Tag: Plants

As tree species face decline, ‘assisted migration’ gains popularity in Pacific Northwest

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PORTLAND, Oregon — PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) —

As native trees in the Pacific Northwest die off due to climate changes, the U.S. Forest Service, Portland, Oregon and citizen groups around Puget Sound are turning to a deceptively simple climate adaptation strategy called “assisted migration.”

As the world’s climate warms, tree growing ranges in the Northern Hemisphere are predicted to move farther north and higher in elevation.

Trees, of course, can’t get up and walk to their new climatic homes. This is where assisted migration is supposed to lend a hand.

The idea is that humans can help trees keep up with climate change by moving them to more favorable ecosystems faster than the trees could migrate on their own.

Yet not everyone agrees on what type of assisted migration the region needs — or that it’s always a good thing.

In the Pacific Northwest, a divide has emerged between groups advocating for assisted migration that would help struggling native trees, and one that could instead see native species replaced on the landscape by trees from the south, including coast redwoods and giant sequoias.

“There is a huge difference between assisted population migration and assisted species migration,” said Michael Case, forest ecologist at the Virginia-based Nature Conservancy.

Case currently runs an assisted population migration experiment at the Conservancy’s Ellsworth Creek Preserve in western Washington.

Assisted population migration involves moving a native species’ seeds, and by extension its genes, within its current growing range.

By contrast, assisted species migration involves moving a species well outside its existing range, such as introducing redwoods and sequoias to Washington.

A third form of assisted migration, called “range expansion,” amounts to moving a species just beyond its current growing range.

Case’s project involves testing whether breeds of native Douglas fir and western hemlock from drier parts of the Pacific Northwest can be used to help western Washington forests adapt to climate change. He says the Nature Conservancy is focusing on population migration because it has fewer ecological risks.

“Whenever you plant something in an area where it is not locally found you increase the risk of failure,” Case said. “You increase the risk of disturbing potential ecosystem functions and processes.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of a collaboration between The Associated Press and Columbia Insight, exploring the impact of climate on trees in the Pacific Northwest.

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Population migration is the only form of assisted migration currently practiced nationwide by the Forest Service, according to Dr. David Lytle, the agency’s deputy chief for research and development.

“We are very, very cautious and do not engage in the long-distance movement and establishment of plant material outside and disjunct from the historic range of a species,” said Lytle.

The Forest Service is pursing assisted population migration because it’s likely to have few if any “negative consequences” to ecosystems, he said.

Douglas Tallamy, professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, said one potential negative consequence of species migration is the possibility that native caterpillars might not eat the leaves of migrated nonnative tree species. Because caterpillars feed birds and other animals, this could lead to disruptions to the food web.

This could happen if the City of Portland migrates oak species from places to the south, Tallamy noted. “Oaks are the most important plant for supporting wildlife that we have in North America,” he said, “but when you move them out of range, the things that are adapted to eating them no longer have access to them.”

The City of Portland’s Urban Forestry program is currently experimenting with the assisted migration of 11 tree species, including three oak species to the south: California black oak, canyon live oak and interior live oak.

Asked via email about potential ecological disruptions Portland’s City Forester & Urban Forestry Manager Jenn Cairo responded: “We use research from universities, state and federal sources, and local and regional field practitioner experience.”

Another advocate for species migration is the Puget Sound-based, citizen-led PropagationNation. The organization has planted trees in several parks in the Seattle area and has the ambitious goal of “bringing a million coast redwoods and giant sequoias to the Northwest,” according to its website.

The PropagationNation website also recommends planting redwoods in areas where native western red cedar, western hemlock, Sitka spruce and big leaf maple already grow.

Western red cedar, western hemlock and big leaf maple have all seen die-offs and growth declines in recent years tied to climate.

Philip Stielstra, PropagationNation’s founder and president, and a retired Boeing employee, declined to comment for this story.

David Milarch, founder of the Michigan-based Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, which has supplied PropagationNation with redwoods and sequoias, says his trees aren’t intended to replace Pacific Northwest native species.

“All we are doing is extending the range (of redwoods and sequoias) north in the hopes that they will still be here in 100 to 200 years and not join the list of trees that are going extinct,” said Milarch.

Robert Slesak, research forester at the Pacific Northwest Research Station, runs the Forest Service’s Experimental Network for Assisted Migration and Establishment Silviculture, or ENAMES project, which oversees population migration sites in Washington, Oregon and California.

Slesak called moving redwoods north a “risky proposition.” He said he has serious concerns about both assisted species migration and assisted migration efforts that lack experimental rigor.

“Widespread assisted species migration without a lot of experimental results to guide it is risky,” said Slesak. “Everyone knows we need to do some kind of action related to climate, but there’s a real risk of making it worse.”

Nevertheless, with the effects of climate change increasing, it’s a risk increasingly being assumed by public and private groups around the Pacific Northwest.

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Nathan Gilles is a science writer and journalist based in Vancouver, Washington.

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Columbia Insight is an Oregon-based nonprofit news website covering environmental issues affecting the Pacific Northwest.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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December 28, 2023
TEPCO's operational ban is lifted, putting it one step closer to restarting reactors in Niigata

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TOKYO — Japanese nuclear safety regulators lifted an operational ban Wednesday imposed on a nuclear plant owned by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, the operator behind the Fukushima plant that ended in disaster, allowing the company to resume preparations for restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after more than 10 years.

At its weekly meeting, the Nuclear Regulation Authority formally lifted the more than two-year ban imposed on the TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant over its lax safety measures at the site, saying a series of inspections and meetings with company officials has shown sufficient improvement. The decision removes an order that prohibited TEPCO from transporting new fuel into the plant or placing it into reactors, a necessary step for restarting Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s reactors.

The plant on Japan‘s northern coast of Niigata is TEPCO’s only workable nuclear power plant since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami destroyed its Fukushima Daiichi plant and caused Fukushima Daini plant to cease operations. For the company now burdened with the growing cost of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant and compensating disaster-hit residents, restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactors soon is key to stabilizing its business.

TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa told reporters Wednesday that it was too early to comment on the prospect for the restart. He said the company will provide its safety and security measures to gain understanding from the local residents, who must approve a restart.

The NRA slapped an unprecedented ban on the operator in April 2021 after revelations of a series of sloppy anti-terrorism measures at TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world’s largest nuclear power complex housing seven reactors.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was partially damaged in a 2007 earthquake, causing safety concerns and distrust among local municipalities. The March 2011 disaster caused stoppages of all 54 reactors Japan used to have before the Fukushima disaster, and prompted utility operators to shut many of them down due to additional safety costs, bringing the number of usable reactors to 33 today. Twelve reactors have been restarted under tougher safety standards, and the government wants to bring more than 20 others back online — a goal widely considered overly ambitious.

TEPCO was making final preparations to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s No. 6 and No. 7 reactors after regulators granted safety approvals for them in 2017. But in 2021, regulators gave the plant’s nuclear security a “red” rating, the lowest given to any operator, resulting in the operational ban.

The case raised questions about whether TEPCO learned any lessons from the 2011 Fukushima crisis, which was largely attributed to the utility’s lack of concern about safety.

NRA Chair Shinsuke Yamanaka told Wednesday’s meeting that the lifting of the restrictions is just the beginning, and TEPCO is still required to keep improving its safety precautions.

“TEPCO is a unique company; in a way it had caused the accident,” Yamanaka said. “It is the operator’s responsibility to keep improving, and our task is to watch if improvement is adequately carried out.” He said he hoped TEPCO will be an open and transparent company capable of sufficient communication across the workplace, while also accomplishing Fukushima Daiichi’s cleanup.

Before TEPCO can restart the reactors, it needs the consent of nearby residents. Prior to the NRA decision Wednesday, Niigata Gov. Hideyo Hanazumi told reporters that the will of the voters he represents must be taken into consideration.

The Japanese government recently began a push to restart as many reactors as possible to maximize nuclear energy and meet decarbonization targets. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government has reversed Japan’s nuclear energy phaseout plan, instead looking to use atomic power as key energy supply accounting to more than one-fifth of the country’s energy supply.

A restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, along with attempts by other utility operators to resume their reactors, would “contribute to Japan’s stable energy supply and its pursuit of carbon neutrality,” especially when the energy-scarce country is hit by rising energy costs amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, Kobayakawa said. “Of course, safety is the prerequisite.”

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December 27, 2023
TEPCO's operational ban is lifted, putting it one step closer to restarting reactors in Niigata

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TOKYO — Japanese nuclear safety regulators lifted an operational ban Wednesday imposed on Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, the operator behind the Fukushima plant that ended in disaster, allowing the company to resume preparations for restarting a separate plant after more than 10 years.

At its weekly meeting, the Nuclear Regulation Authority formally lifted the more than two-year ban imposed on the TEPCO over its lax safety measures, saying a series of inspections and meetings with company officials has shown sufficient improvement. The decision removes an order that prohibited TEPCO from transporting new fuel into the plant or placing it into reactors, a necessary step for restarting Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s reactors.

The plant on Japan‘s northern coast of Niigata is TEPCO’s only workable nuclear power plant since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami put its Fukushima Daiichi plant out of operation. Now the company is burdened with the growing cost of decommissioning the Fukushima plant and compensating disaster-hit residents.

