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February 28, 2022 Meeting

Eeek - a typo introduced by MailChimp made our meeting link incorrect. It's corrected now.
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85340966466?pwd=eTI4RHkxUThYc1lpMmZuUmZTUkNQZz09

Once again the Hort Zooms onto your computer - click here from 7pm on on Monday February 28 to see, hear, and participate in our meeting. Reminder - to see the full Bulletin, click "View this email in your Browser" above.

Talk - Video Artists and Nature

This month we're lucky to have two experienced Toronto video/visual artists showing us their work and talking about how plants and nature influence them.

Alexandra Gelis is a Colombia-Venezuelan film maker and visual artist with a close connection to food plants but she also looks at others like the "military" invasive elephant grass, or how "Weeds" can actually be part of traditional medicinal knowledge. Her work is presently in shows in New York and in Toronto, in ArtWorxTO Home(Land): Terra Firma. In her 2021 book Seeds she writes:

"In my life of constant movement I was “called” by the plants, and became interested in the relationship of plants and people.
Plants that supposedly don’t move are the ones that taught me most about the politics behind migration."

 

Isaac King is a director and animator with awards  Broadcast Design Awards, OneShow Design, Applied Arts, Art Director's Club, NY Festivals, Lotus, Worldfest, who has taught Character Design and animation at OCAD University, Sheridan College, and the Toronto Animated Image Society. For over 15 years he was a full-time director at Head Gear Animation. Check out some of his work on Vimeo. I love the unexpectedness and visual humour of his work. Check out his very short Beans to see what I mean!

 ------>Garden Projects - Apply NOW! <-------- 

Each year we support community garden projects with grants. Grant applications are due by April 1! Find all the information and forms at this page.

You can find a map of past projects and their reports here. 

a Nail File and a Passion for Flowers 

by Clement Kent

I've grown passionflowers in pots for years, like the ones above from last summer on our deck. I get a few fruits but the real joy is the fantastic flowers. So for Christmas I gave myself an order of seeds from rareexoticseeds.com, an online Montréal firm located midway between Mont Royal and the Botanic Garden. I've been a customer of Thompson & Morgan or Sutton Seeds for years, but their prices can cause pocketbook shock. Rare Exotic's seeds are very simply packaged in small plastic sleeves with no colour pictures or germination instructions, you don't get tons of seeds, but the price is right for those of us who want to experiment.

Passiflora alata, Beatrice Murch, CCbySA 2

That's why I'm at the dinner table with a nail file and 5 little packages of rock-hard Passiflora seeds. When you can't plant them fresh out of the fruit, you must scrape off a bit of the hard seed coat, soak them for days, then plant them in a warm place and wait for weeks or months for seedlings. Only addicts like me (and perhaps you?) will do this.

First in the soaker is P. alata, aka fragrant grenadilla or in the language of the Brazilian tribes ouvaca (red star). This heat-loving Amazonian will have to spend winters in the kitchen, but if I get even one flower per summer I'll be happy!





Passiflora ligularis

Bathing next to the fragrant grenadilla seeds are seeds of the sweet grenadilla or P. ligularis, whose home is in the Andes. This most delicious of passionfruits does not need steamy tropical heat & likes to have its roots confined in a pot, so should be perfect in my cool winter greenhouse. It's not a shabby bloomer but my main hope is for fruit -maybe next year or the year after!










From the lowlands of Central America, Passiflora seemannii changes up the floral form interestingly. This is another beauty that will need to spend winter in the kitchen.







P. edulis flavicarpa is a golden-fruited strain of this ever edible passionflower from southern Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay - where it is the national flower. I'm hoping this means it will tolerate my cool winter greenhouse.

This strain is self-sterile, which is why I'm also seeding the large fruited strain "Golden Giant" to grow alongside it. With great good luck perhaps they'll bloom simultaneously some year and give me fruit - if I get up on a ladder and transfer pollen between them, as I do for my existing vines.

