Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! As a plant lover, this holiday has to be one of my favorites just because I get to wear green (my favorite color). After doing something similar around Christmas for poinsettias, I decided to do a little digging the plant related traditions that go along with St. Patrick's Day, especially the symbol of the holiday: the shamrock.

The name shamrock is derived from Irish word "seamróg", which is the diminutive version of the Irish word for clover (seamair) which means "little clover" or "young clover". Because shamrock is a common name, it's often used to refer to a few different species, usually Trifolium dubium (lesser clover) or Trifolium repens (white clover). There are also other three-leaved plants that are often called shamrocks or clovers. There is no consensus on which is the "true" shamrock and many botanists hold different opinions on the matter. A survey showed that Lesser Clover was the most favored by botanists by a small percentage. White clover, however, is most similar to the form that is seen on most St. Patrick's Day decorations. 

White Clover

Lesser Clover

The first mention of clovers in Irish literature dates back centuries, but it is only in English translations that the separate word "shamrock" appears. The very first mention of shamrock in the English language was in a writing that stated that the Irish ate shamrocks and clover when in fact there is no evidence in any Irish literature that this was a true. There was evidence, however, that the Irish ate wood sorrel, and further English writings seemed to confuse the two. For example, a writing might call what they ate shamrocks, but then describe things like "bitter taste" which is a trait of wood sorrel. 

The most commonly known legend about shamrocks in relation to St. Patrick's Day is that St. Patrick used its three leaved structure to teach the Holy Trinity to Irish pagans. It's unknown if this actually occurred, but is probably the most popular shamrock myth.

St. Patrick depicted holding a shamrock.

One early St. Patrick's Day tradition involving a shamrock was "The Drowning of the Shamrock", which, on the 17th of March, was were the men would lift their usual fasting restrictions of Lent and go to the nearest tavern to mark the day with a few drinks. One account explains:

"At the end of the day the shamrock which has been worn in the coat or the hat is removed and put into the final glass of grog or tumbler of punch; and when the health has been drunk or the toast honoured, the shamrock should be picked out from the bottom of the glass and thrown over the left shoulder."

It's not terribly difficult to see where our current St. Patrick's Day traditions come from, given this information. 

The shamrock is also the national symbol of Ireland and is depicted in many emblems of state, has been worn by many revolutionaries and militias over the course of Irish history as a symbol of national pride. You'll also see it on postage stamps, the planes of Aer Lingus (the Irish airline), the symbol of the Irish Farmers Association and many Irish sports teams. 

A four-leaf clover is a rare form of the three-leaved clover and is thought to be caused by a recessive gene and possibly errors caused by environmental effects. Research has now made it possible for breeders to work with the four-leaf forms and breed them at a higher pace. 

A four-leaf form of White Clover.

So now you have a few shamrock plant facts to pull out around your plant-loving friends (and your family who, if they're like mine, will nod and smile as you spout off more plant information). I wish I could've gotten this up sooner, but I was stuck in a car on the way home to Michigan for spring break today. I hope you all had a lovely weekend and a fun St. Patrick's Day! 

Source: Wikipedia

Picture Sources:

Public Domain Photos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Four-leaf_clover.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kilbennan_St._Benin%27s_Church_Window_St._Patrick_Detail_2010_09_16.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trifolium_repens_Leaf_April_2,_2010.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trifolium_dubium_kz1.jpg

Brothers and Sisters in the Garden

Me in my letters!

Something about me that many of you might not know is that I'm a brother of the National Honorary Band Fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi. At many universities, this organization is coed, as is our sister sorority, Tau Beta Sigma. KKPsi and TBS have been brother and sister organizations since 1947 and many schools have both that work together on various projects. TBS was founded to promote equality and diversity in university bands, including empowering women in the band profession, develop leadership, etc. KKPsi, similarly, is a service fraternity and our main purpose is to promote university bands through many different kinds of service projects, rewarding outstanding musicianship of students involved in bands and providing other services for the bands of their college. Unlike many other Greek organizations, we're a dry fraternity, we don't have houses, and we don't even use the term "pledge" or "rush" due to the strictness of   our no-hazing policy. 
                                                                                                         
So why am I talking about band fraternities and sororities on my blog?
Last year on October 16th, our sister sorority Tau Beta Sigma lost their founder, Wava Bates Turner Henry, fondly known as simply "Wava". On March 8th, the national headquarters of TBS announced that, in memory of Wava, a memorial rose garden would be built and dedicated to her. I found this quite fitting as the Oklahoma Rose is the OK state flower. This garden would be located at our national headquarters facilities in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In an email from TBS Board of Trustees they said, "The plans will include a black granite pedestal dedicated to Wava, reflection benches, a rose garden and other garden flowers and shrubs..." They intend for the garden to be put in place next year and unveiled officially in July of 2014.