The NRA slapped an unprecedented ban on the operator in April 2021 after revelations of a series of sloppy anti-terrorism measures at TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world’s largest nuclear power complex housing seven reactors.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was partially damaged in a 2007 earthquake, causing distrust among local municipalities. The March 2011 disaster caused stoppages of all 54 reactors Japan used to have before the Fukushima disaster, and prompted utility operators to decommission many of them due to additional safety costs, bringing the number of usable reactors to 33 today. Twelve reactors have been restarted under tougher safety standards, and the government wants to bring more than 20 others back online.

TEPCO was making final preparations to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s No. 6 and No. 7 reactors after regulators granted safety approvals for them in 2017. But in 2018, regulators gave the plant’s nuclear security a “red” rating, the lowest given to any operator, resulting in the operational ban.

The case raised questions about whether TEPCO learned any lessons from the 2011 Fukushima crisis, which was largely attributed to the utility’s lack of concern about safety.

NRA Chair Shinsuke Yamanaka told Wednesday’s meeting that the lifting of the restrictions is just the beginning, and TEPCO is still required to keep improving its safety precautions.

Before TEPCO can restart the reactors, it needs the consent of nearby residents. Prior to the NRA decision Wednesday, Niigata Gov. Hideyo Hanazumi told reporters that the will of the voters he represents must be taken into consideration.

The Japanese government recently began a push to restart as many reactors as possible to maximize nuclear energy and meet decarbonization targets. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government has reversed Japan’s nuclear energy phaseout plan, instead looking to use atomic power as key energy supply accounting to more than one-fifth of the country’s energy supply.

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December 26, 2023
AP PHOTOS: Estonia, one of the first countries to introduce Christmas trees, celebrates the holiday

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TALLINN, Estonia — Christmas trees started appearing in Central Europe and the Baltic States, including Estonia, as early as the Middle Ages and have now become traditional across much of the world.

Dec. 22 is the shortest day of the year and in Estonia, as in many parts of the world, trees covered with lights brighten up homes and town squares during the Winter Solstice and Christmas festivities afterward.

In order to grow a 2.5-meter (8-foot) Christmas tree, Arvo Palumäe, co-owner of a Christmas tree farm he started 14 years ago, waits 8 years before carefully selecting it, shaping it during the summer months and cutting it for delivery. But while some Estonians buy trees directly from him, they are also able to cut their own.

The State Forest Management Centre provides Estonians with a map of forests showing locations of trees they can cut down themselves. They advise people to avoid trees near power lines and encourage Estonians to plant spruces in the forests to make sure there are Christmas trees for generations to come.

Estonia largely exports trees to the European Union. It also exported Christmas trees to Russia before the country’s invasion of Ukraine stopped trade.

After the holidays, Christmas trees in Estonia are turned into wood shavings or even used to flavor beverages.

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December 22, 2023
A US pine species thrives when burnt. Southerners are rekindling a 'fire culture' to boost its range

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WEST END, N.C. — Jesse Wimberley burns the woods with neighbors.

Using new tools to revive an old communal tradition, they set fire to wiregrasses and forest debris with a drip torch, corralling embers with leaf blowers.

Wimberley, 65, gathers groups across eight North Carolina counties to starve future wildfires by lighting leaf litter ablaze. The burns clear space for longleaf pine, a tree species whose seeds won’t sprout on undergrowth blocking bare soil. Since 2016, the fourth-generation burner has fueled a burgeoning movement to formalize these volunteer ranks.

Prescribed burn associations are proving key to conservationists’ efforts to restore a longleaf pine range forming the backbone of forest ecology in the American Southeast. Volunteer teams, many working private land where participants reside or make a living, are filling service and knowledge gaps one blaze at a time.

Prescribed fire, the intentional burning replicating natural fires crucial for forest health, requires more hands than experts can supply. In North Carolina, the practice sometimes ends with a barbecue.

“Southerners like coming together and doing things and helping each other and having some food,” Wimberley said. “Fire is not something you do by yourself.”

More than 100 associations exist throughout 18 states, according to North Carolina State University researchers, and the Southeast is a hot spot for new ones. Wimberley’s Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association is considered the region’s first, and the group reports having helped up to 500 people clear land or learn how to do it themselves.

The proliferation follows federal officials’ push in the past century to suppress forest fires. The policy sought to protect the expanding footprint of private homes and interrupted fire cycles that accompanied longleaf evolution, which Indigenous people and early settlers simulated through targeted burns.

“Fire is medicine and it heals the land. It’s also medicine for our people,” said Courtney Steed, outreach coordinator for the Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association and a Lumbee Tribe member. “It’s putting us back in touch with our traditions.”

The longleaf pine ecosystem spans just 3% of the 140,000 square miles (360,000 square kilometers) it encompassed before industrialization and urbanization. But some pockets remain, from Virginia to Texas to Florida. The system’s greenery still harbors the bobwhite quail and other declining species. The conifers are especially resistant to droughts, a hazard growing more common and more severe due to climate change.

A big tent of environmentalists, hunters, nonprofit groups and government agencies recently celebrated a 53% increase in the longleaf pine range since 2009, spanning an estimated 8,100 square miles (20,000 square kilometers). However, those strides fell short of their goal to hit 12,500 square miles (32,000 square kilometers).

Private landowners are central to the coalition’s latest restoration effort. They hold roughly 86% of forested land in the South, according to America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative.

The partnership needs thousands of new landowners to support longleaf management on their properties. The nascent burn associations are vital in their education, according to a 15-year plan released in November.

Federal agencies back the endeavor through activities such as invasive species removal and land management workshops. Nearly $50 million in federal grants are available for projects bolstering forest health, including prescribed fire.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a “Longleaf Pine Initiative” partnering with burn groups like Wimberley’s. Farm bill money supports planning and planting. Personnel can help install firebreaks.

But applicants are increasingly competing for limited funding that cannot cover all the needed maintenance burns, USDA spokesperson Matthew Vandersande said.

Landowners say liability-concerned states are reluctant to send their relatively few burners onto private property and private contractors cannot meet the demand.

“When it comes time to drop the match, you’re kind of on your own,” said Keith Tribble, 62, who owns a North Carolina tree farm.

While state forestry services provide classes, Tribble credits burn associations for the hands-on experience and crews needed to confidently manage the pines.

Humidity and wind speed are the biggest factors in a burn plan, according to Hitchcock Woods Superintendent Bennett Tucker, manager of a private forest in South Carolina. The pine’s oils allow it to almost always carry fire and he typically burns at a relative humidity between 25% and 50%.

“With a prescribed fire, we can control the where, the when, the how and all those factors by choosing the best conditions,” Tucker said.

Handheld weather meters ensure wind speed, temperature and humidity fall within limits under plans written beforehand. The prescriptions also can reduce potential liability in the event a fire escapes. Runaway fires are rare, according to studies of federal agencies and surveys of community burn groups. Wimberley’s teams haven’t had one yet, even with 40 burns per year.

Climate change is reducing the number of safe burn days. Rising temperatures cause lower relative humidity in the South and intensify periods when it’s too dry, said Jennifer Fawcett, a North Carolina State University wildland fire expert.

As the severity and frequency of storms, droughts and wildfires increase, longleaf pines could become even more important for ecological resilience in the South. Deep roots anchor them during strong winds and stretch far into the ground for water. Flames enhance soil nutrients.

Further, the surrounding ecosystems have few known rivals for biodiversity in the U.S. Light pours through open canopies onto the sparse floor, giving way to flora like an insect-eating plant that needs sun exposure and wet soil. Gopher tortoises feed on the native vegetation and dig up to 15-foot (4.5-meter) burrows sheltering other at-risk species.

“It’s more than just planting trees,” said Lisa Lord, The Longleaf Alliance conservation programs director. “We want to take the time to restore all of the values of the forest.”

A late 1920s education campaign known as the “Dixie Crusaders” harmed those interdependent relationships. Federal officials turned southerners against the practice and burning fell off. Flammable needles and wiregrasses piled up to dangerous tinder levels.

Wimberley’s family resisted, knowing their livelihoods depended on fire. His ancestors first applied it to “sweat” out the pine’s lucrative sap distilled into turpentine or exported as sealants. Later generations burned to shield crops.

Burning looks different from the times Wimberley’s mother dragged kindling known as “fat lighter” through the forest. But public understanding of its importance is returning and the ranks are growing.

“We’re all a bunch of pyromaniacs,” said Tribble, the tree farm owner.

Still, Tribble burns for a reason: he values connecting with people and the land.

Before his burns, brush cluttered the ground, choking waterflow to parts of the property that were “bone dry.” Now water runs from more marshy areas and the squeaky call of the rarely spotted red-cockaded woodpecker resounds from mature pines. Wild turkeys appear when smoke fills the sky.

Steed, the Lumbee outreach coordinator, is heartened by the rekindling of this proactive “fire culture” beyond the tribe that she says introduced it to the region.

She ran through her grandfather’s scorched woods as a child, but the expanse has gone about a decade without fire. Steed plans to lead her first burn next year in Wimberley’s woods and then manage a family property she recently inherited.

“It feels empowering,” Steed said of prescribed fire. “It feels like a very tangible way to connect to the past and also guide the future.”

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Pollard is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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December 14, 2023
Cows in Rotterdam harbor, seedlings on rafts in India; are floating farms the future?

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ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — On the top deck of a three-tiered structure moored near downtown Rotterdam, brown and white cows graze on hay dropped from a conveyor belt above their heads and rinds of oranges salvaged from supermarket juice machines in the port city. Canopies overhead protect the cows from sun and collect rainwater they will eventually drink.

