Gardening Blog

With the arrival of Halloween tomorrow, the houses in my neighborhood are becoming ghoulish haunts. Front yards are littered with tombstones and zombies and skeletons are lurking in the shadows. I love when homeowners make the effort to create haunted gardens, even if it’s a traditional jack-o-lantern greeting children as they scream “trick or treat?”

Haunting my front door this Halloween is the Headless Horseman.

Have you ever wondered why we crave pumpkins for Halloween?

The tradition dates back several centuries to Ireland, where a lazy farmer named Stringy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. When the time came to pay for his drink, Jack convinced the Devil to transform into a coin, but instead of paying with it, he put it the coin in his pocket with a silver cross to prevent the Devil from transforming back.  When Jack finally decided to let the Devil go, he made the Devil  promise that the he wouldn’t take his soul.

Unfortunately for Jack, he died the following Halloween (of unrelated causes) and was turned away from the Heaven because of his sinful lifestyle. Turning to the Gates of Hell as a last resort, he was turned away by the Devil because the Devil had promised not to claim Jack’s soul. Poor Jack was alone in the darkness, but the Devil took pity on him and gave him a glowing piece of coal to light his way. Luckily Jack found a turnip and put the burning coal inside. To this day, Jack is roaming the earth, carrying the turnip lantern to find his way in the darkness.

Although there are many different versions of Stringy Jack’s story, all lead to the tradition of carving turnips. Since pumpkins were more plentiful then turnips in North America, Irish emigrants decided to hollow out the large orange gourds when making their Jack-o-Lanterns for Halloween.

To read more Halloween horticulture, check out Charmian Christie’s article ‘Halloween Plant Lore.

In today’s fast paced society, do we ever stop to smell the roses anymore? We’re so busy working, shopping, driving - most of us have very muddy carbon footprints.  Sustainable living is a phrase that’s been used a lot lately. Basically, it refers to a lifestyle choice that encourages people to live in harmony with nature.

A new initiative to promote sustainable living at the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) in Burlington, Ontario is the Canadian Institute for Sustainable Biodiversity (CISB).

The RBG recently announced a multidisciplinary symposium scheduled for February 2010 on sustainability and horticulture, entitled ‘Living Plants, Liveable Communities: Exploring Sustainable Horticulture for the 21st Century.’  This symposium is being designed to teach Canadians how to live with the environment in a sustainable way.

Here are a sustainable living tips that you can use at home in your garden:

•  check your outdoor taps for leaks
• recycle your garden pots
• mulch your garden beds to help reduce the amount you need to water
• if you have to water your lawn, give it a deep soak to allow the roots to absorb the water
• grow a veggie garden and enjoy home grown produce
• compost all your organic kitchen waste
• try xeriscaping in your garden with drought-tolerant plants