Cold Moon Newsletter

Hi Plant People,

Happy (belated) Cold Moon!

I’m happy to report that Harvard remains thrilling. One of the joys is being asked to speak on new topics. Last month I lectured on soil management for climate change, organizing organizations for collective learning, and ethical labor management as it relates to design. Next month I’ll be teaching a course for landscape architects on designing ecological systems.

But my favorite thing so far has been talking to students. They are so passionate, knowledgable, and eager to change the world. It really makes me hopeful. And it’s fun, honestly, to think deeply and academically about why we live in an ocean of turf and how that relates to liberalism’s fetishization of the individual, for example. It’s illustrated for me how academia is important not only to teach but also to support and platform brilliant and esoteric thinkers whose work doesn’t really have a function outside of cultivating discourse.

If you’re interested, this lecture on greenhouses by Aleksandra Jaeschkle is a beautiful example. It’s “academic” to the point of poetry. And the way she weaves art and history to encourage new perspectives was a revelation. Enjoy!

GARDEN NOTES

Now is a wonderful time to collect wildflower seed, an urgent and rewarding practice that is only getting more important, detailed beautifully in this Orion piece. It’s such a different thing to grow a plant than to buy one.

Here is a Xerces guide to harvesting and processing seed, and here is a similar but more DIY guide to collecting and processing seed using things you have around the house.

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

• Pathfinder is an incredible tool for landscape designers. By plugging in a few aspects of your design, you can calculate the carbon footprint of your project. The app then allows you to experiment with different strategies to increase sequestration. It’s so easy and clear. And as it turns out, many of the strategies we use to encourage wildlife also help climate mitigation! It’s a great tool to communicate with clients about the value of our designs. (Full disclosure, the app was designed by my fellow fellow, Pamela Conrad and I think she’s brilliant).

• A sweet and educational coloring book of native prairie plants and their animals.

• Very cool illustration of deadwood and the organisms who rely on it.

IN THE NEWS

• Dwell Magazine profiled 7 garden designers with exciting new ways to kill your lawn. Reduction is also possible: "Think of your lawn as an area rug rather than wall to wall," says Edwin von Gal. Benjamin Vogt got a glamorous spread and reminds us that kids don’t need lawns to play outside.

• It is crazy how popular ecological horticulture is! Here is lovely interview Margaret Roach did with rockstars Noel Kingsbury and Annie Guilfoyle on caring for gardens, the misnomer of “maintenance,” and whether or not people actually want to garden.

• Bjork interviewed Robin Wall Kimmerer for ArtForum Magazine and it’s exactly as etherial as you’d hope it would be. Listen here.

• COP15 started in Montreal this week and… we’ll see! Theoretically the powers that be will meet, talk about biodiversity, and come out with some sort of plan to save the world. Here is an explainer of the conference, “30 x 30,” and what to expect, and here is the Guardian’s ongoing coverage.

• If you’ve hung out with me for ten minutes, you already know that flowers have electrical charges which bees read to judge if the flowers have been recently visited. New research shows that synthetic fertilizer alters the flowers’ magnetic fields and bumble bees will avoid them as a result. Researchers speculate that pesticides have the same effect.

• OK, horticulture is done f***ing around. Researchers have bred a tobacco plant that produces cocaine in its leaves. When asked why they would do such a thing, researchers responded, “scientific curiosity” (….) No word yet on when the new Nicotiana cultivar will be available.

• Last month I missed the link to this wonderful story of restoration of the Fender’s Blue Butterfly. Indigenous people lead restorations efforts of Lupine, and as a result, the butterfly may no longer be endangered. So heartening to know these strategies work.

• Dandelions are so well dispersed in part because their seeds are intended to fly off in all different directions. The plant holds the seeds so that wind coming from the North, for instance, can only blow certain seeds away, while wind from the South blows others. Next time you make a wish on a dandelion, pay attention, you have to turn the plant to get them all!

• When we think of trees migrating to adapt to the changing climate, we rarely think of the tiny animals who makes the decisions to take, eat, or hide their seeds. And it’s those decisions, and even the personalities of the animals, that literally move forests. Here is a cute story on the mice who plant oak trees.

• New term alert! “Conservation gardening” is the focus of this excellent piece in Yale e360 on the Hempstead Plains of Long Island. People are organizing, protecting, and propagating local ecotype plants from this important ecosystem and proving how residential yards can provide habitat for wildlife and rare plants. They link to this study on why homeowners are resistant cultivate habitat, with the takeaway that “low maintenance” still matters.

• And here is more evidence on the importance of back yards: a meta analysis showed that 40’ x 40’ plots had outsized effects on pollinator abundance and diversity. Larger plots helped more but not much more, implying that many small plots (backyards! community gardens!) make a huge difference. And here is similar research on forests: a large number of small forests typically harbor higher biodiversity than a small number of large forests totaling the same area. Stewards of patchy ecology unite!

• Model / actress Julia Fox went viral for her scanty, sexy outfit made entirely of dried leaves. “I’m obsessed with leaves” she says over and over, and bemoans that people rake up “bug food” as she hot glues London Plain leaves into a boob cup. Is this a win? Have we reached a new level of cultural relevance? I’ll take it. Tiktok vid here.

