A WELCOME TOUCH OF GREENERY
Beauty, Beer, and Aroma
What more hopeful way to go into winter than with a plant named wintergreen? Wintergreen. The word conjures up an image of lush greenery against lily white snow, a congenial juxtaposition of the living and the nonliving, both pristine.
Wild wintergreen in Maine
If the word wintergreen brings to mind, instead, a refreshing aroma or flavor — yes — that’s the same plant. Oil of wintergreen has been used as flavoring for teas and beers, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, as well as straight up, as a leafy nibble. The plant’s berries also provide a nibble, one that might make you start moving your feet. Wintergreen is also known as teaberry, the flavoring in a chewing gum that was featured in popular TV advertisements in the late 1960s that showed the gum inducing a jiglike dance, the “teaberry shuffle,” to a catchy tune. Read more
UGLY WORD, NICE PLANTS
What’s a Variety
Mmmmm, how I like to bite into a cultivar. And look at the beautiful petals of a cultivar. And admire the autumn foliage of a cultivar.
A “cultivar?” What an ugly word for a plant with so many qualities.
Actually, a cultivar is any cultivated variety of plant. Get it? “Cultivated variety” contracts to “cultivar,” a word that was originally conjured about 100 yers ago, then codified in the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP) in 1959. Some horticulturalists, myself included, avoid the word. As I wrote, the word is just too ugly.
Brassica oleraceae var. botrytis, B. oleraceae var. gemmifera (with Homo sapiens), and B. oleraceae var. acephala.
Before the word “cultivar” was invented, gardeners used the word “variety,” but some people objected Read more
THIS CITRUS HAS IT ALL
Botanical Mumbo Jumbo, but it’s Still a Kumquat
Cold and snowy winters agree with me just fine. Still, as a gardener, my mouth waters and my hands itch to be able to pluck ripe citrus from a home-grown tree in winter. It can be done, as attested to by all the potted calamondin orange trees now basking in sunny windows.
As pretty as calamondin trees are, their fruit is barely edible, if that. What I want is a citrus plant that also bears edible fruit. Oranges and grapefruits are possibilities, but let’s admit it: a four-foot high citrus tree festooned with a few large, colorful fruits thoroughly lacks grace. Lemon and lime fruits are better proportioned to an indoor plant, and have the advantage that a single fruit of either goes far in the kitchen.
The citrus that offers the most mileage as a potted plant is kumquat. Read more