Sometimes the Maas-Rijn-Ijssel cows — named for three Dutch rivers — walk over to a machine that automatically milks them, or they shuffle out of the way of a robot trundling past to mop up manure that will be turned into organic fertilizer.

“We call our cows upcycle ladies,” says Minke van Wingerden of the Floating Farm, which sells the milk, cheese and buttermilk produced by the cows in a small shop on dry land next to its harbor berth.

The Floating Farm, which has been operational since 2019 and bills itself as the world’s first such farm, isn’t on entirely new terrain. Efforts to put agriculture on or in the water are as old as the Aztecs, who built artificial islets to grow food long ago in what’s now Mexico.

But it’s an idea that is getting new attention as a way of tackling both food security and the challenges of climate change. And it doesn’t have to be as sophisticated as the Dutch farm, which came about after Van Wingerden’s husband, Peter, witnessed the food shortages that hit New York after Hurricane Sandy slammed the city in 2012.

In coastal and low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh, a non-government organization is reviving a traditional practice of creating floating rafts that can keep seedlings above monsoon flood waters that can drown crops.

The South Asian Forum for Environment, based in Kolkata, has made some technological improvements for what it calls “climate-resilient float farming.” The bamboo rafts are built larger and heavier to better withstand storms. Plastic covering and shade nets protect fragile plants, and solar-powered pumps collect rainwater to irrigate the seedlings. And the organization has partnered with local research institutes to supply farmers with the best possible climate-resilient seeds, and to pass on knowledge about pest control. Communications director Amrita Chatterjee said that can become more urgent when pests proliferate in times of extreme heat, like this summer, where the temperature reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius) in some locations.

Chatterjee said the rafts are “not a very conventional type of farming” and it takes patience to get used to them. But in a few years they’ve more than doubled, to 500, the number of floating farms operating in different villages. Vegetables like medicinal plants, spinach and chilies are among the items cultivated on the floating platforms, and farmers can also raise crabs to be fattened for market in floating boxes.

“Slowly, everyone is getting interested,” Chatterjee said.

With increasingly erratic monsoons, the rafts have helped with food security, Chatterjee said. They were also helpful when the Indian state of West Bengal was hit with a one-two punch of a cyclone followed by COVID-19 in 2020, she said.

Farmers using the rafts now are feeding themselves and selling a bit of surplus in local markets, Chatterjee said. Her group hopes that the idea can be scaled up to make it much more commercially viable.

Floating farms will clearly be scalable in the coming decades in Southeast Asia, but educating about the technology may be a hurdle to its adoption in some places, said Craig Jenkins, academy professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

Back in Rotterdam, the owners of the Floating Farm cite a number of reasons for putting farms on water. That includes urbanization putting more people in cities, making it sensible to bring food sources closer to them. They say the extreme weather spurred by climate change — heavy rainfall and flooding of cities and farmland — makes their approach climate-adaptive to feed those cities.

Jake Boswell, an associate professor of landscape architecture at Ohio State University, said the success of floating farms likely will vary by region. While much of the world’s population lives in coastal areas, only a subset of those communities also farm in flood- or storm-prone areas, he said. That might make it more cost-effective to invest in floating housing rather than floating farms to adapt to sea level rise, he said.

“The one in Rotterdam I think is an interesting demonstration,” he said. “I would find it hard to see it as a scalable project.”

Scaling up and contributing substantially to the sustainability of urban food systems is a challenge floating farms have in common with vertical farms, said Daniel Petrovics, a Ph.D candidate at the University of Amsterdam who has studied the scaling of several climate interventions, including in the energy and agriculture sectors.

“You should consider things like, what is the local diet, what do people eat? Is this feeding into that? What kind of stakeholders benefit from it?” he said. “Is it that it helps alleviate food poverty in a city or is it just some kind of gimmick that’s from, let’s say, a corporation that’s just looking for return on investment?”

The owners of the Dutch floating farm are already moving to expand beyond their cows.

They plan to add a second floating farm in the same harbor for vertical agriculture — growing vegetables indoors, under lights in stacks of growing beds, irrigated with water purified in part with heat from the cows’ manure.

Minke Van Wingerden sees agriculture on water as a viable response to flooding and rising sea levels and a way of bringing food production closer to consumers, meaning a lower carbon footprint.

“When you have floating farms, you are climate adaptive,” said Van Wingerden. “So you can keep on producing fresh, healthy food for the city.”

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Walling reported from Chicago.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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December 9, 2023
Fossil plant revealed as a baby turtle fossil.

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Newswise — From the 1950s to the 1970s, a Colombian priest named Padre Gustavo Huertas collected rocks and fossils near a town called Villa de Levya. Two of the specimens he found were small, round rocks patterned with lines that looked like leaves; he classified them as a type of fossil plant. But in a new study, published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, researchers re-examined these “plant” fossils and found that they weren’t plants at all: they were the fossilized remains of baby turtles.

“It was truly surprising to find these fossils,” says Héctor Palma-Castro, a paleobotany student at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

The plants in question had been described by Huertas in 2003 as Sphenophyllum colombianum. The fossils come from Early Cretaceous rocks, between 132 and 113 million years ago, during the dinosaurs’ era. Fossils of Sphenophyllum colombianum were surprising at this time and place— the other known members of the genus Sphenophyllum died out more than 100 million years prior. The plants’a ge and locality piqued the interest of Fabiany Herrera, the Negaunee assistant curator of fossil plants at the Field Museum in Chicago, and his student, Palma-Castro.

“We went to the fossil collection at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá and started looking at the plants, and as soon as we photographed them, we thought, ‘this is weird,’” says Herrera, who has been collecting Early Cretaceous plants from northwestern South America, an area of the world with little paleobotanical work.

At first glance, the fossils, about 2 inches in diameter, looked like rounded nodules containing the preserved leaves of the plant Sphenophyllum. But Herrera and Palma-Castro noticed key features that weren’t quite right.

“We spent days searching through wooden cabinets for fossil plants. When we finally found this fossil, deciphering the shape and margin of the leaf proved challenging,” says Palma-Castro.

“When you look at it in detail, the lines seen on the fossils don’t look like the veins of a plant— I was positive that it was most likely bone,” says Herrera. So he reached out to an old colleague of his, Edwin-Alberto Cadena.

“They sent me the photos, and I said, “This definitely looks like a carapace’— the bony upper shell of a turtle,” says Cadena, a paleontologist who focuses on turtles and other vertebrates at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá. When he saw the scale of the photos, Cadena recalls, “I said, ‘Well, this is remarkable, because this is not only a turtle, but it’s also a hatchling specimen, it’s very, very small.”

Cadena and his student, Diego Cómbita-Romero of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, further examined the specimens, comparing them with the shells of both fossil and modern turtles. “When we saw the specimen for the first time I was astonished, because the fossil was missing the typical marks on the outside of a turtle’s shell,” says Cómbita-Romero. It was a little bit concave, like a bowl. At that moment we realized that the visible part of the fossil was the other side of the carapace, we were looking at the part of the shell that is inside the turtle.”

Details in the turtle’s bones helped the researchers estimate how old it was at death. “Turtle growth rates and sizes vary,” says Cómbita-Romero, so the team looked at features like the thickness of its carapace and the spots where its ribs were knitting together into solid bone. “This is a feature uncommon in hatchlings but observed in juveniles. All this information suggests that the turtle likely died with a slightly developed carapace, between 0 to 1 years old, in a post-hatchling stage,” he says.

“This is actually really rare to find hatchlings of fossil turtles in general,” says Cadena. “When the turtles are very young, the bones in their shells are very thin, so they can be easily destroyed.”

The researchers say that the rarity of fossilized baby turtles makes their discovery an important one. “These turtles were likely relatives of other Cretaceous species that were up to fifteen feet long, but we don’t know much about how they actually grew to such giant sizes,” says Cadena.

The researchers don’t fault Padre Huertas for his mistake— the preserved shells really do resemble many fossil plants. But the features that Huertas thought were leaves and stems are actually the modified rib bones and vertebrae that make up a turtle’s shell. Cómbita-Romero and Palma-Castro nicknamed the specimens as “Turtwig,” after a Pokémon that’s half-turtle, half-plant.

“In the Pokémon universe, you encounter the concept of combining two or more elements, such as animals, machines, plants, etc. So, when you have a fossil initially classified as a plant that turns out to be a baby turtle, a few Pokémon immediately come to mind. In this case, Turtwig, a baby turtle with a leaf attached to its head,” says Palma-Castro.” In paleontology, your imagination and capacity to be amazed are always put to the test. Discoveries like these are truly special because they not only expand our knowledge about the past but also open a window to the diverse possibilities of what we can uncover.”

The scientists also note the importance of these fossils in the larger scheme of Colombian paleontology. “We resolved a small paleobotanical mystery, but more importantly, this study shows the need to re-study historical collections in Colombia. The Early Cretaceous is a critical time in land plant evolution, particularly for flowering plants and gymnosperms. Our future job is to discover the forests that grew in this part of the world,” says Herrera.

This project was supported by the National Geographic Society, grant (EC-96755R-22) Discovering Early Cretaceous Floras from Northern South America & the Negaunee Integrative Research Center, Field Museum.

