Botany and Gardeners: How much is good enough for us to know ?

19 years ago

Now that we have BOTANY Forum, I would like to suggest the extent to which we gardeners should consider the vast knowledge available in this branch of science.I beleive that we try to understand the seed germination,plant growth,regulators at different stages of plant life,effect of sun light on plant growth,need of fertilzers at different stages of plant life etc, plus any more aspects of plant life as considered by fellow gardeners.

chiman

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Comments (28)

ecobotanist
19 years ago
Start with the basics: climate; soil and such. What's the NPK on a bag of fertilizer? Or, how to make your own and why even use it? Plant habits and life cycles. Bats, bees, birds and hummingbirds. After that, it becomes addictive and you are off and running for the rest of your natural life; which, however, will be longer and richer than if you did not garden or ask questions.
shelley_r
19 years ago
Ecobotanist, you said "it becomes addictive and you are off and running for the rest of your natural life" How true! I started just putting in a few new plants in my yard, then got really into gardening. That lead to an interest in native plants, how to id them, ecosystems, taxonomy, etc. I'm giving up all hope of ever getting my house clean. I just come inside to use the computer. I'm so glad to see people like you here, who are obviously more knowledgeable than me. I hope you like to answer lots of questions :)
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Very good post, and it's interesting to hear what people have to say. What Suzy says is worth the most serious consideration. I'm confused on the subject. First, I've been gardening for over twenty years, and am on my third serious garden (there have been some minor ones in between), which I've been working on for about a decade now. Currently I have about 350 varieties of roses and about 500-600 plants, not to mention hundreds of other shrubs, subshrubs, perennials, and so on. The garden is currently about two acres in size and will increase a bit more before we stop expanding. All this is to explain my situation. My garden is many things to me. It's a plant collection, with emphasis on old and older roses; I'm particularly fond of the once-flowering old roses which are so little grown in Italy, and of the Teas, also little cultivated. It's my aesthetic experiment, my lifetime work of art, my form of creative expression, and I can't put into words how important this is to me. My garden is also a long term experiment in low-impact gardening. I want to see what happens if I grow roses and other plants with just water the first year, mulch, pruning, weeding, cutting the grass, and not much else. The results have been encouraging enough that I keep on going with the same basic practices. In terms of consumption, my conscience is in pretty good shape. The land the garden takes up was grassland, some of it very weedy and poor, marginal areas given over to weeds, and one part, the shade garden, was a mixture of brushy woods and swamp and the site of our predecessors' burn pile and dump. Our fertilizer is the old hay we use as mulch, a local resource which would otherwise be simply thrown away. The water the garden uses, not a lot, is balanced out by the increased fertility of the soil and greater volume of plant material growing on the land, which also inhibits landslides, which are a very real consideration on our property. I've introduced exotic plant species, but also look for and introduce local native plants to the garden. If I haven't made it clear before, this is anything but prime farmland I'm gardening on, and it would be either grass, brush turning to woodland, or weeds--all three locally abundant--if I weren't gardening there. My husband and I plan on expanding the garden, and we're in a hurry, as he's my chief labor force and is currently in his late seventies, and won't be able to dig planting holes and steer the motor scythe forever. We get poorer every year and I don't see how we'll be able to hire anybody to do the work he does now. Everyone has a limit, or so I suppose, and I suspect that mine is somewhere in the neighborhood of 600-800 varieties of roses. But I don't know whether we'll get there before our resources, of money and manpower, give out. I'm wondering if I can't borrow a horse to be a living lawn mower: I'm told they eat only grass. The money isn't that big a deal. Some people buy clothes or go to the movies or eat out; I buy plants, at moderate expense. I also give and receive a lot of plants, and this cooperative aspect of gardening is one of its aspects that matters to me. But I certainly do wonder at times why I'm dedicating my life to a garden that no one ever sees. This is frustrating, and it also offends, quite deeply, my sense of thrift. I will feel my garden has been a failure if it remains unknown and never touches anyone's life, no matter how beautiful I succeed in making it. It's