Now, I write often about native plants and climate change. So of course that's why I'm passionate about passiflora. It's the native Silver Maple and Elm in the yards to the south of me that have shaded out most of my back yard so I can't grow sun-lovers there. That's forcing me to look at the 3 story tall south wall of our house, next to the driveway. We have air conditioning, so when summer sun beats on this wall we use power. By planting vines that can grow to the top of the wall by midsummer, I'll get some shade in exchange for watering. The rain barrel next to the wall will give me water without pumping from Lake Ontario. So the passionflowers, along with the indeterminate tomatoes and the climbing nasturtiums, will help cool the house while giving food and floral delight.

Articles

Healing: Take some Aspirin and call me when your Finger has Grown Back

by Clement Kent

World Health Day is April 7th, National Nursing Week is May 9-15 (so chosen because Florence Nightingale's birthday was May 12), and National Physician's Day is May 1, the birthday of Dr. Emily Stowe, the first female physician licensed to practice in Canada (photo to right). Dr. Stowe had to fight for recognition as a doctor, and was a strong supporter of women's rights. Her practice was on Richmond Street, where she specialized in women's and children's health.

Emily Stowe continued to fight for women to attend medical school (she had to go to New York when no Canadian medical school would accept her). So she was very proud when her daughter Dr. Augusta Stowe was the first woman to graduate from a Canadian Medical School (photo below). That same year, a public meeting of the Toronto Women's Suffrage Association, with Emily Stowe at the forefront, led to the creation of the Ontario Medical College for Women.

In the hope that spring will bring some relief from COVID-19, I'm writing several articles on healing and plants. And since spring is a time of regrowth, where better to start than surprising discoveries about healing in plants and animals based on aspirin?



The Willow genus is Salix, and willow bark preparations had been used in traditional medicines for fever and inflammation and healing for millennia. Early chemists sought for the active ingredient until Johann Andreas Buchner (right) isolated salicin in 1828. Later chemists found it in greater amounts in European Meadow Sweet, Filipendula ulmaria. We don't know if it's as abundant in our beautiful native Queen of the Prairie, F. rubra (left, Bruce Marlin CC by SA 3.0), but native peoples used this in treatments for heart problems.

Salicylic acid is however very hard on the stomach as were several other 19th century variations. Only when acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) was found did the drug come into wider use, especially under the trade name Aspirin patented by Bayer in 1899. Aspirin = the prefix a(cetyl) + spir Spiraea, the meadowsweet plant genus from which the acetylsalicylic acid was originally derived at Bayer + -in. (Filipendula was previously lumped into the Spiraea genus).





But plants don't have fevers, do they? What do they use salicylic acid (SA) for? Surprisingly, SA has been found to be an important plant hormone with many roles. One of the more exotic is in the production of heat! Arum family plants like Skunk Cabbage or Voodoo Lily which bloom during cool periods produce SA in the spadix, the central spike which contains the flowers. It triggers a cascade which causes the spadix to heat up, sometimes as high as 45C. This helps disseminate the scents of rotting meat which in turn attract beetles and flies, the pollinators. This helps explain the amazement and revulsion of crowds when corpse flower Amorphophallus titanum blooms at 8 feet high.

But SA has a more important fever-like role in plants. Only recently has the full story begun to be known. It turns out most plants have special receptor proteins on their cells which detect SA. These "NPR" receptors then trigger the production of defense compounds to fight infection by bacteria and fungi, as well as toxins to deter leaf feeders. So to a plant, "take an aspirin" means rev up your immune defenses! This is the opposite of what SA does in our bodies, where it turns down signals from the inflammation-enhancing molecule COX-1 (which is how aspirin reduces inflammatory pain). A side effect of SA in mammals is to slow down wound healing, which is one reason high-dose aspirin may be dangerous to some people.

Mouse-eared Cress is a common European field weed in the Mustard family. Under its more exotic scientific name of Arabidopsis thaliana, it is the fruit fly of plant genetics, largely due to its very fast life cycle (seeds to flowers to seeds in a few weeks). Genes can can be turned on and off in this cress in the lab. Turning on a gene which breaks down SA, or turning off the NPR genes, made cress plants much more susceptible to diseases. But these disease-susceptible plants healed physical injuries such as cut leaves or roots more easily. Why?