• Shocker: native birds prefer native berries. Even amidst an abundance of exotic fruits, migratory birds choose the nutrient dense, native berries that they’re familiar with.

• Totally beautiful, educational, and tragic explainer on the growing “insect apocalypse.” A great one to send to people who need convincing. Thing I did not know: there are about the same number of mammal species as ladybugs (6,000).

• Hundreds of years ago, when merchant ships carried cargo to New York, their ballasts were filled with earth, stone, and wood to counterbalance the weight of the cargo. Upon arrival, that ballast was emptied, releasing hundreds of exotic organisms, plants among them, into the “new world.” Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves found this ballast waste and germinated 400 plants from the sites. She then grew them on a floating installation called Seeds of Change. It’s incredible, and speaks to colonialism, displacement, and the power of the seed. Review in ArtForum here and a lovely video here.

• Emergence Magazine interviewed Suzanne Simard and they discussed my favorite topic: why science prefers the narrative of competition over cooperation. Don’t these people realize that projecting competition on to literally everything is anthropomorphization as well?

• Fascinating long-read on bonsai in The New Yorker. An American travels to Japan to study under renegade bonsai master, Masahiko Kimura. An intersting exploration of beauty and abuse.

• New word alert! “Inosculation” happens when two trees naturally graft together, merging vascular tissues in a permanent embrace. If you’ve ever seen a branch growing through another tree, you’ve seen it. I learned this from Jared Barns who writes: “The word comes from osculum which means kiss or mouth, and from looking at the wound tissue created when two come together.”

• Xerces Society put out a call to regulate pesticide-coated seed, which is SUPER harmful, barely works, and of course, completely unregulated. It’s important, especially given that global pesticide use has increased 80% since 1990, and many wealthy countries ban pesticides on their own land, but continue to manufacture and export of them to poorer nations.

• Margaret Roach did a great explainer of fall color and foliage function in the NYT featuring NY botanical legend Regina Alverez. Margaret calls marcescence “preposterous” and that is why I love her.

• Eco-adventurer Joel Caldwell takes us to visit California’s “Ecosystem Restoration Camps,” intentional communities organized around fixing broken systems and living in ways that heal the planet. It’s always amazing when people stop waiting for others to save them.

• Bee round up: social bees have larger foraging ranges than solitary bees, honeybees affect the microbial composition of wild flowers, insects can feel pain, and honeybees lifespans are now 50% of what they were 50 years ago. Also, even more evidence that honey bees displace wild bees and lead to reduced pollination in certain plants.

• New perennial designer Austin Eischeid and ecologist Jens Jensen show us how to design with aggressive native plants in this lovely and short video.

• Why are mums? Allen Bush gives us a history of Chrysanthemums in America, from the “McMums” next antifreeze at grocery store, to the Sheffield line which apparently was bread in New England and not the UK, as I assumed.

• Here is a lovely and thorough profile of Pando in the Smithsonian, the 106 acre Aspen grove in Utah and arguably the world’s largest organism.

• Tree info roundup: removal of street trees significantly increases stormwater runoff, cities seriously need to diversify tree species and clusters, forest removal leads directly to droughts and deluges, and yet, despite all this, trees in cities are declining. Also, here is a story on the Comanche marker trees of Texas.

• How can botanical gardens recognize and begin to correct for the centuries of colonial exploitation and racism that form the foundations of these institutions? The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh has some interesting strategies. For example, text about Cedrus deodara now describes it as the national tree of Pakistan, with healing properties that have been recognized in India for 3,000 years, before noting that its ornamental beauty “has been appreciated in British gardens since 1831.”

• Lego made more flower and plant kits. Good presents for “your kids.”

• Congrats! You made it to the end. And this month’s reward is CRAZY. You probably know of “cat lady disease.” Toxoplasmosis gondii is a parasite people can get from cat feces that directs behavior in favor of the parasite’s reproduction. Infected people suddenly desire to hoard cats, but also get clumsy, and theoretically more likely to die around the cats, who will then eat them so that the parasite can complete its lifecycle. Insane, right? THERE’S MORE. New research shows that wolves infected with this same protozoan become bolder, more likely to lead their packs, and then of course more likely to die and get eaten by a cat. The implications of this are staggering and its fun to think of evil villains, cat in lap, destroying the world as directed by a protozoan, simply so that their cat can eat them.

UPCOMING EVENTS

I am taking a break from public speaking until Spring 2023, but am excited for my line up thereafter! In the meantime, other cool events:

• New Directions in the American Landscape

  January 5-6 or 12-13, 2023

  In person and virtual, open to the public

  One of the best designed ecology conferences is back in person! This year features rockstars Andi Pettis, Kate Kennen, and Jared Rosenbaum.

• Plant-o-Rama

  January 30-31, 2023

  In person and virtual, open to the public

  NYC’s favorite hort party is both in person and virtual this year! The line up looks great and features Rebecca Kagle, Jared Barns, and Thomas RaShad Easley.

• Native Seed Conference

  March 27 - 30, 2023, Washington DC

  In person, open to the public
  If you’ve got $500 to spare, this conference on native seed science, practice and policy looks totally incredible.

www.rebeccamcmackin.com