Gardening

Gardeners Will Welcome Global Warming

Green thumbs are twitching across Canada at the prospects of global warming. Already plants are blooming an average of five days earlier than they did a decade ago. Despite the shrill eldritch cries of gloom-and-doom druids, warming brings wonderful prospects for the horticultural fraternity.

Global warming will not all be bad; northern countries like Canada, northern Europe and Russia will benefit from milder winters and longer growing seasons," says Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore (www.greenspiritstrategies.com).

Already, magnolias are growing in Peterborough, Ontario. Passionflower vines have been successfully overwintered outside in Niagara-on-the-Lake with but a mulch to protect them from winter weather.

By the middle of the century, say prophesying progenitors, the Greater Toronto Area will experience a climate similar to that experienced by the southwest British Columbia today. In short, golf and gardening on a year-round basis.

An enormous increase in plant growth will result from this extended season. This will absorb even more carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas of the Kyoto Protocol. Perhaps gardeners could even be granted federal government tax credits for lowering Canada's carbon emissions.

There are other reasons for crediting gardeners with environmental stewardship. The trees, shrubs, flowers and yes, even lawns, they culture have many diverse benefits. Shade from trees reduces air-conditioning requirements in the summer while protecting from heat loss during winter. Landscaping removes air pollutants while producing oxygen and muffles excess noise. Plantings filter ground water and prevent soil erosion.

Then there is the boost to business. The present economic benefit of the horticultural industry is estimated at $4 to $10 billion per year (depending on sectors), according to Tony DiGiovanni, Executive Director of Landscape Ontario, an industry group. He also points out that the horticultural industry employs over 100,000 full-time and part-time seasonal workers. With gardening in southern Ontario now on a year-round basis employment will be correspondingly increased. No more overwinter lay-offs for landscape and maintenance contractors. Garden centres and other retailers will stay busy all year long.

Also think how much more attractive Ontario vineyards will be to investors, as Peter Foster pointed out in the Financial Post. Not to mention, of course, their final products.

Garden tourists are usually missed out by the mainstream media, who, as David Warren of the Ottawa Citizen wittily put it, run from good news as from holy water. Few communities do not now have summer "open garden" events where private gardens are on view. Famed public parks such as the Niagara system and the Royal Botanical Gardens at Burlington presently attract hundreds of thousands during the growing season. How many more would visit if that growing season were extended year round? Ask Buchart Gardens, B.C., for an answer.

Last summer the constable at Grand Falls, the lavender capital of Newfoundland, raised the alarm that maggotty-headed young layabouts there had discovered that we had magic mushrooms, too, and were rapidly turning into depraved, anti-social drug-crazed gas-bar attendants," wrote Ray Guy, the province's witty garden columnist in 1987. "A sad day for society but a glorious one for horticulture. Pineapples in Pooch Cover next? Sugar cane in Seldom Come By? Frangipani in Fortune? And we thought that turnips were the most we could manage here on the Arctic rim." Ray could be getting warmer.