The Rural Voice, 2019-05, Page 44 It is that wonderful time of year
when we surge to garden centres,
local Horticultural Society plant
sales, and dig upand thin out old
favourite plants to trade with friends.
It is a rite of spring for gardeners
to seek out an unusual colour,
interesting leaf pattern, new
vegetable to taste or a new plant for
our personal oasis. We don’t give too
much thought to the possible impact
of newly introduced plants to our
landscape until it is too late. I believe
we are getting better at this. Garden
centres, plant breeders are more
cautious too.
There were two things this spring
that got me mulling the idea of plants
out of place.
The first was a visit to the Thomas
Edison Winter Estate in Fort Meyer,
Florida. It is a sprawling compound
along the Caloosahatchee River with
a “cottage” the size of a large home,
attached to a guest house; a pool
complex, caretaker’s house and
carriage house. But what made this
place especially interesting was
Edison’s botanical research
laboratory. Edison, and Henry Ford
who had a winter estate next door to
Edison, and Harvey Firestone of the
tire fame, were concerned about
America’s dependence on foreign
sources for rubber for industrial use.
They formed the Edison Botanic
Research Corporation in 1927.
Edison took the lead to test over
17,000 plant samples until he found a
source in the plant goldenrod. There
was a seven-foot specimen preserved
in a glass frame hanging in the office
of the laboratory. Think about that
for a moment, a seven-foot tall
goldenrod!
Plants were imported from all
over the world and grown on the
estate. There were acres of research
beds, raised gardens and various
shaded structures outside of the
laboratory. Plants were dried
naturally and in ovens, and the
results were stored in a cement vault.
The research was ongoing until 1936
when the lab was closed some five
years after Thomas Edison died.
The estate also has a remarkable
orchid collection in one part of the
garden, a white and blue garden that
is highly fragrant during the evening
complete with a wee pool to reflect
the moon and nicely located outside
of Edison’s discreet office tucked
away at the back. A lovely mango
grove is a fragrant addition.
Not to be ignored is the biggest
banyan tree in the continental United
States. The milky white sap can be
used to create rubber. It is one of 13
types of ficus trees on the estate.
The impact of this massive
introduction of plants into this
tropical zone may not be an obvious
issue today. We have plants many
consider native now but were
introduced by settlers as early as the
1700s. The edible garden or “Truck
Garden” at the Edison Estate
supplied vegetables and flowers for
the house as early as 1886. By 1900
there were 75 varieties of vegetables
in the garden including onions,
radishes, beans, beets, cucumbers,
squash, celery and carrots. Surplus
was sold to support the everyday
expenses of the winter estate.
When I was young it was not
uncommon for seeds to find their
way home from the U.S.. We were
introduced to okra, zucchini and
Boston lettuce as children and never
thought anything of it.
The second incident that got me
thinking about invasive plants was a
posting on Facebook, which talked
about an ornamental shrub and its
attractive red berries that were
poisonous to our birds. I humphed
40 The Rural Voice
It’s a wonderful
time of year
to garden!
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