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December 7, 2023
Lebanon's Christians feel the heat of climate change in its sacred forest and valley

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BCHARRE, Lebanon — Majestic cedar trees towered over dozens of Lebanese Christians gathered outside a small mid-19th century chapel hidden in a mountain forest to celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration, the miracle where Jesus Christ, on a mountaintop, shined with light before his disciples.

The sunset’s yellow light coming through the cedar branches bathed the leader of Lebanon’s Maronite Church, Patriarch Beshara al-Rai, as he stood at a wooden podium and delivered a sermon. Then the gathering sang hymns in Arabic and the Aramaic language.

For Lebanon’s Christians, the cedars are sacred, these tough evergreen trees that survive the mountain’s harsh snowy winters. They point out with pride that Lebanon’s cedars are mentioned 103 times in the Bible. The trees are a symbol of Lebanon, pictured at the center of the national flag.

The iconic trees in the country’s north are far from the clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops along the Lebanon-Israel border in recent weeks against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. The Lebanese government says Israel’s use of white phosphorus and other incendiary weapons has burned tens of thousands of olive trees and other crops in the border area, and impoverished Lebanese farmers fear the shells have contaminated their soil.

But the long-term survival of the cedar forests is in doubt for another reason, as rising temperatures due to climate change threaten to wipe out biodiversity and scar one of the country’s most iconic heritage sites for its Christians.

The lush Cedars of God Forest, some 2000 meters (6,560 feet) above sea level near the northern town of Bcharre, is part of a landscape cherished by Christians. The preserve overlooks the Kadisha Valley — Aramaic for “sacred” – where many Christians took refuge from persecution over Lebanon’s tumultuous history. One of the world’s largest collections of monasteries remains hidden among the thick trees, caves and rocky outcroppings along the deep, 35-kilometer (22-mile) valley.

The United Nations’ culture agency UNESCO in 1998 listed both the cedar forest and the valley as World Heritage Sites. They’ve become popular destinations for hikers and environmentalists from around the world. A growing number of Lebanese of all faiths visit as well, seeking fresh air away from the cities.

“People from all religions visit here, not just Christians … even Muslims and atheists,” said Hani Tawk, a Maronite Christian priest, as he showed a crowd of tourists around the Saint Elisha monastery. “But we as Christians, this reminds us of all the saints who lived here, and we come to experience being in this sacred dimension.”

Environmentalists and residents say the effects of climate change, exacerbated by government mismanagement, pose a threat to the ecosystem of the valley and the cedar forest.

“Thirty or 40 years from now, it’s quite possible to see the Kadisha Valley’s biodiversity, which is one of the richest worldwide, become much poorer,” Charbel Tawk, an environmental engineer and activist in Bcharre – unrelated to Hani Tawk — told The Associated Press

Lebanon for years has felt the heat of climate change, with farmers decrying lack of rain, and forest fires wreaking havoc on pine forests north of the country, similar to blazes that scorched forests in neighboring Syria and nearby Greece. Residents across much of the country, struggling with rampant electricity cuts, could barely handle the summer’s soaring heat.

Temperatures have been above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in Bcharre, not uncommon along Lebanon’s coastal cities but unusual for the mountainous northern town.

Nuns in the medieval Qannoubin Monastery, perched on the side of a hill in the Kadisha Valley, fanned themselves and drank water in the shade of the monastery’s courtyard. They reminisced about when they could sleep comfortably on summer nights without needing much electricity.

Already, there are worrying signs of the impact on the cedars and Kadisha.

Warmer temperatures have brought larger colonies of aphids that feed on the bark of cedar trees and leave a secretion that can cause mold, Charbel Tawk said. Bees normally remove the secretion, but they have become less active. Aphids and other pests also are lasting longer in the season and reach higher altitudes because of warmer weather.

Such pests threaten to stunt or damage cedar growth.

Tawk worries that if temperatures continue to change like this, cedars at lower altitudes might not be able to survive. Fires are becoming more of a potential danger.

Cedar trees usually grow at an altitude from 700 up to 1,800 meters above sea level. Tawk’s organization has planted some 200,000 cedars over the years at higher altitudes and in areas where they were not present. Some 180,000 survived.

“Is it climate change or whatever it is happening in nature that these cedars are able to survive at 2,100 to 2,400 meters?” Tawk asked, while checking on a grove of cedars on a remote hilltop.

Local priests and environmental activists have urged Lebanon’s government to work with universities to do a wide-ranging study on temperature changes and the impact on biodiversity.

But Lebanon has been in the throes of a crippling economic crisis for years. State coffers are dried up, and many of the country’s top experts are rapidly seeking work opportunities abroad.

“There is nothing today called the state … The relevant ministries, even with the best intentions, don’t have the financial capabilities anymore,” Bcharre Mayor Freddy Keyrouz said. He said he and mayors of nearby towns have asked residents to help with conservation initiatives and Lebanese diaspora abroad to help with funding.

The Maronite Church has strict rules to protect the Cedars of God forest, including keeping development out of it. Kiosks, tourist shops and a large parking lot have been set far away from the forest.

“We don’t allow anything that is combustible to be brought into the sacred forest,” said Charbel Makhlouf, a priest at Bcharre’s Saint Saba Cathedral.

The Friends of the Cedar Forest Committee, to which Tawk belongs, has been looking after the cedar trees for almost three decades, with the church’s support. It has installed sensors on cedar trees to measure temperature, wind, and humidity, watching for worsening conditions that could risk forest fires.

Below the forest in the Kadisha Valley, Tawk points to other concerns.

In particular, the spread of cypress trees threatens to crowd out other species, “breaking this equilibrium that we had in the valley,” he said.

“We’ve seen them increase and tower over other species, whether it’s taking sunlight, wind, or expanding their roots,” he said. “It will impact other plants, birds, insects, and all the reptile species down there.”

Steps to protect the valley have actually hurt its biodiversity by removing human practices that had been beneficial, Tawk said.

In the past, herders grazing their goats and other livestock in the valley helped prevent the spread of invasive species. Their grazing also reduced fire hazards, as did local families collecting deadwood to burn in the winter.

But residents left the valley when it became a heritage site and the Lebanese government implemented strict regulations. Few live there now other than a handful of priests and nuns.

“Trees have overtaken places where people lived and farmed,” Tawk said. “Now a fire could move from one end of the valley to the other.”

Sitting in a cave near the Qannoubine Monastery, Father Hani Tawk listened to the variety of birds chirping in the valley. He said he believes in the community’s faith and awareness of nature, engrained since their ancestors took refuge here.

“When you violate that tree, you’re intruding on a long history, and possibly the future of your children,” he said.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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December 4, 2023
Coffee Can Majorly Add To Your Longevity—But Only If It Has This

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Earlier this year, the Blue Zones Netflix Documentary gave us a glimpse into the lives of some of the oldest people in the world. The show spanned from the highlands of the Mediterranean to the coasts of Central America, but there was one drink that appeared in wrinkled hands across the globe: You guessed it, coffee.

†Not detected or below detectable limits. mindbodygreen’s clean coffee+ undergoes comprehensive, third-party lab testing in the USA for hundreds of purity, potency, and sensory tests. Rigorously tested for caffeine, theobromine, polyphenols, heavy metals, yeast, mold, bacteria, mycotoxins, acrylamide, pesticides, solvents, acidity, and more—our premium, whole coffee beans exceed industry-leading quality standards for potency, purity, and taste experience.

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December 1, 2023
The 10 Best Gifts For Gardeners and Plant People
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What does a gardener need besides soil, sunlight, and a packet of seeds ready to be planted? A lot, it turns out. Never fear—if you’re shopping for the gardener in your life, here are the 10 best gifts to give them for the holidays!

Gardening can be a tricky hobby to shop for, since it varies widely depending on where your gardener lives and what they like to grow. Are they into heirloom vegetables or permaculture gardening? Do they live on ten acres in a temperate climate, or a tiny apartment in a harsh desert? Are they a novice or an expert? Instead of just grabbing the first plant you see off the rack at the hardware store, you’ll want to tailor your holiday shopping to your gardener’s specific tastes and needs.

Check out these suggestions below to get started!

A quality guide to your gardener’s bioregion

(TI Inc. Books)

Gardening in Alaska is a very different endeavor than gardening in Arizona. Each ecologically distinct region, or bioregion, has its own gifts and challenges. Some plants will thrive where your gardener lives; others may not last a week.

If your gardener doesn’t already own a high-quality gardening guide for their bioregion, then they’ll welcome the addition to their gardening library. Here in California, for example, The Sunset Western Gardening Book and California Native Plants for the Garden are indispensable guides. To find the best guide for your gardener’s region, contact their local master gardener hotline, native plant society, or plant nursery for suggestions.

A book on herbalism, fermenting, or canning

(Harvest Books)

A surprising number of supposedly ornamental plants—and common weeds!—actually have medicinal qualities. Other edible plants can be prepared and preserved in surprising ways. Elder, for example, isn’t just a fetching shrub that attracts birds. Its berries make a tasty immune-boosting syrup, and its flowers are sometimes used in cocktails.

If your gardener is looking to branch out (get it?) in their botanical adventures, give them a book that will help them put the plants in their garden to use. Here are a few ideas:
- The Healing Garden by Juliette Blankespoor
- Alchemy of Herbs by Rosalee de la Forêt
- The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
- Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, edited by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine
A seasonal planting calendar

(Maker & Moss)

Years ago, my husband and I got Maker & Moss’s gorgeous seasonal produce calendar for a gardener in his family, and it’s still hanging in their kitchen. This particular calendar lists vegetables that are in season each month in the San Francisco Bay Area. It won’t apply to every zone and region, of course, so you may have to do some research to find one more suited to your gardener’s home. Katydid Garden Designs, for instance, sells calendars customized for zones 4-6 and 7 on her Etsy site.

