Last Chance: Garden Facts Revealed for You Now!

Check out this collection of gardening stories with facts and science right now! [GreenPrints]( May 18, 2023  [LEARN ALL about gardening & nature facts—boost your gardening science knowledge now!]( When you read this special GreenPrints Collection [Gardening Science: Stories for learning how to be a better gardener]( you get facts about gardening, science, nature, and history to boost your gardening know-how. Start reading—and learning—right now! Dear Gardener, I don’t have to tell you that gardening is an art. Any beautifully designed plot rich with red roses, deep blue indigo, and striking yellow sunflowers is enough to convince anyone that flowers, vegetables, fruits, shrubs, and trees can create a virtual museum in your own yard. Some of the most famous paintings in the world are proof enough that gardens are indeed art. Mary Cassatt’s “Lilacs in a Window” and Vincent van Gogh’s “Irises” have revered places in museum galleries. [Science Collection]( Gardening is also science. You can’t talk about soil composition or plant hybrids without getting into science. But “science” sounds so removed from the emotions and beauty of time in the garden. In reality, art and science mingle and connect in the garden. Science can help us understand the art of gardening, and art helps us appreciate the science of gardening. That’s exactly what you get in this Collection, [Gardening Science: Stories for learning how to be a better gardener](. The stories in our Collection bring you into the joys and fascinations of gardening by appealing to your spirits and the scientific explanations that feed your sense of wonder. In “The Sweet Smell of Rain,” Becky Rupp brings you to a garden still sparkling with water droplets after a storm and explains not only why the scent of an April shower is so unique, but also why it’s so evocative and memorable. Of course, if you’d like to dig a little deeper into the science of gardening, check out the “Good Chemistry” story, and find out why we’re all alive today thanks to a chemical reaction in plants. Sure, you may be familiar with photosynthesis as something that makes it possible for plants to turn sunlight into your dinner. You may even know that chlorophyll is the substance that makes photosynthesis possible. But did you know that it takes 137 atoms to create chlorophyll and that there are six different kinds of chlorophyll? And if it’s still early and you haven’t had enough coffee yet for chlorophyll, take a peek at “Here Comes the Sun.” This gardening science story has a little bit of everything from the Earth’s axial tilt to an illuminated 13th-century text that depicts rabbits armed with clubs, bows, and apparently a lot of garlic. There’s even an appearance by the Roman sun god, Sol Invictus! If that’s not the makings of the next Hollywood Sci-Fi blockbuster, I don’t know what is. Get all sorts of fascinating (and fun!) science in this Collection. Should you play music for your plants? Send an email to your favorite tree? Learn Latin for your flowers? Discover the answers to these questions—and more—in this Collection, [Gardening Science: Stories for learning how to be a better gardener]( Knowledge is power, and gardening science knowledge makes you an expert to be reckoned with! This Collection is a quick-and-easy way to get up to speed on gardening science! Everything is presented in easy-to-understand language, so you quickly grasp the concepts—and delivered in story-telling fashion, so that each article is entertaining and enjoyable. Please check out this story from the GreenPrints Collection [Gardening Science: Stories for learning how to be a better gardener]( entitled “Are Plants Smart?”—you’ll learn some new things about plant intelligence: [Are Plants Smart?]( Well, are they? By Becky Rupp [Image 1] Think about this much and it’s a downright creepy question. I mean, consider what we do to plants. We prune them, mow them, cage them, tie them to poles and fences, pick parts of them and eat them, and uproot them and toss them on the compost pile. We chop them up and burn them in the woodstove, hang things on them, and repeatedly stomp all over them, in spite of all those admonitory signs ordering us to Keep Off the Grass. Then it turns out that plants might actually be…intelligent. Botanist Daniel Chamovitz, in What a Plant Knows (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012), writes ominously, “Plants see if you come near them; they know when you stand over them. They even know if you’re wearing a blue or a red shirt. They know if you’ve painted your house or if you’ve moved their pots from one side of the living room to the other.” Urk. The plants are watching me. I haven’t been able to get this one out of my head. It’s the same sort of nervous-making feeling you get as a little kid when you find out that Santa sees you when you’re sleeping. Until now, I’d never