It turns out there is another set of genes involved, whose purpose has been a mystery for more than 20 years. Arabidopsis has the first plant genome to be fully sequenced. Botanists were amazed to find genes for "glutamate receptors" (GLR) in cress. Why? Well, in animals GluR receptors are some of the most important receptors of fast nerve signalling. But plants don't have nerves, do they? No, but they sure have a lot of GLR genes!

Just published is a paper showing that GluR receptors in plants detect amino acids (like glutamate) released when plants are injured. In turn the GLRs interact with SA and the NPR receptors to stimulate the defense responses. The diagram on the right from Marcela Hernández-Coronado's article shows the new insights: not only do GLRs stimulate the defense response, they turn down the wound healing and regeneration response! Why? Both defense and regeneration are costly pathways; our bodies often turn down regeneration to focus on defeating invaders, and then later stimulate healing. Plants do the same, it seems!

The researchers point out that promoting the regeneration response may help plants whose roots or leaves have been munched by insects but which haven't been infected by disease. Expect more on this in coming years, with perhaps GLR inhibitors being added to the rooting powders we use on cuttings.

But of course plants don't have nerves, so botanists are happy to have found what the many GLR genes are doing. But, as the exception that proves the rule, one particular GLR receptor was found to be involved in the detection of the electric signals plants use to communicate injury from one leaf to others. These signals don't pass along nerves, but they are faster than the slower diffusion of hormones. So at least one GLR is needed for faster electrical signalling in plants. Which makes it fun that a paper on electrical signalling in the Venus Flytrap from Sönke Scherzer found that ether anesthetizes the traps by turning down the electrical response of a glutamate receptor.

To finish off this discourse on healing and signals, some plants modify SA to produce methyl salicylate, or oil of wintergreen. This volatile scent can be released from leaves, travel in the air to neighbouring leaves or other plants, and signal risk of injury to them. Plants have a lot more tricks up their green leafy sleeves than I was ever taught in school...

Healing ourselves with Nature and Art - Clement Kent


Last month we remembered distinguished biologist E.O. Wilson, and his theory of biophilia - that people have a built-in love of nature. What does "built-in" mean? A great way to understand the genetics of behaviour is by comparing identical twins and other twins. If identical twins behave more similarly than other twins, we can figure out how much of that behaviour is affected by heredity.
A study published this month looked at the preferences of both types of twins for green spaces, lengths of garden visits, and other nature-loving traits. Chia-chen Chang and coworkers found that from 34% to 48% of various desire for nature traits has a heritable basis, showing that Wilson's guess from 40 years ago is true.   (right: Charles Iliff. CC by SA 3.0)

Let's turn that 48% on its head: more than 50% of people's love of nature comes from experience, not heredity. It can be a learned love. So the rarer nature is in our urban environment, the less we learn to love it.

What does our love of nature do for us? A 2019 study in England found that people who spent 2 hours/week or more amid nature "were more likely to report good health and psychological well-being than those with no nature exposure". Loving feelings are good for us!

In 1984 Roger Ulrich studied records for people in one hospital who had the same operation. Half of them had rooms with a view of tree, half with a view of a wall. The view of trees shortened hospital stays, reduced pain killer use, and made patients happier. There's a profoundly practical side to biophilia - making hospitals more effective and cheaper! In 2008 Ulrich and colleagues followed up and described numerous ways hospital design could be better, based on solid data measured in hospitals. Some quotes:
"exposing patients to nature can produce substantial and clinically important alleviation of pain....patients experience less pain when exposed to higher levels of daylight in contrast to lower levels of daylight in their hospital rooms...patient rooms should be designed with large windows so that bedridden persons suffering from pain can look out onto sunny nature spaces".

"nature distractions may be more diverting and hence effective in reducing pain if they involve sound as well as visual stimulation, and induce a heightened sense of immersion"

"[Heart surgery] patients assigned a picture of a spatially open, well-lighted view of trees and water needed fewer doses of strong pain drugs than patients exposed to abstract images or a control condition of no picture. A well-controlled prospective study found that healthy volunteers in a hospital setting had a higher pain threshold and greater tolerance when they looked at a videotape of nature scenery."