The Oklahoma Rose is a hybrid tea rose developed at Oklahoma State University. 

(Funnily enough, KKPsi was founded at this school as well!)

Maybe it's just my inner plant lover, but I feel that memorial gardens are some of the most special spaces. Although there's sadness in knowing that the memorial is there for a person or people who've passed, there's beauty in seeing how life thrives despite that. A garden reminds us that life is always growing, whether it's people, organizations like TBS and KKPsi, or plants. I'm so glad Tau Beta Sigma chose this idea as a way to remember a very special lady.

Not Quite Spring Break

My hibiscus is wondering if it's summer yet. I was graced with two lovely blooms over the weekend when Minnesota decided to be gray and dreary outside. I think my hibiscus thought the weather was just too gloomy and the inhabitants of my apartment needed some color to brighten things up.
Speaking of flowers, I'm getting impatient for spring so I can find lots of spring flowers to photograph and share with you all like I did last year. I don't have a garden of my own, so I like to think campus is my garden. I don't get to plant anything or take care of the plants, but I definitely get to enjoy the blooms.

I won't be get much of anything besides winter for spring break next week however. I could be headed somewhere warm...but instead, I'll be headed back to the tundra of my hometown in Michigan for the week. We've had lots of snowfall in my absence, I'm told, and it'll be more like winter break than spring break while I'm home. I'm hoping to get some seeds to start indoors while I'm home. Probably just tomato seed and pepper seeds, as I don't ha e much space for anything else. I'll probably have to pick up a fluorescent bulb for my desk lamp to help seeds along too. I don't get any sun in my apartment windows during the day so I'll need the extra boost if I want the seeds to grow well. My future roommate and fellow horticulture major and I are thinking about gardening in her backyard here in the cities this summer. So the tomatoes and peppers will go there if that's the case. Otherwise, I'll grow them in my grandma's backyard and she'll get some fresh veggies out of it. :)

If any of you have suggestions on what varieties of tomatoes and peppers are good to start from seed, I'd love to hear them!

Being a Plant Wizard

Plant propagation always makes me feel like a wizard. Yesterday I was giving my plants a thorough watering and realized an African Violet I had in one pot was actually three smaller African Violet plants. I'd forgotten I propagated three of them in the same pot in my plant propagation class last year and had let them crowd each other in a tangle of leaves. I took them out, divided them easily, finding their root systems much shallower than I thought, and gave them their own pots. So it really did feel like I'd turned one plant into three and I'm excited to see how their growth takes off now that they have their own space to spread out.
They're happily sitting in their own pots , two on the windowsill (pictured) and one on a bookshelf off to the right (not pictured).

First Week of Class

Minnesota decided to welcome back the students of the Twin Cities campus with some of the most bitterly cold weather I've experienced in a long time. Even though the snow and ice can be beautiful, walking from class to class gets frighteningly cold some days.

Regular daytime temps for the first few days of class hovered between -15 and -8 degrees with a wind chill of between -25 and -20. Thankfully over the weekend we got a break and the temperature warmed up a bit, but we're expecting about a high of 9 degrees Friday. Looks like there's no escaping it, so really the only thing you can do is curl up with some hot chocolate, watch the snow and study.

And speaking of studying, from the little time I've had them, my classes this semester seem to be going well so far. I have Soil Science, Intro to Microeconomics, General Biology and Chemistry for the second time (I'm determined to beat it this time around!) All my professors seem really nice and they all lecture really well, which helps when it's 8AM and all I want is to be back in my bed sleeping.

There's not much new to report with my plants. I'm trying to protect them from the drafty area they're in, but I can't move them completely because that's the only part of my apartment that gets any sort of light. My apartment doesn't get any direct sunlight at all, just shaded daytime light, so I'm using a regular desk lamp on them a few hours a day for some warmth and hoping whatever light is getting through the windows is sufficient for their photosynthetic needs. Over break, I picked up a few new pots to replant a few things in and, my biggest find, a small, egg-shaped terrarium which I'm currently attempting to root an African Violet leaf cutting in.

 

The two in front are the ones that have new pots. I think they're pretty happy with all the new space they have to spread out in. :)

Please forgive the photo quality. I took the pictures at night and there really wasn't that much light in my living room. Really the only other thing new with plants so far is I think I may have gotten rid of the scale attacking my umbrella plant for good. This time, I used a 1 part water, 1 part peroxide mixture and applied it to the leaves with a cue-tip. I washed all the leaves with water afterward, just in case. I haven't seen any of the nasty patches on the leaves yet, so hopefully they're all gone.

