An Inside Look

Watching our four-year-old granddaughter, Sarah Anchors Cathey, learning to count is a most affirming experience for a “Social Security-plus” person. With all the new technological advancements we have, children are still using their fingers and toes to grasp the addition of numbers—Sarah’s calculation of her digits comes to a comforting 20.

Like children, gardeners and nature lovers often retain a fascination with numbers and statistics. They find joy in learning what is the smallest, tallest, broadest, hardiest, and oldest. In this issue, Guy Sternberg gives us an inside look at what inspires people to identify and publicize America’s champion trees, which are truly living national treasures.

Looking back through the years to the early decades of this century, Karan Davis Cutler tells us about another giant of the plant world, Theodore Payne. This expatriated Englishman fell in love with California wildflowers and devoted his life to growing and popularizing them. To this day, the non-profit foundation that bears his name is carrying on his legacy by propagating native wildflowers and teaching people their importance in gardens and in the wild.

Numbers also figure prominently in David Egan’s article about the evolution of prairie nurseries from the environmental ferment of the early 1970s to today. From small nurseries catering to die-hard regional plant enthusiasts, some nurseries that specialize in prairie plants have evolved into major companies supplying millions of prairie plants to clients throughout North America and overseas.

With tropical and subtropical plants, the important numbers for gardeners are often USDA hardiness and AHS heat zones. Nursery owner Tom Wood shares his love of ginger lilies (Hedychium spp.). These colorfully-flowered plants can be grown outdoors year-round mainly in USDA Zones 7 to 11 and AHS Zones 12 to 8, but need to be treated as tender perennials or planted in containers elsewhere in North America.

The topic of our Focus section is one of concern to all gardeners: Preventing winter injury to plants. Unpredictable weather conditions in the last several years have caused gardeners to re-evaluate the hardiness and heat tolerance of all their plants. We examine winter injury problems region by region and suggest ways to reduce or prevent damage.

Finally, to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of George Washington, we’re taking a look back at the ornamental gardens the First Farmer developed at Mount Vernon and how they have been restored today. While Washington apparently grew only agricultural crops on the land now known as River Farm—the American Horticultural Society’s headquarters—we believe he would be proud of the gardens that now grace our grounds. 

Learning to translate all these numbers into useful knowledge and information will be one of the major challenges of the next millennium. If you need an interested and able student, please get in touch. We are training one the old-fashioned way—fingers and toes first. Ever in green,