A plea for published “negative results”

Last week I was in Connecticut speaking to the Connecticut Tree Protective Assocation.  It was a great chance to meet arborists on the east coast, and especially heartening to meet yet another group of professionals who demand good science-based information to guide their practices.

After this meeting, I had a thoughtful email from one of the attendees regarding the lack of "negative results" publications in the scientific literature.  It’s a message that’s important for academics as well as the gardening public. … Continue reading this article “A plea for published “negative results””

Black is the new…black?

Dark foliage and flowers have been popular for quite a while.  Heck, an entire book (Paul Bonine, Timber Press) features the darkest of the dark.

Of course, "black" is a bit subjective.  Dark purple, dark brown, dark green.  But dark is hot; plant breeders and marketers know it. Here’s a few things that have come out within the past couple of years…

Ball Horticulture’s new patented petunia ‘Black Velvet’ is all over the place, along with its cousins, Phantom and Pinstripe.… Continue reading this article “Black is the new…black?”

Snow – should it stay or should it go?

It’s snowing here in Seattle – always a fun event, especially when we’re expecting up to 10 or more inches. I know…many of you laugh at our “big” snow, but the hilliness of Seattle makes driving in snow an adventure. (In fact, I’m supposed to be flying out tomorrow for a Connecticut presentation, and my flight’s already been cancelled and rebooked. Sigh.)

But what about the plants? This time of year people often ask whether they should leave the snow on their trees and shrubs.… Continue reading this article “Snow – should it stay or should it go?”

A dirty little secret

Like many, I was interested last week by the announcement that a University of Connecticut professor responsible for some of the research on resveratrol, a plant-based phenolic compound linked to various health benefits, had been accused of falsifying and fabricating data.  According to published reports, UConn officials found 145 cases of faked data that turned up in 26 published research articles by Dr. Depak Das.  Resveratrol occurs in many plants but most notably in grape skins and seeds, and one of the compounds associated with health benefits of red wine. … Continue reading this article “A dirty little secret”

Noxious or not? A continuance of the Canada thistle discussion

Ray Eckhart, Master Gardener and loyal blog reader, wrote a long response to Alan’s request for research for the ongoing debate on Canada thistle started a few weeks ago by Jeff. Because he has a lot of links to research in his response, I thought it should have its own posting. So here’s Ray:

Here is a brief summary of the results of a google search of .edu and .gov or .us sites on the subject of Canada thistle or Cirsium arvense as a noxious weed, examining the “whys” by a mostly volunteer* Master Gardener reliant on published literature by reputable sources and charged with fulfilling the Land Grant University charter to bring science based information to the local level.… Continue reading this article “Noxious or not? A continuance of the Canada thistle discussion”

Eco Plant Pals?

Last Monday a friend of mine stopped by the office and dropped off a couple of plant "kits" for my kids.  I didn’t spend much time looking at them at first, but I brought them out that night when I got home to show to the family and…they’re really neat!  Called Eco Plant Pals, these little kits include a container, some media, and some seeds for one of 18 different plants.  Each of these plants has their own names, like Chris Catnip for (you guessed it) a catnip plant and Laura Lobelia. … Continue reading this article “Eco Plant Pals?”

Name This Course

Undergraduate enrollment in the Virginia Tech Horticulture program has fluctuated over the years.  The late 70’s saw huge numbers of students interested in all things green and growing – nearly 300. There was a gentle decline through the 80’s and in the 90’s number held around 150. A sharper decline took place over the past 8 years, with enrollment bottoming out at 85 students in 2009. Things have picked up a bit since – we’re currently at 100 give or take a few.… Continue reading this article “Name This Course”

What I did on my Christmas vacation

The week between Christmas and New Years’ is usually pretty laid back around here.  But not this time!  Along with 22 volunteers, 3 family members, and 1 graduate student, I spent that week putting in 80 trees for a long-term experiment.


My long-suffering family and I installing the last of the 80 trees on the fourth day of hell.

My intrepid graduate student Cindy Riskin obtained 40 B&B Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) and 40 containerized mugo pine (Pinus mugo). … Continue reading this article “What I did on my Christmas vacation”

The fun and the not so fun

Just a quick post today.  Today is the second Monday in January which means: 1) classes resume here at MSU and 2) it’s the first day of the Great lakes Trade EXPO in Grand Rapids, which is sponsored by the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association and Michigan Turf Foundation.  I’m on tap for two presentations this afternoon.  

The first one is a bit of post-mortem on the Imprelis issue that dominated some of our lives back in the summer.… Continue reading this article “The fun and the not so fun”

Canadian Thistle

It has been a busy few weeks for me — holiday traveling, Green Expo talks (that’s our regional conference), and getting ready for a semester leave this year — I’ll be working on a project investigating how professors transfer information to the public.  But during this time I have, for some unexplainable reason, been thinking about Canadian Thistle.  And do you know what I’ve come up with?  This: 

It’s a colossal waste of time and money to worry about Canadian thistle. … Continue reading this article “Canadian Thistle”