too much for one person alone to enjoy. I'm familiar with the sensation of greed, and it's an uncomfortable feeling. In spite of the ambitious scale of my garden, my desire to keep working on it doesn't feel like greed to me, not quite, and I certainly have thought about the matter. Could I spend my life more usefully? Quite possibly, as the chief practical result of my decade of labor seems to be that two acres of dirt are more fertile than they were before. I could be earning money, perhaps, staving off starvation and power cutoffs in my old age. That would certainly be useful, to me at any rate. As far as the work I might do is concerned, how many people do truly useful work, work that benefits society? Would I be doing something more globally useful if I had a job in advertising, say, instead of going out right now to shear grass and vetch in my rose beds? So many questions, so few answers. Melissa
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So sorry about the text in the OP. ;-( It was indeed a copy/paste job from one of my older posts, with a few changes. I hope you find (found?) it worth trying to figure out. Anything we add to our soils that isn't needed and finds it's way into the soil solution has the potential to limit growth/vitality. Many growers cling to the idea that a little more of this or that nutrient is better - for instance that since a little extra Fe or Mg will green up a plant, it must be good for it - true only if the plant is deficient in one or the other of those nutrients. Greener does not mean healthier when it comes at the expense of an excess of one or more nutrients. Since aquarium water contains a number of nutrients, is it necessarily a good idea to use it? So what's actually IN aquarium water - anyone know? Not with any certainty, so it's a very good bet that A) if you use aquarium water as your sole nutrition source, there are bound to be deficiencies, and B) if you combine using aquarium water with a sound nutrition program - 'because a little more of this and that is better' - you end up duplicating nutrients you don't need, which we know from Liebig's Law of the Minimum has the same potential to limit as a deficiency. If you rely on a sound nutrition program with no extra little treats, you're much more apt to end up with a lean mean growing machine. Whenever I consider anything as a supplement that my plant might need, I ask two questions. A) What will it supply that I know my plant needs? and B) What impact will it have on the soil's structure? In the case of worm castings and seaweed (other than emulsion), they supply nothing a plant needs that can't already be found in a fertilizer like Foliage-Pro, and they have only the potential to reduce aeration and increase water retention in container soils; though to an insignificant degree in the case of fish emulsion. So on two counts I would avoid them in my soils. Actually, there is a third consideration. I also tend to avoid the addition of soil amendments added for their nutritive value if I think they will promote significant growth of soil biota. I love it in the garden, but we can grow just fine in containers without courting the micro-herd. If we are going to use practices that support large populations of soil biota that break down soils quickly, why bother building all that wonderful aeration and drainage into our soils, only to have them stolen as our soils collapse in a feeding frenzy of micro-organisms? Growing in containers is well removed from gardening, and much closer to hydroponics. On a scale of 1-10, with growing in the garden being a 1 and hydroponics a 10, container culture is probably a 7 or 8, which is why a good part of what works so well in gardens (compost and organic amendments, worm castings, bone/blood/feather meals, feed the soil instead of the plant, .....) doesn't work well in containers. There's just no substitute for a healthy root system and a sound nutritional supplementation program that the grower assumes responsibility for and control over. Al
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Cornus
19 years ago
I hear you Shelley on the house issue. I'm only on here due to rain! Just moved into my house 2 months ago and have yet to unpack but the gardens look like I've been here for years!
Ecobotanist- If I put lime on my alkaline plants and coffee grounds on all my acidic plants, is that enough fertilizer? These are potted plants. How often do I do this? Once a month?
ingami
19 years ago
This is going to be an enjoyable forum, I see- I have to admit my ignorance and didn't read the suggestions form so didn't know there was a call for one. Thanks to everyone who pushed for it--
I definitely agree that it is or will be a lifelong study/hobby- suddenly it becomes fascinating to read a book on botany-
froggy
19 years ago
im sure this comment is going to come up often but everyone understands there is a diff between horticulture and botany?

botany is the study of the plant proper whereas horticulture is the study of growth for human sake.