viewed the vegetable patch as a lurking surveillance system. The plant intelligence question, now hotly debated in botanical circles, isn’t as straightforward as it sounds—and revolves in large part around just what your definition of intelligence is. Plants obviously can’t solve quadratic equations, write Hamlet, or compose Beethoven’s Ninth; they don’t exhibit the sort of creative abstract thought that we equate with human intelligence. But for all that they seem to just sit there, they’re smarter than they look. Prime mover in the modern field of plant intelligence is botanist Anthony Trewavas from the UK’s University of Edinburgh. Trewavas defines intelligence as the ability to sense the surrounding environment, analyze the results, and then, based on these, make decisions about how to behave. Plants, says Trewavas, have this ability in spades, but we tend not to notice it much since plants are generally slow responders. Anchored in place as they are, their most common response to input—sun, shade, water, rocks, other plants—is to change their growth pattern, which in the short term isn’t exactly exciting. There’s a reason that “like watching the grass grow” is a synonym for really, really boring. Add time-lapse photography, however, and the plant world suddenly becomes a far more active and interactive place. Take, for example, the dodder vine. Dodder—a relative of the morn-ing glory—is something none of us want in our gardens, since it lives by wrapping itself around other plants and sucking the life out of them. (Among its nicknames are devil’s ringlets, hellbine, strangleweed, and witch’s shoelaces.) Its murderous behavior, however, isn’t a matter of random snatch and grab. A young dodder seedling literally sniffs out its prey, analyzing the organic volatiles released by neighboring plants, and then heading for the tastiest and most tempting of the bunch—choosing, for example, tomatoes in preference to wheat. Once attached, it then performs some version of a cost-benefit calculation to determine how many times to wrap around its victim: the more nutritious the host plant, the more coils generated by the climbing dodder vine. Experiments by Australian ecologist Monica Gagliano seem to indicate that plants not only modify their behavior based on cues from the environment, but actively learn and form long-term memories. Gagliano works with Mimosa pudica, also known as the sensitive plant or touch-me-not because it rapidly folds up its fern-like leaves if bumped, shaken, poked, landed upon by a bug, or approached with a lit match. In Gagliano’s lab, potted mimosas were dropped from a height of about six inches onto a foam pad—a harmless jolt that nonetheless caused the plants to nervously close their leaves. After repeated drops, however, the plants ceased to respond, having apparently analyzed the situation and determined that dropping wasn’t dangerous. They did, however, continue to close their leaves when shaken or poked. Furthermore, over a month later, the plants still remembered their experience. While untrained plants clapped their leaves shut in response to a drop, the trained plants—knowing they were perfectly safe—stayed calmly open. It makes you think, doesn’t it? Every year Randy and I go out, armed with clippers, and prune our grapevines. What if they remember us? And if they do, what if they hold a grudge? Some indications are that they may at least talk to each other about us. Plants communicate with themselves, each other, and the outer world via a sophisticated battery of chemicals. Sagebrush, for example, when it feels crowded, produces a volatile chemical called methyl jasmonate that keeps other plants from growing underneath it. Tobacco plants, attacked by bacteria or viruses, produce compounds that warn neighboring tobacco plants of trouble, causing them to ramp up their defense mechanisms. Corn, tobacco, and cotton, beset by caterpillars, release a chemical cry for help that attracts caterpillar-destroying parasitic wasps. According to forest ecologist Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia, forests are vast interconnected webs, welded together by an underground system of mycorrhizal fungi that connect tree root to tree root, allowing the trees to share information and exchange needed nutrients. “Mother trees” use the network to nourish at-risk seedlings; evergreens use it to provide spare sugars to struggling deciduous trees to tide them through the winter. However smart they may be, though, plants don’t have brains. (A group called the Society for Plant Neurobiology, repeatedly attacked by purists pointing out that plants don’t have neurons, recently caved and changed its name to the Society for Plant Signaling and Behavior.) The closest plants come to having anything brain-like may be a section of the root called the transition zone, located behind the root tip. The transition zone is electrically active—like human nerves—and it contains a hormone that regulates plant growth, which it ferries from cell to cell as needed in membrane-enclosed vesicles. It’s in the transition zone, scientists guess, that sensory cues picked up by the root tip—information about gravity, light, oxygen, water, and soil conditions—are translated into commands directing the root how to grow and bend. Still, smart is as smart does. However bright plants may be, it’s clear that they don’t think like us. If anything, plants are an alien culture. