Kate's Blog

It was while researching gardening for butterflies and moths recently that I was reminded of the story of the Golden-crowned Kinglet, Regulus (little king) satrapa (governor), an olive-grey bird named for its brightly coloured crest - orange in the male, yellow in the female.

What a fascinating little bird it is!

The first amazing thing about the kinglet is that it’s so tiny, our smallest songbird. It weighs in at 5 grams - not much more than a quarter - and is half the body size of a chickadee. Which leads us to the second amazing thing: it eats only insects, but unlike most insectivorous birds it does not migrate - so how does it live through our punishing winters?

The third amazing thing is that even given an adequate winter insect diet, it seems physically impossible that it would be able to eat enough to carry it through a long winter night. That’s because its very small size means that the ratio of exterior exposure to heat loss versus inner body mass to store heat is higher than that of other birds.
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A cold grey windy day, marking almost the end of seed-gathering season. I pop out hastily to get the seed of the Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis), which was resolutely unripe a few days ago but has now turned brown and is ready to split open. I’ve been watching the Sky Blue Aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense) which had closed damp flowerheads when last visited but now quite a few have opened into a small dandelion-like globes, waiting to be blown off by a puff of wind, or pinched off by me.

The Black Cohosh (Actaea racemosa) which had its glorious flowering in September and October now has serried ranks of little seed capsules hanging from its arched stems. They’re still green, I’ll leave them a while longer.

The seed-gathering season is a long one. For me, it starts at the end of June when I collect the drying fruit of the Red Elderberry (Sambucus pubens). I’m not sure whether I should have propagated them immediately. The instructions from Henry Kock indicate that I probably should have: he prescribes 60 days of warm stratification followed by a cold period of 120 days to break dormancy.

Kock is the author of Growing Trees from Seed – a practical guide to growing native trees, vines and shrubs, a bible in the horticultural world. Before his premature death in 2005 at the age of 53, Kock was hugely influential as an interpretive horticulturalist for over two decades at the Guelph Arboretum, where he founded the Elm Recovery Project. (I am proud to say that I received one of those elms from the late Keith Squires, nurseryman extraordinaire, and some 20 years on, it is in full growth.)
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These days, the Norway Maple doesn’t show up on lists of the best tree to plant in your back yard. Arborists don’t recommend it. In fact, most positively discourage it.

“It’s a ‘bad guy’ - number one in our black book,” says Tobias Effinger, owner of Arboreal Tree Care, a Thornbury-based arboriculture firm.

But the tree – which goes by the botanical name Acer platanoides - is widely available from nurseries and is popular with homeowners for its tolerance of urban conditions and the attractive foliage, from deep purple to variegated, of many of its cultivars.

What else is in the black book? I ask him as we wander through the Collingwood Arboretum, a lovely lakefront park where he is the arborist in charge.
Nothing, he replies.

In fact, Effinger is a man who has a good word for almost any tree, even those like the White Poplar Populus alba, Black Locust Robinia pseudoacacia, or Manitoba Maple Acer negundo that are often dismissed as invasive or weed trees.

But not for the Norway Maple.
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