A fancy pot or two

(Naveen Sahu, via Pexels.com)

This gift idea may seem basic, but as a container gardener, I can testify that we plant people cannot get enough fancy pots. Those suckers can get pricy, and any pot can crack or break, so I have yet to meet a gardener who will turn down a high-quality vessel for their leafy babies. Next time you visit your gardener’s garden, take a look at any potted plants they might have. Are most of the plants in cheap reddish clay pots—or even worse, plastic pots? If so, it’s pottin’ time.

To find a good pot, go to a nursery and look for glazed ceramics with drainage holes in the bottom, and a matching tray that goes underneath to catch water. (Yes, the tray will cost extra.) The glaze helps keep water in the soil from evaporating, and the tray can help wick water back up into the pot if it drains too quickly. If your gardener is limited to a windowsill or porch, aim for something compact. If they have some space to work with, you can spring for something bigger. Like what, you ask? How about a pot for…

A tree

(Nati, via Pexels.com)

Saplings and small trees are amazing … and expensive. A tree can run from $80 to several hundred dollars. But if you’ve got cash to spare and you know your gardener’s been hankering for a major addition to their garden, consider gifting them a tree.

If you go with something small, like a Meyer lemon or a kumquat tree, then it can stay potted indefinitely. (If you’re gifting citrus, though, just be mindful of huanglongbing disease.) If you want to buy them a tree that will eventually get, you know, tree-sized, then you should do some reconnaissance to make sure they actually want it. In other words, you’ll want to be really certain they can handle that giant sequoia seedling before you proudly present it to them.

A gardening memoir

(Milkweed Editions)

What’s the next best thing to gardening? Reading about gardening! There are tons of wonderful memoirs, manifestos, and essay collections by gardeners and plant lovers out there, but here are a few especially good ones.
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation
- Second Nature by Michael Pollan, acclaimed author and food writer
- Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate by Wendy Johnson, Zen Buddhist meditation teacher
- World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (This book isn’t explicitly about gardening, but it’s bursting with love for the natural world that will make any gardener happy.)
High quality gardening tools

(Garrett Wade)

When it comes to tools like pruning sheers and gloves, quality makes a huge difference, but some gardeners might feel hesitant about splurging on themselves. (I myself watched my cheap gloves disintegrate into dust before finally investing in a good pair.) If your gardener is eking by with rusty pruning shears or other sad-looking tools, treat them to an upgrade.

The pruning shears pictured above, which gave me chills when I laid eyes on them, are forged carbon steel blades made by Garrett Wade. If you want your gardener to love you forever, get them the matching leather sheath so they can always have their pruners at the ready.

An Aerogarden

(Aerogarden)

Obviously a gardener is happiest when they’ve got their hands in the earth, a cheerful breeze on their back, and a chorus of birdsong around them. Obviously. But if they’re wiling away the winter months, or fighting to keep their cherry tomatoes away from squirrels and other pests, then an indoor garden can be the next best thing.

Aerogardens—those little hydroponic containers with the grow lights on top that you’ve probably seen here and there—are a great option for gardeners who are dealing with bad weather, pests, or a lack of space. The six or nine pod option fits on a kitchen counter, and your gardener can use it to plant herbs, flowers, and a limited variety of fruit.

A botanical garden membership

(Scott Webb via Pexels.com)

If your gardener lives in a big city, they may not have the kind of access to nature that they’d like. (It’s me, I’m the gardener.) However, spaces like botanical gardens can be a great way for your gardener to get their fix. Some gardens are free, but others charge admission, so you can see if there’s a local botanical garden that offers annual memberships. For example, Descanso Gardens outside of Los Angeles offers individual memberships for $70.

Botanical artwork

Lastly, no one can have too much greenery in their lives, so when your gardener isn’t puttering around their physical plants, give them some botanical artwork they can hang in their home! Here are a few of my favorite botanical artists.

(featured image: Gary Barnes via Pexels.com)

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November 29, 2023
Tackling climate change and alleviating hunger: States recycle and donate food headed to landfills

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ELMSFORD, N.Y. — When Sean Rafferty got his start in the grocery business, anything that wasn’t sold got tossed out.

But on a recent day, Rafferty, the store manager for ShopRite of Elmsford-Greenburgh in New York, was preparing boxes of bread, donuts, fresh produce and dairy products to be picked up by a food bank. It’s part of a statewide program requiring larger businesses to donate edible food and, if they can, recycle remaining food scraps.

“Years ago, everything went in the garbage … to the landfills, the compactors or wherever it was,” said Rafferty, who has 40 years in the industry. “Now, over the years, so many programs have developed where we’re able to donate all this food … where we’re helping people with food insecurities.”

New York is among a growing number of states targeting food waste over concerns it is taking up diminishing landfill space and contributing to global warming as meat, vegetables and dairy release the greenhouse gas methane after being dumped in a landfill. Rescuing unwanted fruits and vegetables, eggs, cereals and other food also helps to feed hungry families.

Globally, about a third of food is wasted. In the United States, it’s even higher, at 40%, according to the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic. The U.S. spends about $218 billion each year growing and producing food that is wasted. About 63 tons (57 metric tons) goes to waste, including 52.4 tons (47.5 metric tons) that ends up in landfills and 10 tons (9 metric tons) never harvested from farms.

“What’s shocking to people often is not only how much we waste … but also the impact,” said Emily Broad Leib, a Harvard University law professor and director of the school’s Food Law and Policy Clinic. “Food waste causes about 8% to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

Broad Leib says 20% of water in the U.S. is used to grow food “that we then just throw away, so we’re basically taking water and putting it directly into a landfill.”

But she and others also note there is growing awareness of the need to do something about food waste in the U.S.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency announced a goal of 50% food waste reduction by 2030.

That has prompted a number of state-led initiatives, along with smaller, nonprofit efforts.

Ten states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation or executed policies to reduce, compost or donate waste. All 50 states have passed legislation shielding donors and recovery organizations from criminal and civil liability linked to donated food.

California and Vermont have launched programs converting residents’ food waste into compost or energy, while Connecticut requires businesses, including larger food wholesalers and supermarkets, to recycle food waste. Farmers in Maryland can get a tax credit of up to $5,000 per farm for food they donate.

Several states have joined New York in setting up systems allowing food to be donated. Rhode Island requires food vendors servicing education institutions to donate any unused food to food banks, while Massachusetts limits the amount of food that businesses can send to landfills, which Broad Leib said has increased food donations in the state by 22% over two years.

New York’s program is in its second year, and state officials believe it’s having a significant impact.

As of late October, the program had redistributed 5 million pounds (2.3 million kilograms) of food — the equivalent of 4 million meals — through Feeding New York State, which supports the state’s 10 regional food banks and is hoping to double that number next year. Among those required to donate food include colleges, prisons, amusement parks and sporting venues.

“Certainly, we should be reducing the amount we waste to start with, but then we should be feeding people before we throw food away if it’s good, wholesome food,” said Sally Rowland, supervisor with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Organics, Reduction and Recycling section. “To me, it’s a commonsense kind of thing and I think it’s just kind of built that momentum of people understanding about how much food we’re really wasting.”

New York’s Westchester County has eight refrigerated trucks that pick up all types of perishable food, according to Danielle Vasquez, food donations coordinator for Feeding Westchester, one of the state’s food banks.

The group started working with businesses in 2014 but has seen participation ramp up since the donation law went into effect last year. Much of the food collected goes to nearly 300 programs and partners throughout the county, including a mobile food pantry and the Carver Center, a nonprofit serving Port Chester’s families and children, which has a pantry.

“This time of year is very important for us and a lot of families across Westchester,” Vasquez said. “There is the high cost of food. There is a high cost of living. Westchester is a very expensive county to live in. … We are here to supplement our families as much as we can so, that way, they can focus that money on paying their bills.”

Among those visiting the Carver Center earlier this month was Betsy Quiroa, who lamented how the cost of everything had gone up since the coronavirus pandemic. She was counting on getting milk, eggs, fruits and vegetables during her visit and said she didn’t care if the produce was dented or slightly damaged.

“Coming here is good,” said Quiroa, a mother of four who relies on Social Security. “If you are not working, you buy nothing. This is the problem.”

Despite New York’s success, advocates for food waste worry not enough is being done to meet the 2030 goal. Broad Leib and others have called for a national effort to coordinate the various state and local policies.

There is a goal, “but we don’t really have a great roadmap … and how we’re going to actually achieve that end goal by 2030, which is kind of crazy,” Broad Leib said, adding that a one-person liaison office in the USDA isn’t sufficient to address the problem.

Kathryn Bender, a University of Delaware assistant professor of economics, said donation programs are helpful, but she worries they might shift the burden from businesses to nonprofits, which could struggle to distribute all the food.

“The best solution for food waste is to not have it in the first place,” Bender said. “If we don’t need to produce all that food, let’s not put all the resources into producing that food.”

___

Casey reported from Boston.

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November 24, 2023
Tackling climate change and alleviating hunger: States recycle and donate food headed to landfills

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ELMSFORD, N.Y. — When Sean Rafferty got his start in the grocery business, anything that wasn’t sold got tossed out.

