November / December 2004 Newsletter
Bill Cullina to Speak at the Joint Winter Meeting Jan. 20
Artemus Richardson, Anne Colby Hines Honored by NHLA
Truth, Justice and the Linnaean Way - Dr. Dirt
Books of Interest
Bill Cullina to Speak at the Joint Winter Meeting Jan. 20
William Cullina, nursery manager and propagator at the Garden in the Woods, the famous showplace headquarters of the New England Wild Flower Society, will be the Keynote Speaker at the Joint NHLA-NHPGA Meeting January 20.
Bill has been passionate about plants since he was a child. He has traveled extensively in the United States and Canada, studying and photographing the plants in this book, most of which he has grown himself. His very wide interests include collecting orchids (one thousand miniature epiphytes), making wheel-thrown stoneware, and building furniture from wood he has cut and turned to lumber himself. He writes for the major gardening magazines, is the author of many books including Native Trees, Shrubs, & Vines: A Guide to Using, Growing, and Propagating North American Woody Plants, and is a popular speaker.
The 2005 Joint Winter Meeting will be held on Thursday, January 20, 2005 at the Wayfarer Inn in Bedford NH. Around 200 people usually attend, representing the entire Green Industry: landscapers, plant growers, garden center operators, allied trade professionals, etc. As the largest trade associations in our state, NHPGA and NHLA are proud to present this important educational event.
Additional topics and speakers include: "What's New for the Pesticide Cabinet," Chuck Elstrodt, Griffin Greenhouse Supply (Pesticide Credit has been requested); "Dr. Dirt Comes Out of the Closet," John Hart, ASLA, UNH Thompson School of Applied Sciences; "New & Under Utilized Perennials," Leonard Perry, Extension Professor, UVM; "Successful Landscape Estimating," Dickran Babiga, Green Industry Consultant; "Retailing Nursery Stock," Don Eaton, Eaton Farms; "Exotic Pests & Diseases Coming to New Hampshire, "Dennis Souto, NH Entomologist (Pesticide Credit has been requested); and "Exciting New Perspectives on Container Plantings," Viki Ferreniea, Pleasant View Gardens.
Along with the educational sessions this meeting includes a trade show, and you will have time to visit all of the exhibitors.
The NHPGA Scholarship will also be awarded, and the NHLA will hold its election and present a Young Nursery Professional Award. See the ballot on page 12 for the election nominations.
Reserve the date now and watch for your promotional flyer in the mail.
Artemus Richardson, Anne Colby Hines Honored by NHLA
Artemus Richardson L.A. and Anne Colby Hines were awarded Lifetime Memberships in NHLA at the recent "Dinner with the Masters." Above, Mick Sheffield, president of NHLA, presents Artemus Richardson with his certificate. Art was honored for his achievements in the field of Landscape Architecture; Anne for her design and construction achievements.
Truth, Justice and the Linnaean Way
- Look out, Dr. Dirt goes taxonomic -
Plant classification (taxonomy) and plant nomenclature (scientific naming) are highly charged and contentious fields of botanical study.
Really!
There is universal agreement, since Karl von Linne in the 1700's, that each species will be identified by a two-part name, a combination of a genus name and a species name; for example, Acer (genus) and rubrum (species) for Red Maple, or Ginkgo (genus) and biloba (species) for Maidenhair Tree or Ginkgo. This is called "binomial nomenclature", meaning naming with two names, and it will be on the quiz.
Research practitioners in these areas, as the gatekeepers of truth and the final arbiters of proper identification and naming of species, can be very snitty regarding their opinions and pronouncements. These are people who are actually paid large salaries to wander around all day outdoors, looking at plants, looking lost, and occasionally erupting with extreme excitement, "Ohmigawd, this looks like a new variety of dangleberry with tomentose pubescence on its warty glands!!!", only to be humiliated by the reply, "Bizzle shizzle, Horace, those are mealy bugs, you twit."
Bifocaled relatives of these roving taxonomoids live in the musty catacombs of cavernous botanical libraries and thrive on tracking down the ur-original identification and naming of a species. The pinnacle is finding an earlier name than that in universal usage, thereby displacing the names we've all been using for the past hundred years.
As a result of their entombed and entomed work, I find myself now yearning for my Sophora japonica, my Cornus stolonifera, my Cladrastis lutea, and even my invasive Polygonum cuspidatum. Alas, they have been abandoned, discarded, exiled to the taxonomic dustbin. Interlopers and imposters have replaced them: Staphnolobium japonicum, Cornus sericea, Cladrastis kentuckea, and Fallopia cuspidatum have taken over. It is distressing. Staphnolobium sounds like a bacterial ear infection compared to the oriental music of Sophora; stolonifera speaks to me of expansiveness, sericea seems like a scream of pain; lutea is fluid Latin for yellow (for yellowwood), while kentuckea sounds like a food-swallowing problem; and then there's Fallopia, the goddess of ovaries.
And beyond the lost aural beauty, there is The Horror! All those years spent learning and reciting the wrong names! And for all I know, I've probably spelled them wrong in the paragraph above. My brain was full already, and now it's overflowing.
Perhaps I should be happy that someone cares enough to spend a lifetime tracking down the true and original names of plants. Certainly the system that Linnaeus put together has worked exceptionally well and, in our business, separates the amateurs from the pros. And if someone wants to change Metasequoia glyptostroboides to Dawnus redwood, it's okay by me, even though I'll miss impressing people by sprinkling my conversations with Metasequoia et cetera.
Illtay extnay imetay, Dr. Dirt.
Dr. Dirt's rants are purged of explicit material by John Hart, ASLA Thompson School of Applied Science, University of New Hampshire.