as to the main question...u cannot get enough info. botanists and gardeners should hang out more often.

froggy
chaman
Original Author
19 years ago
Agreed, horticulture is the application of botanical science for the survival of humanbeings.In dealing with horticultural studies we will always need to understand the underlying botanical principles.

chiman
The_Mohave__Kid
19 years ago
I agree with those above ... Horticulture is applied Botany ... Botany a science that is really focused on finding new knowledge about plants BUT indeed the intention to help / advance man ... Horticulture is the use of that knowlege for some practical end ... to make a profit and solve problems in the green industry and help man ect ... the researcher versus the technician type of analogy ...

It's quite possible for horticulture to exist without a botanical understanding of some aspect of it ... so "what came first the chicken or the egg" ?? ... and it's easy to imagine that in the practice of horticulture some botany is also discovered along the way and the reverse as well ... so it can become a matter of splitting hairs ??

Good Day ...
Rosa
19 years ago
I also agree that Horticulture is applied botany.
Mohave Kid raises a good question. Were our ancestors botanists, horticulturalists or agriculturalists when they cared for, cultivated, and bred certain plants for food, fiber, ceremony and pleasure??
froggy
19 years ago
they were good horticulturists and great agriculturalists.
prolly didnt care much about botany.

u try breaking virgin soil and living off the fruits of ur labor...

froggy
User
19 years ago
I thought this forum was new! Having studied Horticulture, Botany is the first chapter in the courses I took. I found that understanding how a plant works at the cellular level helped me diagnose and solve plant problems. I wouldn't want one without the other.

Rolande
Rosa
19 years ago
True froggy-they probably didn't much care about botany as we define it, but wouldn't plant breeding even without a complete understanding of it make them botanists of a sort?
The_Mohave__Kid
19 years ago
"but wouldn't plant breeding even without a complete understanding of it make them botanists of a sort? "

Yeah .. I guess your right Rosa ... but today we call them geneticist ...yukkkk ... plant geneticist if we like them LOL ....

Good Day ...
Rosa
19 years ago
LOL @ Mohave!! yes geneticist is the better term here....
poppymiller
19 years ago
Interesting. I was drug kicking and screaming to this point in time. Botany, biology, Scientific Nomenclature were all things that bored me to tears. Ok, so what am I doing here? The beginning of the year I took the Florida Master Gardener program and I tried hard NOT to listen when we didn't talk about plants, taking care of plants, feeding, propagating, etc....that was all I wanted to know, all I thought I'd need to know to learn how to be a better gardener. Now I not only garden but have written a few gardening columns.

Alright, I've gotten to where I want to learn more and more and more. I've become an addict......Oh well, I could be in a rest home talking to the walls for excitement I guess.
Sure glad I found you all. Poppy
Rosa
19 years ago
Welcome Poppy. Yes, an addiction for sure, and find that talking to plants beats talking to the walls anyday, lol!!
wanda
19 years ago
It's always the same....The more you learn, the more you want to know. LOL

I discovered a great book a few years ago called 'Botany for Gardeners'. Small paperback and not to "scientific" to get through. I highly recommend it.

wanda
garyfla_gw
19 years ago
Hi
Don't see how you could be one without the other lol
Also seems you must specialize.There are WAAAy too many kinds of plants.You could spend a lifetime on algae alone
For myself I find I'm like most gardeners.There is a direct correlation between my interest and how much I paid for the plant. My expensive plants get way more botany than my cheapies lol Another thing I find that pushes me in that direction is space.As the garden becomes more crowded
I need to change my culture methods.
I think I would find the multitude of restrictions on "Botany" boring where "Horticulture" is limitless.
Gary
garden_witch
19 years ago
I have to say, once you start learning, there is no 'enough' =)