But on a recent day, Rafferty, the store manager for ShopRite of Elmsford-Greenburgh in New York, was preparing boxes of bread, donuts, fresh produce and dairy products to be picked up by a food bank. It’s part of a statewide program requiring larger businesses to donate edible food and, if they can, recycle remaining food scraps.

“Years ago, everything went in the garbage … to the landfills, the compactors or wherever it was,” said Rafferty, who has 40 years in the industry. “Now, over the years, so many programs have developed where we’re able to donate all this food … where we’re helping people with food insecurities.”

New York is among a growing number of states targeting food waste over concerns it is taking up diminishing landfill space and contributing to global warming as meat, vegetables and dairy release the greenhouse gas methane after being dumped in a landfill. Rescuing unwanted fruits and vegetables, eggs, cereals and other food also helps to feed hungry families.

Globally, about a third of food is wasted. In the United States, it’s even higher, at 40%, according to the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic. The U.S. spends about $218 billion each year growing and producing food that is wasted. About 63 tons (57 metric tons) goes to waste, including 52.4 tons (47.5 metric tons) that ends up in landfills and 10 tons (9 metric tons) never harvested from farms.

“What’s shocking to people often is not only how much we waste … but also the impact,” said Emily Broad Leib, a Harvard University law professor and director of the school’s Food Law and Policy Clinic. “Food waste causes about 8% to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

Broad Leib says 20% of water in the U.S. is used to grow food “that we then just throw away, so we’re basically taking water and putting it directly into a landfill.”

But she and others also note there is growing awareness of the need to do something about food waste in the U.S.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency announced a goal of 50% food waste reduction by 2030.

That has prompted a number of state-led initiatives, along with smaller, nonprofit efforts.

Ten states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation or executed policies to reduce, compost or donate waste. All 50 states have passed legislation shielding donors and recovery organizations from criminal and civil liability linked to donated food.

California and Vermont have launched programs converting residents’ food waste into compost or energy, while Connecticut requires businesses, including larger food wholesalers and supermarkets, to recycle food waste. Farmers in Maryland can get a tax credit of up to $5,000 per farm for food they donate.

Several states have joined New York in setting up systems allowing food to be donated. Rhode Island requires food vendors servicing education institutions to donate any unused food to food banks, while Massachusetts limits the amount of food that businesses can send to landfills, which Broad Leib said has increased food donations in the state by 22% over two years.

New York’s program is in its second year, and state officials believe it’s having a significant impact.

As of late October, the program had redistributed 5 million pounds (2.3 million kilograms) of food — the equivalent of 4 million meals — through Feeding New York State, which supports the state’s 10 regional food banks and is hoping to double that number next year. Among those required to donate food include colleges, prisons, amusement parks and sporting venues.

“Certainly, we should be reducing the amount we waste to start with, but then we should be feeding people before we throw food away if it’s good, wholesome food,” said Sally Rowland, supervisor with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Organics, Reduction and Recycling section. “To me, it’s a commonsense kind of thing and I think it’s just kind of built that momentum of people understanding about how much food we’re really wasting.”

New York’s Westchester County has eight refrigerated trucks that pick up all types of perishable food, according to Danielle Vasquez, food donations coordinator for Feeding Westchester, one of the state’s food banks.

The group started working with businesses in 2014 but has seen participation ramp up since the donation law went into effect last year. Much of the food collected goes to nearly 300 programs and partners throughout the county, including a mobile food pantry and the Carver Center, a nonprofit serving Port Chester’s families and children, which has a pantry.

“This time of year is very important for us and a lot of families across Westchester,” Vasquez said. “There is the high cost of food. There is a high cost of living. Westchester is a very expensive county to live in. … We are here to supplement our families as much as we can so, that way, they can focus that money on paying their bills.”

Among those visiting the Carver Center earlier this month was Betsy Quiroa, who lamented how the cost of everything had gone up since the coronavirus pandemic. She was counting on getting milk, eggs, fruits and vegetables during her visit and said she didn’t care if the produce was dented or slightly damaged.

“Coming here is good,” said Quiroa, a mother of four who relies on Social Security. “If you are not working, you buy nothing. This is the problem.”

Despite New York’s success, advocates for food waste worry not enough is being done to meet the 2030 goal. Broad Leib and others have called for a national effort to coordinate the various state and local policies.

There is a goal, “but we don’t really have a great roadmap … and how we’re going to actually achieve that end goal by 2030, which is kind of crazy,” Broad Leib said, adding that a one-person liaison office in the USDA isn’t sufficient to address the problem.

Kathryn Bender, a University of Delaware assistant professor of economics, said donation programs are helpful, but she worries they might shift the burden from businesses to nonprofits, which could struggle to distribute all the food.

“The best solution for food waste is to not have it in the first place,” Bender said. “If we don’t need to produce all that food, let’s not put all the resources into producing that food.”

___

Casey reported from Boston.

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November 24, 2023
25 best plants for shallow pots and containers – Growing Family
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Finding the best plants for shallow pots can sometimes feel like a challenge. Surely that lack of depth means less than ideal conditions for your plants?

Not necessarily. There are lots of fantastic plants that are well-suited to growing in shallow pots and containers – you just need to choose the right plants.

25 fantastic plants for shallow pots

This article has 25 great outdoor plants for shallow pots, window boxes, and containers. We’ve included flowering plants, foliage plants and edible plants, so all your container gardening needs are covered.

Benefits of growing plants in shallow pots
- More portable: shallow pots will be less heavy than deep pots, so they’re easier to move around.
- Compact: a shallow pot is less space-hungry than a deep pot. If you’re gardening in a small garden area such as a balcony, front door, or windowsill, shallow pots can help you make the most of the outdoor space available.
- Good drainage: not as much soil means less chance of your plants becoming waterlogged.
- Great for low maintenance plants: lots of low-maintenance plants cope well in shallow pots, so if you’re short on time they’re a good option.
- Cheaper: shallow pots are often less expensive than deeper pots, as they require less materials. If you’re gardening on a budget this can help.
What makes a great plant for shallow pots?

There are two key features of a plant that’s well-suited to growing in a shallow pot. Try to tick both of these boxes when choosing your plants:

1. Plants with shallow roots

Plants that naturally grow shallow roots are the perfect choice for shallow pots. The compact root system won’t be striving to grow deeper and hitting a dead end, which will keep the plant happy. Plants that naturally grow deep roots should be avoided in shallow pots.

2. Plants with a compact growth habit

The lack of depth in a shallow pot limits the amount of space available to the plant. Consequently, plants that are naturally small and compact will be ideal in shallow containers.

What types of shallow pot plants are there?

There’s plenty of choice when it comes to shallow rooted plants for pots. Here’s a quick outline of the two main types of plant available:
- Ornamental plants for shallow pots: these plants are grown for their looks, whether that’s beautiful flowers, gorgeous foliage, or ornamental berries.
- Edible plants for shallow pots: these plants include fruit, vegetables, and edible flowers.
The best outdoor plants for shallow pots and containers

Here are our top picks for plants that will be happy to grow in a shallow pot.

Flowering plants for shallow pots

Petunias

Petunias really earn their space in a shallow pot. They produce masses of flowers, grow quickly, and don’t need much attention to keep them happy. There’s so much choice with this plant too; cascading and upright varieties, plus a huge range of colours.

Marigolds

A classic garden plant, marigolds enjoy well-draining soil and will reward you with vibrant flowers in bold shades of yellow and orange. The foliage is strongly-scented too.

Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums have a lot to offer in a shallow container display: Bright orange edible blooms, trailing habit, quick growth, and tolerant of neglect. What’s not to love?

Snapdragons

If you like your containers to look traditional, snapdragons (also known as antirrhinum) are ideal. The dainty flowers suit cottage gardens really well, and they’re also easy flowers to grow from seed.

Zinnias

For summer wow factor, add zinnias to your shallow pots. These showy plants like full sun, and are loved by pollinating insects.

Pelargoniums

Pelargoniums have a compact habit that makes them a great option for shallow pots. In addition to the lovely flowers, the leaves are highly scented too.

Pansies

Pansies are cheap to buy, low-maintenance, and flower for months and months. They’re a particularly useful plant for winter pots and hanging baskets.

Lavender

If you like the idea of perennial plants for shallow pots, you can’t go wrong with lavender.

Choose a dwarf variety of this cottage garden favourite for your shallow pots and you can enjoy colour, scent and lovely grey-green foliage for months.

Foliage plants for shallow pots

Succulents

Succulents are a popular choice for shallow pots. These low-maintenance plants have shallow roots and are also well-equipped to cope with dry conditions and minimal watering, so they’re a great option for both indoor and outdoor shallow pots.

Echeveria, hens-and-chicks, aloe and lithops (also known as pebble plants) are all succulents that are suited to shallow pots.

Heuchera

For showstopping foliage in shallow pots, take a look at heucheras. The leaves have an interesting shape and there are lots of bold colours to choose from. Most heuchera varieties are evergreen too.

Creeping Jenny

This is such a great foliage plant for a shallow pot. As the name suggests, it has a creeping habit that will cover soil and spill over the edges of a container. The foliage is a green-yellow colour so it pairs well with bright flowers.

Creeping Phlox

Creeping Phlox is an evergreen perennial with shallow roots. It works brilliantly as a ground cover plant, and produces masses of small flowers in late spring and early summer.

