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Over the Fence A selection of horticultural content - The Bigger Picture

Mathematical gardening

Here's an idea, ever heard of the Fibinacci series of numbers? It's a natural series discovered by the mathematician whose name is attached to them. You start with 0 and 1, then add them together to get the next number and keep adding the last two to get the next one, 0 + 1 = 1,  1 + 1 = 2,  1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5. So the series goes 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc.

It turns out that all kinds of things in nature are arranged according to this series, the number of whorls of leaves around stems, the number of whorls of seeds in a sunflower head and all kinds of unlikely things that jump from one of these numbers to the next missing all of the ones in between.

If you're having problems achieving a natural look in your garden, try arranging your plantings / dimensions of beds / groupings of plants etc. according to these numbers. It's what mother nature does.

Alternatively if you are more classically inclined, there is the idea of the "Golden Section" from the Greeks. The ratio of 5 to 8 was thought to be the most pleasing to the eye and was used in all kinds of ways. So when designing your patio, new flower bed, where to bisect your garden when straight down the middle doesn't look so good, then do what Aristotle and Archimedes did, apply the Golden Section and proportion them in the ratio 5:8. 

5 and 8 even turn out to be Fibinacci numbers too - spooky.

The jungle beneath our feet

I've always like soil, not so much the feel of it as it dries my hands out, a symptom of age probably, but the concept of it. A rich mixture of ground rock particles from microscopic to coarse sand, humus at various stages of decomposition, dissolved minerals and a varied assortment of life.

The living part is the most intriguing, dormant seeds of all sizes, visible creatures such as worms and mites down to the invisible microbes, bacteria and fungi in particular that so obligingly come to life and turn dead plant material into lovely compost (or maybe unlovely compost depending on how you got the mix). It now turns out that this collection of organisms is the last unexplored territory and is now the target for scientists from seven countries in a five-year $26m (£16.8m) study.

Forests, savannahs and farmland are all supported by a huge and largely unknown suite of organisms living in the first metre of soil below the surface. They have yielded some of the world's most important antibiotics, and have saved farmers billions of pounds in fertilisers and pesticides. These also happen to be least studied organisms on the planet.

There is probably greater biological diversity in a handful of garden soil than in the tropical rainforest. A piece of soil the size of a sugar lump might hold five metres of fungal filaments of the kind usually visible on mouldy bread.

 Jo Anderson, of Exeter University and the chairman of the programme's advisory group.
"We are dealing with incredible numbers," "Some of these woodlands, up to almost a kilometre square, have got one genetic individual of a fungus which is probably thousands of years old and collectively weighs more than the largest dinosaur, or a blue whale. A tonne of soil could contain millions of varieties of bacteria. Only 4,000 have been named. The 72,000 species of fungi known so far represent only about 5% of the possible total."

It's always upset me when people refer to soil as "dirt" or "mud".

Death of the oldest living thing on earth. Bristlecone Pine.

In the late 1950's and early 1960's research was carried out on ancient bristlecone pines that were discovered in California, this led to renewed interest in known trees on Wheeler Peak in Nevada. The University of Nevada showed some interest but money was short and the theory that the oldest trees were in the White Mountains of California left the study group without the support they needed. Many of the Wheeler Peak bristlecones were lovingly given names by members of the group: names like "Buddha" and "Socrates". One tree was named "Prometheus" after the Greek mythical character, who gave fire and arts to mankind but was chained to a mountain for thousands of years by the gods for doing so. Author-conservationist Darwin Lambert was involved in the study group and they tried without success to have the trees and the area made a protected area.

One day, while reading a newsletter clipping from the University of North Carolina, Lambert was dealt an almost unbelievable blow. He had stumbled upon a story that escaped the public and conservationists alike. Late in the year of 1964 a young geographer,  who was working toward his doctorate, was in the Southwest searching for evidence of Ice Age glaciers. The Wheeler Peak glacier and related phenomena attracted him. When this student and his associate came upon the bristlecones at the timberline, they began to take core samples from several trees, discovering one to be over 4,000 years old! Needless to say they were excited, and at some point, their only coring tool broke. The end of the field season was nearing. They asked for and were granted permission by the U.S. Forest Service to cut the tree down. It was "Prometheus".

After cutting the trunk at a convenient level, which happened to be more than eight feet above the original base, 4,844 rings were counted. This student had just killed the oldest living thing on earth! Eventually, dendrochronologists determined the tree to be 4,950 years of age.

It took a couple of years for the death of "Prometheus" to spread across the U.S., and with all the protests that took place, the U.S. Forest Service finally took an interest in bristlecone security. The scientific community tightened the already strict control under its supervision. Of particular concern to scientists is the "deadwood" on the ground so prized by collectors for profit. Bristlecone deadwood can lay on the ground for thousands of years after the tree that produced it has died, thereby making it important in tree-ring chronologies. The Wheeler Peak bristlecones were finally in the spotlight. A member of the park association said, "Prometheus might become widely enough known as a martyr to save other ancients."