A few years back, I started reading up on herbal medicine. Most of the books I was reading included scientific names for plants used in different remedies. At first it was all 'Greek' (or Latin, rather) to me, but I did slowly start to learn and memorize the proper scientific names for the plants in my herb garden. After that, I started ID'ing the various shrubs, trees, perenials, etc. that came with our house. When I would buy new plants or seeds, I would look for ones that had the latin name on the label. This is the 'off and running' part =)
I am also gradually learning different propogation methods. Before the last 3 or 4 years, propogation for me was buying four or five flats of annuals, herbs, and veggies, a few new perenials, a few packets of seeds, and planting them all around Memorial day. After a few years of reading and experimenting, I know that I can start seeds pretty much year round and not everything has to be planted out after the last frost date. I am still a bit of a novice at starting seeds indoors, but I don't really have much room for that anyway. So, I stick to special stuff, like my draceana draco that is now about 5-6 months old and about 8" tall =)

Ok, so maybe it is enough to know the basics of care for the particular plants you are growing. (did I say that? nah!) But it is so rewardeing to learn as much as you can =)
catalina_101
19 years ago
I guess this depends on where your boundaries of "botany" are. To me, genetics are naturally part of botany and I don't see how to separate the two. Botany incorporates all sorts of biological fields, and isn't limited to "traditional" "old school" botany, including nomenclature, identification, discovery, and taxonomy.

Some of the greatest botanists I know are geneticists, horticulturalists, agriculturalists, microbiologists, and biochemists ;o)
The_Mohave__Kid
19 years ago
Uhhh Ohhhh ... I knew you were a geneticist ... thats explains a lot LOL ...

I agree with you ... Botany is very broad term ... but there are many geneticist that would not call themselves Botanist ... to understand plants one really needs to understand many areas of science a broad or multi disciplanary approach... there is also an overuse of semantics in science it seems to me.

Good Day ...
catalina_101
19 years ago
Why does that explain a lot? ;o)

So many of the classifications you use are based on rRNA data, and genetic data, so why is that so contrary to "botany"?

To me there is "traditional" botany (the fields I listed above) and a "new" botany: the genetic, physiological, biochemical, etc aspects of the plant, all of which are JUST as important to understanding how they work and what they're doing!
The_Mohave__Kid
19 years ago
Hello Catalina ...

You seem biased towards the "New" botany ... to me New or Old it's all botany ... together it all tells a story.

Geneticist just have a certain way of seeing the world ... maybe it comes out when you write your thoughts ... plus genetics gave me a headache in college LOL ... I'm just picking on you a bit ( smile ) ....

I hope you keep posting ... I can see you have lots of cool ideas ....

Good Day ...
catalina_101
19 years ago
Oh I'm not biased toward one or the other. My background is in both :)
They're both totally intertwined and you can't have one without the other.

Picking on moi doesn't scare me away, don't worry!

I'll admit though, I love genetics.
NOTHO__NANTUCKET
19 years ago
Let,s go back to Theophrastus or Pliny the Elder ,I hope Iput that right!!!! and start from there . N,N,
oakleif
19 years ago
Hi all, I'm into archeology as well as plants. Please don't take our ancient ancestors as dummies ;) they were as intelligent as we are. I think they looked, saw patterns, experimented,discussed,came to conclusions as well as we do.maybe more so as they lived among the plants and had they a written language I know they would spell better than i do.
I think you are all making this a great learning forem. thanks oakleif
weebus
19 years ago
Who made our ancient ancestors out to be dummies? I think NOTHO was saying that is where we should start, in other words, lets cover it all...
yugoslava
19 years ago
I read something from Ecobotanist and he mentions making or mixing your own fertilizer. I'm curious about the process.
Liliana
NOTHO__NANTUCKET
19 years ago
I think the only ancient dummies may have been the Mongoloids,when they put or should Isay took their two cents worth out and messed up a lot of info way back when but, I could be wrong. The more you go back in time I think the more fascinating this subject is , but to make it easy maybe we could just stick to Martha Stewart,s stories she has plenty of time now to discuss this and I am sure she would love to HEAR FROM ANYONE on this matter.N.N.

Botany and Gardeners: How much is good enough for us to know ?

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