variety of colors of the zinnias.  Now she wants to plant zinnias again next year. Fine by me.

    But the next time somebody gives me some seeds to plant , I'll keep the package.

More on: Did We Name Thing the Right Way?

      I had a part that I forgot to put in on my previous post on naming living things. Since I remembered it I thought I would add it in a separate post.


      The names aboriginals gave living things varied a great deal. Names changed with different tribes . And then there were many different native languages. Names were variable since they had an oral culture and history rather than things written down. These differences would have certainly caused some problems. I'm sure that some solution could have been arrived at to overcome the variety of names.


      In some cases we have several  common names  given to living things. Again the reasons for different names are similar to the reasons in the above paragraph. For example, in Western Canada we have Amelanchier alnifolia which we call Saskatoons. Americans call Saskatoons June berries as well  a few other names.. Americans wonder what we're talking about and Canadians wonder what their talking about. The Cree name for Saskatoon was Misaskutum.


     Now my friend Bobby, who is a treasure of humor and wit, asked me for the aboriginal name for dandelions. I don't think Bobby likes dandelions. It might have something to do with his lawn. I should tell him about dandelion wine!  I  wasn't going to let him down with this information so I tried to look it up. I found more than I bargained  for. Dandelions are native to North America and Europe. I couldn't find any aboriginal name but I found a long history of dandelion names from many languages. In English dandelion comes from the French who called it dent-de-lion which became dandelion. Dent de lion means tooth of the lion. The French also called it pis-en-lit which means "piss in the bed."  the English didn't use that name.


     So you see  living thing names can take us many places. If you're looking at dandelion names you may get off the search at Portugal and travel through Portugal for a while before you get back to names.


    I had more fun with this post than I expected because it took me on a bit of a trip.

Did We Name Living Things the Best Way?

     With all due respects to Carl Linaeus and all life scientists past and present, I would suggest that we should or should have used the names aboriginals had for living things. Now I'm not suggesting that we abandon Linaeus's system. Linaeus's system works extremely well and is accepted and used world wide.


     When Europeans first went out to discover the world , settle it and tame the original peoples, they also took it upon themselves to not only name living things but to "discover them." Well, I have news for you ! Most living things were known by the original peoples in any part of the world. More than that, most living things had been named. And further than that, the original people had a very great knowledge about the living things. So because living things had names , why did Europeans take it upon themselves to rename things? This is where I suggest that we should or should have used the names for living things that were first given to them.


     Not only were the living things known and named but also the geographical locations were well named. Maps were in their heads. The other day I was writing about an  Inuit settlement I had lived in. When I was there it was called Wakeham Bay. Today it is called Kangiqsujuaq which means very large bay. That's exactly what it is ...a very large bay. The bay is 25 miles long and 8 miles wide at it's widest. So the original name makes much more sense. Mr Wakeham came along and since he didn't find anybody there decided to leave his name on it. Original place names were very descriptive and helped with finding the location. Having traveled with Inuit in both the eastern and the western Arctic I soon found out that they didn't bother with our maps, and had names for places and didn't have any difficulty to get anywhere they wanted.


     If we look at birds for example, we find all kinds of people who pinned their name to a species that had already been named...Spraque, Baird, Franklin, Bonepart, Thayer, Forster, Lewis, Wilson...and many more. These birds were well known and named before any of these people saw them. The Palliser Expedition occurred in western Canada in the 1860's. Much scientific work was done. It's amazing what these people did and what was found. They knew the plant families and classification, but since it was a new species to them they took it upon themselves to name it.


    Where I live the Cree language is still in use and quite healthy. Names for places and things are still very well known in their culture.


    If we use peyote as an example, we've kept the original name with a little bit of change. Peyote is classified under the Linaeus system with Latin names but the original name is used for the common name. Original peoples knew that peyote was good for many things. It has been proved scientifically that they were correct.


     So since many of the original names were very descriptive,  I think that we should have made an effort to find out what they were and use them.