Conventional Wisdom

People are talking about: "Last year compared to this year" weather differences.  Our fitness instructor mowed the lawn three times by yesterday's date last year.  I'd sent out pictures of orchards in bloom, having spotted the first orchard trees blooming in mid-April.  The Magnolias were in bloom in Queenston, a beautiful town on the Niagara River.   I was thinking of what conventional wisdoms have become common practice in the 20th century. I expected to find things like the 80-20 principle.  While the term dates back to 1838,  it is associated with John Kenneth Galbraith in his 1958 book The Affluent Society in which he displayed his contrarian view of economic theories of the day. Conventional wisdom is considered a derogatory term - it is defined as "ideas so accepted that they go unquestioned".  The example that is cited is that it was once believed that the Earth is flat, and that at the Earth is the centre of the universe.   Wikipedia puts it more specifically:  "It is widely believed that prior to Christopher Columbus people thought the world was flat, but in actuality, scholars of that time had long accepted that the earth is a sphere.  The above sentence is true; people today often think that Columbus discovered the world to be round, when in fact the world's roundness was already widely known by Columbus' time. However, if enough people read and believe the above sentence, the above sentence will eventually supplant the old belief (the old belief in past belief in a flat earth). The above sentence would become the new conventional wisdom. (Ironically, however, this would also turn the above sentence, the new conventional wisdom, into a false claim; because the new conventional wisdom would propose that people are confused about past beliefs in a way that they actually wouldn't be.)" So complicated a term to consider.  In seeking a list of typical conventional wisdoms, I find lead-in paragraphs to research studies and their results and financial investors and their advice. My sense is that this expression has been hijacked by writers. If it is a serious area of investigation, perhaps it is obscure rather than popular. And now what we experience is that it is conventional wisdom to challenge conventional wisdom.  There's something circular about this concept! The fascinating Canada Blooms' wall sculpture is today's subject.  The second picture shows it interpreted by the Flaming Pear plug-in "India Ink".  The third one interprets it with the Topaz Labs plug-in "Glow".  Both interpretations show off its wonderful design structure.

Glass over Grass

It used to be that a greenhouse was constructed on good soil, so that the plants could flourish under the warmer conditions during the winter.  I can remember these greenhouses - Niagara had many floral crops under glass - you could see and smell roses  and lilies in the middle of winter and buy a bouquet. There's no soil in a commercial greenhouse today. Everything is sterile to reduce issues like fungus and insects.  Biological controls are used - no chemical sprays anymore.   So Niagara soil is often covered with hundreds of acres of greenhouses on cement floors.  It is up to thousands of acres under glass - peppers, cucumbers and tomato production represents 3,000 acres of greenhouse growing. (This would include the Windsor corridor.) There were 223 vegetables and 400 flower greenhouse operations in Ontario in 2015. The greenhouse produce industry in Canada is worth $1.3 billion. I was able to see in to some of them because of an open house on the weekend in support of charity. Seven in the Jordan area were on the tour.  Included was CosMic the phalanopsis orchid grower and Jeffrey's where I buy overflowed pot plants in the summer.  Jeffery's is particularly large. It also grows other seasonal pot plants, such as Chrysanthemums for autumn and Poinsettias for the Christmas market. There were floral greenhouses on the tour that I hadn't seen before.  Below is a picture of  statice - one of the bouquet flowers.  They also grow amaryllis for the floral trade and peonies outside for the June market, to keep their staff employed. The number one cost of greenhouse operations is labour - around 30-40%. And that is with migrant workers who are below minimum wage.   There is some automation - little robots space the plants perfectly for maximum efficiency.  Automation supports moving plants up to the next pot size - filling pots with soil. There are a few other areas applications.  But all the pinching is done by hand, and there's a fair amount of it.    We didn't get to see a tomato production house. I ran out of time to see St. David's Pepper production.  Here is a wonderful Financial Post article HERE covering the largest tomato greenhouse producer in Canada - located in the Windsor area.  There are great pictures and video.  What I was interested in was that the article covers the Vineland Research Station's new 1 acre test greenhouse.  It has a greenhouse tomato breeding program.  They are hybridizing like crazy in there - cross-pollinating commercial and heirloom tomatoes to get the supreme tomato of great flavour and great durability. It is just a matter of time... We see what the industrial floral landscape looks like. Our first picture shows a typical migrant worker - they come from Mexico and South America.  In the second image is the water reclamation pond.  Little irrigation hoses go to every pot.   Our third picture shows the work at hand - pinching, etc. There are some flowers to see - but mostly a vast landscape of green all around. There were some pretty pot plants in Jeffery's showing colour.  They will likely get shipped out this week to their major customer Costco.

Skywatcher's Month

October is a sky-watching month according to National Geographic with Zodiacal Lights from October 1-15 "Starting about an hour before sunrise on Saturday, October 1, and lasting the next two weeks, keen skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere can hunt down one of the most elusive astronomical phenomena visible in the sky: the zodiacal light.  This pyramid-shaped beam of light is easily mistaken for the lights of a far-off city just over the dark horizon in the countryside, and has also been called “false dawn.” But this light is more ethereal; it is caused by sunlight reflecting off cosmic dust between the planets. Amazing to think that today we’re peering at billions of dust-sized particles that were left behind after the planets formed about five billion years ago."

Bugs and Insects

There don't seem to be many insects in my photos.  I find them a lot of work - they move so fast that it is hard to get a clear shot, and often the poses that are captured are not attractive.    People seem to love or hate insects.  I thought of the expression 'Don't bug me' and got to thinking about bugs.  It turns out that: "true bugs are within the order called Hemiptera.  Insects in this order are different from other insect orders such as Hymenoptera (ants and bees), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) or Diptera (flies and mosquitoes)." How bugs and insects got associated with bothering and annoying is likely obvious if one has a fly in the house.  It becomes a 'best friend' always there in the kitchen involved in your every activity. I scrolled through the definitions in Merriam-Webster's dictionary site and after the regular definition there are distinctions between medical, law, student, and geographical.  And it turns out that it isn't a popular word - Mirriam-Webster ranks in the bottom 50% of words. Here's May's Betterphoto contest finalist.

Are there Queen's Tears?

Wake Up on the Bright Side The Grimsby Garden Club will have a speaker on Monday whose topic is the naming of flowers.  My experience so far is that most plants are named after plant discoverers.  Common names, though, seem to relate to how the plant looks or behaves. This first plant has a common name of Firecracker Plant.  It looks like firecrackers amongst the green foliage.  It also has the name of Coral Plant.  This second flower, a Bilbergia, has the common name of Queen's Tears.  The flowers are known to drip nectar when touched.   In comparison to common names, the Latin names of plants seems complicated and extensive. The origins and current day naming are in Latin - references go back to 370 B.C. with Theophrastus, who was Greek. I wonder how it was that Latin has been the universal scientific language from such an early time.  Perhaps Monday's speaker has all the answers. Have a Happy Easter Weekend!

Hosta Season

It's not just Niagara gardens that have an abundant showing of hostas. In Niagara, though, I have found that the hostas in the garden have doubled in size over the last year and a half.  I now need to move some out of the large front hosta display bed. These leaves make beautiful garden images in every season.  Here are two examples.