"[studies] suggest that gardens in hospitals can reduce stress among patients and families by providing nature distraction and fostering social support. Based on these findings, it is recommended that hospital siting and design should provide restorative window views of nature and gardens from patient rooms and other interior areas where stress is a problem. Additionally, limited research on hospital art suggests that the great majority of patients prefers and responds positively to representational nature art, but that abstract or ambiguous art can elicit stressful reactions in many patients.

"studies suggest that gardens can be effective restorative settings for stressed patients, families, and staff. Well-designed gardens not only can provide restorative nature views, but they also reduce stress and improve outcomes through other mechanisms, such as fostering access to social support, restorative escape, and control with respect to stressful clinical environments."

"gardens tend to alleviate stress effectively for adult users when they contain green or verdant foliage, flowers, water, grassy spaces with trees or large shrubs, a modicum of spatial openness, and compatible pleasant nature sounds, such as birds and water"

There's a whole book on "The role of horticulture in human well-being and social development" from Timber Press, the publisher of so many great garden books. Ulrich cowrote a chapter specifically on the role of the experience of plants on health.


Did you know that your family doctor can now write you a prescription to spend time in a park? Dr. Melissa Lem helped start PaRx to help doctors and patients use this incredible resource for health. Click on the picture of Dr. Lem to hear her explain the ideas behind PaRx.

Ulrich noted that even a picture or videotape of a natural scene can help a patient. So it's a small step from there to ask how artists have responded during a time of stress and social isolation via their gardens. That's the theme of "Pandemic Gardens", an exhibit in London ON organized by Rachel MacGillivray and Ron Bender. I can't do justice to all the wonderful art in this space, so I urge you to click the link above. Of all the fine work shown, we have room for one piece - Carole's Garden, by the perennially green team of Carole Condé + Karl Beveridge, who live and garden near Bathurst street. Carole and Karl use the forms of mediaeval and Renaissance art to comment on very current political images. Look carefully at their piece, or click on it to go to their bio at Pandemic Gardens. What current issues are they confronting in the context of Carole's backyard garden?


 Carole's Garden, Carole Condé + Karl Beveridge, 2021 - in the Pandemic Gardens show.




 

Plant Fair 2022 - the team
Many of us yearn for the spring Plant Fair. But, we don't yet know whether we will have an indoor space we could use for it, and if we do how many people would be allowed in at one time. Another BIG issue is transplants from members' gardens. We love this part of the sale, but with the arrival of the Asian Jumping Worms moving soil from one garden to another might help spread these nasty worms?

What to do?  The Plant Fair committee met with the Board last week. We went through many ideas, which were written down and circulated by email. We'll be working hard to try to decide what to do. Your ideas would be welcomed - send them to plantfair@parkdaletorontohort.com, please.
 

Contact Information for the Hort

The 2021 Board members are:
  • President - Ron Charlemagne, president@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Past President - Barbara Japp
  • Vice President - Clement Kent, newsletter@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Treasurer - Emieke Geldof, treasurer@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Secretary - Helen Vorster, secretary@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Projects - Judy Whelan, projects@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Members at Large - Annelies Groen, Sarah Michelle Rafols
Other email:
  • Maria Nunes - Volunteer Coordinator, volunteers@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Membership, membership@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Dues payments and membership information, www.parkdaletorontohort.com/join-us/
  • Clement Kent, Bulletin/Newsletter editor - newsletter@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Plant Fair Team, plantfair@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • Education & Outreach,  educationandoutreach@parkdaletorontohort.com
  • General information, info@parkdaletorontohort.com
Email sent to board@parkdaletorontohort.com reaches all board members.
Website: www.parkdaletorontohort.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/parkdaletorontohort
Post: The Horticultural Societies of Parkdale & Toronto
P.O. Box 30023, 1938 Bloor Street West
Toronto, Ontario M6P 4J2
 
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Horticultural Societies of Parkdale & Toronto · 1938 Bloor St West, PO Box 30023 · Toronto, On M6P 4J2 · Canada

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