Sedums

If you like plants with texture, sedums are perfect. They’re low-growing and very handy for covering the soil in shallow pots. Sedums work really well alongside succulents in a container display.

Ornamental grasses

We tend to think of ornamental grasses as big statement plants in the garden, but there are some lovely small varieties too.

Grasses can add lots of texture, movement and interest to a container display. The following varieties are all low-maintenance and suited to shallow pots:
- Zebra grass – Miscanthus sinensis ‘Zebrinus’
- Blue Fescue – Festuca glauca
- Dwarf fountain grass – Pennisetum alopecuroides
- Japanese blood grass – Imperata cylindrica
Dwarf Hosta

Miniature hostas look really cute in containers, and if you grow them in shallow pots you can restrict the plant roots to make them even smaller. Varieties include ‘Whirlwind’, ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ and ‘Paradise Puppet’.

Ferns

Some varieties of fern are shallow root plants, so you can use them for real foliage wow factor in a small pot. Bird’s Nest Fern, Boston Fern and Hardy Maidenhair Fern are all good varieties to go for.

Ajuga

Also known as bugleweed and carpetweed, ajuga are low-growing, shallow-rooted plants with purple flowers. It’s a member of the mint family, and like mint it will spread quickly to fill a pot.

Edible plants for shallow pots

Herbs

Growing herbs in shallow pots is a great way to create a small-scale herb garden. Oregano, basil, parsley, lemon balm, thyme, rosemary, sage and mint are all great candidates for a shallow container.

Swiss chard

While the main reason to grow swiss chard is for its edible leaves, the red, green or yellow stems and vibrant green leaves also look lovely. If you keep cutting older leaves you can have a continuous supply of new growth from just one pot.

Kale

If you grow kale in deep soil or large pots it will be a much bigger plant, but you can grow baby kale successfully in shallow pots. As with swiss chard, keep harvesting the largest leaves for a continuous supply.

Spinach

You can grow spinach from *seed outdoors from late spring to early autumn. It’s happy in shallow planters and likes direct sunlight.

Lettuce

Most varieties of lettuce have shallow roots and are great for container vegetable gardening. Sow seeds regularly to keep the crop going; a packet of *mixed lettuce seed works well.

Radish

It’s really easy to grow radishes from *seed, and these root vegetables don’t need a particularly deep pot. They grow fast too; you can have a harvest within a month if you choose a quick-to-mature variety.

Spring onions

Spring onions have shallow root systems and a very upright growth habit, so you can grow them in small pots. They like well-drained soil, so be careful with the watering.

Strawberries

Strawberry plants will happily grow in shallow soil – and that includes hanging baskets. The added bonus of growing them in pots is it makes it harder for slugs and snails to eat them!

Care techniques for shallow plants in pots

With any plant grown in a pot, there will be limited access to nutrients, and limited space to grow. This means you need to support your plants in order for them to thrive.

Choosing shallow plant pots

When selecting the best pots for shallow plants, make sure it has the following:
- Enough space for the plant you want to put in it (check the plant care instructions to see how big it will eventually grow)
- Drainage holes in the bottom (to prevent waterlogging)
Best compost for shallow pots

It’s important to use good quality compost in containers, as your plants can’t access nutrients anywhere else. A *multi-purpose peat-free potting compost is an easy option, but you can also use a *moisture control compost to boost water retention.

Our article on the best compost for pots has lots more advice and tips to help you choose the right product.

Watering plants in shallow pots

Potted plants will dry out more quickly than plants grown in the ground. This is even more true of shallow pots due to the smaller amount of soil, and it’s relevant to both indoor and outdoor plants.

In warmer months, check your pots regularly; if the top of the soil feels dry, they need watering.

At the other end of the watering spectrum, remember that plants in pots can get root rot if they don’t have adequate drainage. Standing them on *pot feet will help deal with excess water, but avoid over-watering too.

You can add *water retaining crystals to help water retention, or *perlite if you need to improve drainage.

Feeding shallow potted plants

Container plants will eventually use up all the nutrients in the soil. At this point, the plant will start to struggle. To avoid losing your plants, it’s a good idea to feed them regularly.

You can use a general purpose plant food for ornamental plants. This is available as a *concentrated liquid that is diluted in your watering can, or *granules that are added to the soil.

If you’re growing indoor plants in shallow pots, go for a *houseplant feed, and for edible plants you should always use a *feed designed specifically for fruit and vegetable plants.

More container garden resources

For more tips on container gardening, take a look at these articles:

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Catherine

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November 23, 2023
New hardiness zone map will help US gardeners keep pace with climate change

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WASHINGTON — Southern staples like magnolia trees and camellias may now be able to grow without frost damage in once-frigid Boston.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ” plant hardiness zone map ” was updated Wednesday for the first time in a decade, and it shows the impact that climate change will have on gardens and yards across the country.

Climate shifts aren’t even — the Midwest warmed more than the Southeast, for example. But the map will give new guidance to growers about which flowers, vegetables and shrubs are most likely to thrive in a particular region.

One key figure on the map is the lowest likely winter temperature in a given region, which is important for determining which plants may survive the season. It’s calculated by averaging the lowest winter temperatures of the past 30 years.

Across the lower 48 states, the lowest likely winter temperature overall is 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than when the last map was published in 2012, according to Chris Daly, a researcher at Oregon State University’s PRISM Climate Group, which collaborates with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service to produce the map.

Boston University plant ecologist Richard Primack, who was not involved in the map project, said: “Half the U.S. has shifted to a slightly warmer climatic zone than it was 10 years ago.” He called that “a very striking finding.”

Primack said he has noticed changes in his own garden: The fig trees are now surviving without extensive steps to protect them from winter cold. He has also spotted camellias in a Boston botanical garden and southern magnolia trees surviving the past few winters without frost damage. These species are all generally associated with warmer, more southern climates.

Winter temperatures and nighttime temperatures are rising faster than daytime and summer temperatures, Primack said, which is why the lowest winter temperature is changing faster than the U.S. temperature overall.

As the climate shifts, it can be tricky for plants — and growers — to keep up.

“There are a lot of downsides to the warmer winter temperatures, too,” said Theresa Crimmins, who studies climate change and growing seasons at the University of Arizona and was not involved in creating the map. “When we don’t have as cold winter temperatures, we don’t have as severe die-backs of insects that carry diseases, like ticks and mosquitoes.”

She added that hotter, drier summers in some regions may kill plants that once thrived there.

“You wouldn’t want to plant plants that aren’t adapted right now for where you’re living,” she said.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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November 18, 2023
An Anti-Inflammatory Ginger Turmeric Latte Recipe

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Looking to upgrade your golden latte with even more inflammation-fighting power as we head into cold and flu season? This ginger turmeric latte helps minimize inflammation in the body, plus it tastes delicious and only takes a few minutes to make.

Inflammation is part of the body’s innate healing response to injury or infection. At the microscopic level, it’s a sign of damage to your cells and DNA. Day in and day out, we can fight chronic inflammation in many ways, including by minimizing our exposure to chemicals, pollutants, or excessive sunlight and helping our bodies prevent free radical damage by eating and drinking antioxidant-rich foods. Herbs and spices, fruit (especially berries), vegetables, dark chocolate, and nuts all fall under the anti-inflammatory category.

The two stars of this latte—ginger and turmeric—also have powerful inflammation-fighting benefits of their own.

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) has been clinically shown to fight inflammation and has a long history of use for joint pain. But even if you don’t have a health condition, its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties can still be beneficial. As an antioxidant, curcumin scavenges different free radicals, including reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, and even slows the production of some types of free radicals. By neutralizing free radicals before they can damage cells or DNA, curcumin minimizes the body’s need to fire up its inflammatory response.

Like turmeric, ginger (Zingiber officinale) has been used for millenniums as a tonic to support health. And more recently, scientific studies have confirmed that the phytochemicals in ginger—gingerols, shogaols, paradols, and zingerone–have anti-inflammatory properties. These bioactive molecules scavenge free radicals, minimizing the oxidative stress that damages cells and DNA. Because oxidative stress and inflammation can trigger one another, keeping oxidative stress low keeps the inflammatory cycle in check.

There’s also evidence that ginger and turmeric work synergistically to support a healthy inflammatory response in the body, hence why they are sometimes found together in supplements that target inflammation.

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Kami McBride

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November 13, 2023
Want To Slow Down Aging? Focus On These 11 Longevity Biomarkers

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A landmark paper cited more than 7,000 times in the biomedical literature, “The Hallmarks of Aging” identified common denominators of the aging process. In my forthcoming book How Not to Age, I dive deep into each one and am pleased to share highlights with you here.

There is much we can do to boost each one of the anti-aging pathways and slow the aging ones. Caloric restriction, as well as diet and lifestyle improvements, including physical activity, smoking cessation, and shopping the produce aisle, may all slow the epigenetic clock, for example.

Across the board, I believe we should move towards eating whole plant foods, quitting smoking, and reducing our intake of refined grains, soda, processed meat, eggs, and dairy products, while increasing our consumption of fruits, vegetables, and other antioxidant-rich foods.

Here are 11 biometrics that, when combined, can help predict your longevity and healthspan—and how to optimize each one.

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Michael Greger, M.D.

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November 12, 2023
25 best low maintenance evergreen plants for pots – Growing Family
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Are you looking for advice on the best low maintenance evergreen plants for pots?

This article covers 25 fantastic evergreen plants to inspire your container gardening and help you create a stunning display all year round.

