A nifty garden to visit

I missed my regular posting on Wednesday since (1) I’m on vacation and (2) I hadn’t had time to find anything sufficiently worthy of posting.  (Of course I have a compost barrel full of snake oil products I could rant about, but even I get tired of that.  Especially on vacation.)


Note the strategic head placement

But yesterday we visited the Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens just north of Niagara Falls.  We didn’t have nearly enough time to see it all, so I’ll share just one special corner.

The Poison Plant collection isn’t listed on the map, and the only reason I noticed it at first was the giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegassianum), a particularly noxious introduced species, in the center.  Looking closer, I discovered unique signage for these plants.

I think these types of display gardens – poisonous plants, noxious weeds, etc. – are great educational tools.  The trick, of course, is keeping them from setting seed and spreading.  And keeping 15-year-olds out of them.

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Linda Chalker-Scott

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State University and is an ISA certified arborist and an ASCA consulting arborist. She is WSU’s Extension Urban Horticulturist and a Professor in the Department of Horticulture, and holds two affiliate associate professor positions at University of Washington. She conducts research in applied plant and soil sciences, publishing the results in scientific articles and university Extension fact sheets. Linda also is the award-winning author of five books: the horticultural myth-busting The Informed Gardener (2008) and The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (2010) from the University of Washington Press and Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens: Good Science – Practical Application (2009) from GFG Publishing, Inc., and How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do from Timber Press (2015). Her latest effort is an update of Art Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest from UW Press (2019). In 2018 Linda was featured in a video series – The Science of Gardening – produced by The Great Courses. She also is one of the Garden Professors – a group of academic colleagues who educate and entertain through their blog and Facebook pages. Linda’s contribution to gardeners was recognized in 2017 by the Association for Garden Communicators as the first recipient of their Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award. "The Garden Professors" Facebook page - www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors "The Garden Professors" Facebook group - www.facebook.com/groups/GardenProfessors Books: http://www.sustainablelandscapesandgardens.com

2 thoughts on “A nifty garden to visit”

  1. Like the sign, like the 15-year-old’s sense of humor. Maybe he could get a summer job as a Botanical Garden actor….

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  2. Hi, couldn’t find any other way to email you on this site, so I have a question:
    Is there really any evidence that planting tomato transplants deeply (so they’ll root along the stem) results in a better crop?

    I’ve been an organic farmer, IPM scout for conventional tomato growers in SC, have a BS in landscape hort from NCSU and now design and install gardens for homeowners, schools restaurants, etc. So I’ve planted beaucoup tomatoes and my gut feeling is that the depth of planting doesn’t really make a significant difference, tho I’ve never run a comparison to test this. Has anyone else ever checked this theory out experimentally? thanks Frank

    Reply

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