That's about all I have to report for now. I have a feeling the next month or so is going to be pretty slow since it's winter and I'm pretty limited to what I can do to houseplants at the moment. Hope you're all staying warm! :)

A Garden Journal

While reading the gardening books I got from the library this week, I found so many ideas and snippets of useful information, I knew I was never going to remember them all. I found the solution to my problem when one of the books suggested creating a garden journal. Using a barely used sketchbook I found in the piles of notebooks and drawings in my room, I finally had a place to write, keep all the information, ideas and projects I was finding. I also can keep journal entries to track plants I'm growing, record observations on projects and plant growth and plan out future gardening endeavor.

 

Inspiration taken out of Better Homes and Gardens magazines.

I've jotted down lots of clever ideas for starting seeds, plants I had no idea were edible and projects for some point in the future when I have the time and the space for them. I've also gathered up all of my mom's old "Better Home's and Gardens" magazines and ripped out and included gorgeous garden photos for inspiration and smaller plant pictures for decoration in my journal. A few pages are also devoted to recipes that I've found in the gardening books.

 

Some ideas and facts about tomatoes. 

The biggest bonus about keeping a journal is, however, having a place to write down those hard to remember varieties or to-do list so when it slips your mind later, you can go back and find it. This can be really helpful when you're off to the greenhouse or garden center and can't for the life of you remember that tomato cultivar or that variety of hydrangea you wanted to try. I know that I'm terribly forgetful when it comes to things like this, so I think the journal will be able to help me keep my head on straight.

 

Some herbs categorized by different flavors.

I'm having a lot of fun with it and would recommend making one to anyone who hasn't already. I'm definitely not the first person to think of keeping a journal for gardening ideas and garden planning, but I'm certainly a fan after having so much fun making mine. Since I like to draw my plants as well as grow and write about them, I'm using a sketchbook with large, blank pages and lots of room to write, draw and plan. I'd recommend this if you think you'll be sketching your future garden ideas. I love journals and sketchbooks because they can be as different as their writers are different. You can have one as simple as plant names and the dates you planted them, or as complex as conglomerations of pictures, plans, recipes and inspiration for gardens you'd like to have years in the future.

Winter Break in Michigan

Now that I'm a little more than halfway through winter break, I've finally made it home to Michigan for the first time since August. The band trip to Houston kept me away until after New Years, and fall semester kept me so busy that I couldn't even spend a weekend at home. So it's certainly nice to be back for a two week break from campus and the Twin Cities.

 

Here's my band on the field in Houston before the bowl game! 

I'm one of the little gold dots in the "8"!

The best part about coming home is seeing all the plants my parents have. Almost every room in the house that gets some sort of light has greenery tucked in the corners. The front window that gets lots of southern sun in the winter has our largest tropical plant, gorgeous flowering African violets and a Christmas cactus just finishing up a cycle of blooms.

The kitchen is also full of mason jars full of cuttings of the coleus with lovely root systems starting. Some of these are the coleus plants I started in my plant propagation class last year that we had outside our house this summer. These cuttings will be able to go back out in the spring for another year of potted summer greenery.

Once I got back, I booked it (pun intended) straight to the library and checked out a big stack of horticulture and gardening books. A lot of my free time has since been spent reading and taking notes in the garden journal I've fashioned out of a barely used sketchbook. To keep this post from running too long, I'll have another post about making a garden journal later this week.

A few snippets and ideas I've found:
1. Freeze smaller, edible flowers or their petals in ice cubes to make a pretty, decorative addition to your summery drinks.
2. Use plastic take out containers to start seedlings in early spring. Since they already have a clear cover, you won't have to put a plastic bag over them. Be careful of plastics, however, and stay away from plastics 3, 6 and 7. You can find this number on the bottom of the container.
3. You can actually eat daylily buds before the flowers bloom. One book recommended sauteing them like peas!
4. Pinks can actually be infused in wine or vodka and some begonia petals can be eaten but are sour like lemons.

Some of my time has also been spent reading the book my younger sister got me for Christmas, "A Victorian Flower Dictionary" by Mandy Kirkby. It's a fascinating little book with pages of flowers and their meanings, often accompanied by little snippets of literature or poetry.

My discovery of the week, however, has been a really fun gardening program you can watch for free on Hulu.com. It's simply called "Organic Gardening" and it's a gardening and horticulture program out of Australia. Since it's such a different climate than the one many of us are living in up in the Northern Hemisphere, some of the things in the gardens down there might not work in our gardens and their seasons certainly are different than many of ours. But it's still very interesting from a horticultural perspective in learning about how gardening works in a different part of the world. And, of course, some of the gardening advice, such as how to prune apple trees and ways to fix common garden problems, are the same as anywhere else. You can find the program here if you'd like to check it out. Ever the multi-tasker, I've enjoyed watching it while writing in my garden journal and finding magazine cuttings to decorate it.

In my next post, I'll be talking more about the making of my garden journal (along with some rather fuzzy photos of the journal taken with my phone camera) and some ideas for getting your own started, if you don't have one already.