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said, “If a lion could talk, we would not understand him,” because people and lions have no common ground. There’s even less between us and even the most vociferously communicating tomato plant, cucumber vine, or stalk of corn. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing going on there. These days, while I potter about in the garden, I wonder if the plants like the red shirt or the blue shirt best. I worry about how they’re getting along with their neighbors. And when I pick up the pruning shears, I apologize. Because now I know they’re watching me. ❖ Illustration by Blanche Derby What an educational and fun story! And the GreenPrints Collection [Gardening Science: Stories for learning how to be a better gardener]( has many more stories for you—stories that deliver you science and facts about gardening and nature, story after story. Including this featured story—“Are Plants Smart?”—you get all the stories in this special GreenPrints Collection on gardening science, such as: - “Don’t Bully Your Plants” - “World Naked Gardening Day” - “Dear Tree” - “Patricia Westerford” - “Clouds” - “The Secret Garden” - “Living With the Wind” - “Getting By With the Help of Our Friends” - “Good Chemistry” - “Confounding Columbines” - “Here Comes the Sun” - “Tommy Tucker and Company” - “Learning to Love Latin” - “Feet, Fathoms, and Flamingos” - “The Sweet Smell of Rain” - And more—35+ gardening science stories for you! [Science Collection]( And new stories are being added to this special Collection all the time—you get access to all of them! Please read what some subscribers say about how GreenPrints helps them: “I just love the stories. I've gotten my husband hooked on GreenPrints, too! We're looking forward to the next issue! Thanks again!!” —Lynda Figurido, Rockport, MA “It's the only magazine I read cover to cover, and I keep every issue!” —Valerie Cranmer, Belen, NM “It's my ONE thing I can grab to read and escape, laugh, and learn!” —Ashley Holland, Stephens, AR The only way to get full access to the [GreenPrints Collection Gardening Science: Stories for learning how to be a better gardener]( 13 other Collections filled with gardening stories about healing gardens, gardening science, animals in the garden, mystical gardens, gardening mishaps, and even some audio collections with gardening songs and stories—is to get [GreenPrints All-Access Membership](. with a whole year’s worth of stories in a full subscription to GreenPrints Magazine, both print and digital editions … and benefits galore for only $20 for an entire year! [$20 SPECIAL! 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[Claim Your $20 Membership Now]( Summary of All-Access Membership Benefits 01 A full year of GreenPrints All-Access Membership, an exclusive club for those who want to enjoy the greatest gardening stories ever—save $40 off the annual cover price, a 67% discount! $60/year Now Only: $20/year! 02 1-year subscription to GreenPrints Magazine, quarterly issues filled with humorous and heartwarming stories—in print, delivered directly to your door, and sent to you digitally as soon as issues are published! INCLUDED 03 Full and immediate access to the GreenPrints Digital Library—your membership includes access to the current digital magazine issue and 30+ back issues, a digital version of The Weeder's Reader—plus the library is constantly growing with new content regularly added! 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You get a FREE copy mailed to you, plus instant and unlimited access to the digital version in the library! FREE [Claim Your $20 Membership Now]( Become a [GreenPrints All-Access Member]( today—while this special $20 offer lasts! Sincerely, [Bill Dugan] Bill Dugan Editor & Publisher GreenPrints P.S. Claim your benefits with a spot in [GreenPrints All-Access Membership]( today—only $20 for an entire year with this Special Offer, a 67% discount off the regular price! P.P.S. You deserve to know the inside facts about gardening science … and to get a regular source for keeping up to date about gardening science and knowledge—please act now to claim your [GreenPrints All-Access Membership]( and get started learning everything you need to know about being a better gardener! [GreenPrints All-Access Membership Special Offer—Only $20!]( 67% Off the Cover Price Now! 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