The best evergreen plants for pots

We’ve included evergreen shrubs, flowering evergreen plants, and potted evergreen trees, so there’s something for every container size and location. Whether you’ve got one pot to fill, or a whole garden full of containers, you’ll find the perfect option here.

What is an evergreen plant?

An evergreen plant is a plant that doesn’t lose its leaves. Unlike deciduous shrubs and plants, which lose their leaves at some point in the year (usually winter), evergreen plants retain their foliage, adding more leaves each year.

Examples of evergreen plants include holly, conifer, eucalyptus, bay and camellia.

Why use evergreen plants in pots and containers?

There are lots of great reasons why you should think about using evergreen plants in pots:
- Year-round interest: evergreen plants provide year-round colour, texture and interest. This is particularly useful in winter months and early spring, when most plants are dormant.
- Low-maintenance container gardening: you won’t need to replace all your potted plants every season. Evergreen plants are also usually very hardy, which means you don’t have to worry about plant protection in colder months.
- Money saving: if you look after them, evergreen plants will look good year in year out. That means you can buy less plants – great news if you’re gardening on a budget.
- Lots of choice: there’s a wide range of evergreen plants for pots, offering lush foliage, stunning flowers or bright berries for garden wow factor.
25 low maintenance evergreen plants for pots

Let’s dive into our top picks for container gardening with the best all year round plants for pots.

Flowering evergreen plants for pots

Camellias

Camellias are best known for their flowers, and those beautiful blooms will certainly create impact in early spring. But the foliage is well worth a mention too. Camellias have glossy dark green leaves that will add texture to a potted display all year round.

Camellia plants are happiest in slightly acidic soil, and you can provide this by using *ericaceous compost in your pot. They are native to the woodlands of South Asia, so they will also thank you for a shady spot or somewhere that has filtered light.

Heather

Heathers are compact plants with interesting texture and bags of colour. The abundant small flowers will bloom throughout winter and into spring, providing a much-needed source of pollen and nectar for insects.

Heathers like acidic soil, so they’re another candidate for *ericaceous compost.

Japanese Skimmia (Skimmia japonica)

Skimmias have glossy leaves and spring flowers, followed by bright red berries in autumn and winter – perfect for a festive show of colours.

To get those all-important berries, you need female plants (such as ‘Kew White’, “Temptation’ or ‘Nymans’), plus a male plant (such as ‘Kew Green’ or ‘Rubella’) nearby.

Daphne Odora ‘Aureomarginata’

This Daphne variety is a lovely evergreen for pots, with variegated leaves and beautiful pale pink blooms with a powerful fragrance. It can grow pretty big – up to 1.5 metres high – so make sure you choose a big pot if you want to grow this flowering shrub.

Wintergreen

Another good candidate for festive colours, Wintergreen (or Gaultheria procumbens) is compact and low-growing. Use it in smaller pots over winter months.

Cotoneaster

White flowers, red berries and green leaves: cotoneaster has plenty to offer. It’s easy to grow, and you can choose from low-growing or upright evergreen varieties.

Clematis cirrhosa var. purpurascens ‘Freckles’

If you can provide some *trellis in your container, this evergreen clematis is a great option. The impressive flowers have freckle-like markings and will help to liven up the garden in winter. It’s a compact variety, and doesn’t need lots of pruning.

Hebe

Hebe plants give you lots of options on foliage colour. Dense leaves and a low-growing habit make them ideal for filling up pots and providing impact and texture. Most varieties produce flowers in summer months too.

Photinia ‘Little Red Robin’

This is a lovely low-maintenance evergreen shrub for a large planter. Bright red leaves mature into deep green shades, and there are white flowers in spring.

Photinia ‘Little Red Robin’ is bushy in nature and will grow to around 1 metre tall.

Sweet box (Sarcococca confusa)

Another large shrub option when it comes to evergreens for containers, sweet box combines dense foliage with highly scented small white flowers in midwinter that give way to black berries. Grow it near a doorway or path to make the most of the fragrant blooms.

Evergreen Azalea (Japanese Azalea)

For flower wow factor, azaleas are hard to beat. These low maintenance evergreen shrubs are renowned for their floral display, with an abundance of flowers in late spring and early summer.

Azaleas need acidic soil (*ericaceous compost) and partial shade to thrive. If the variety you choose isn’t cold-hardy you will need to provide the pot with protection over winter.

English Lavender

English lavender retains its foliage all year round, so technically it can be classed as an evergreen plant. The foliage will fade in colour during winter, but the plant can still provide useful structure in a container display.

Our article on growing lavender in pots has more tips on using this fragrant favourite in containers.

Evergreen foliage plants for pots

Box (Buxus sempervirens)

Box is probably one of the most iconic evergreen shrubs for pots. Clipped pyramids, spheres and topiary shapes are an excellent choice for pots at the front door, or in a formal garden.

Box is a pretty slow-growing shrub, which means a larger plant can be quite an investment. The plus side of this slow growth is there’s very little maintenance; simply give your plant a trim every year to keep the new growth neat.

If you’re keen on adding a box plant to your garden, make sure you check whether your local area has a problem with box tree caterpillar or box blight first. If there is an issue, it’s a good idea to go for an alternative plant.

Bay laurel (Laurus nobilis)

Bay laurel is a good alternative to box plants for pots, as you can trim it into shape for a formal look. If you choose an edible variety you can also use the fragrant leaves in your cooking.

Bay enjoys a sunny location and free draining soil.

Heuchera

If you’re looking for a foliage showstopper in your pots, heucheras are definitely worth considering. They’re available in a range of stunning colours, from golds and reds through to deep purples.

In pots, heucheras will work hard to provide colour and interest when other plants have died back, or you can group them together for a foliage display.

The majority of heucheras are evergreen, and will happily grow in a container.

Calocephalus

If you like silver tones in your planting schemes, look no further than calocephalus. The frothy, silvery stems look delicate, but it’s a hardy plant that can cope with pretty much any soil and weather. Use it to contrast with richer colours such as purples.

Evergreen succulents

Succulents are well-known for being low maintenance and evergreen. Choose a hardy variety for your outdoor pots; sempervivum, sedum and agave are good options.

Fatsia japonica

If you want to go big on foliage impact, you can’t go wrong with Fatsia japonica.

The leaves are an impressive size, an interesting shape, and a rich green. The plant also produces white flowers followed by black berries, but it’s the leaves that steal the show here. Grow it in a shady spot and provide plenty of nutrients.

Ivy

With its trailing habit and glossy green leaves, ivy makes a very useful evergreen plant for pots. Use it to soften the edge of a container and increase the surface area of your planting.

The other great reason to grow ivy in pots is you can keep it under control!

Hart’s Tongue Fern (Asplenium scolopendrium)

Ferns are always a great option for dense green foliage in pots, and this variety is a tough little plant. Like many ferns, it will thrive in moist, shady areas, so it’s perfect if you have a tricky spot that most plants don’t like.

Phormium (New Zealand Flax)

Phormium is an evergreen shrub that produces upright, sword-shaped leaves. As such, it’s perfect for creating drama in a pot.

Choose from a range of colours, including greens, pinks, yellows and deep reds.

Ornamental grasses

Grasses make wonderful plants for outdoor pots. They can be used to add texture, height, movement and even sound in a container, and also work brilliantly as a backdrop to flowering plants.

Grasses can really come into their own in winter months, when their structure stands out in the less busy garden. Great evergreen grasses include Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ (Feather Reed Grass), Festuca glauca ‘Elijah Blue’ (Blue Fescue) , Deschampsia cespitosa (Tufted Hair Grass), and Carex oshimensis ‘Evergold’ (Japanese Sedge).

Varieties that die back can also look fantastic in winter; just leave the stems intact (this will also help provide garden wildlife with food and shelter).

Evergreen trees for pots

Emerald Green Arbovitae (Thuja occidentalis)

If you’re short on outdoor space, this narrow evergreen tree could be the solution. It has a natural pyramid shape and is great for adding height, but not spread, to your container display – perfect for small spaces and compact patios. Grow it in direct sunlight for best results.

Dwarf conifer

As the name suggests, dwarf conifers are small versions of conifer trees. Compact in size and slow-growing, they will provide foliage in a pot for many years.

Korean Fir (Abies Koreana)

The Korean Fir will grow up to 50ft high, but it’s very slow-growing, so don’t rule it out for a pot.

Grow it in full sun and well-drained soil, and it will reward you with zingy green needles and unusual purple-blue cones. Definitely a conversation starter for a container garden.

Care tips for evergreen plants in pots

Evergreen plants are pretty low-maintenance, but you can still take a few steps to make sure they thrive and put on their best show.

Here’s a quick guide to caring for evergreen outdoor plants in pots.
- Right plant, right place: Position your evergreen potted plants in a spot that provides the conditions the plant likes. For example, full sun, full shade, sheltered from strong winds etc.
- Choose the right container: Make sure your pot is big enough for your plant – remember it will grow! – and has drainage holes in the bottom to prevent waterlogging.
- Use good quality compost: Container evergreens can only access a limited amount of soil, so make sure you use a good *peat-free compost. Check also whether your evergreen plant needs a specific type of compost. You’ll find more tips in our article on the best compost for pots.
- Feed your container plants: potted plants will eventually exhaust the nutrients in their soil, so you need to top those up regularly. Options for plant food include *concentrated liquid, *granules and *ready-to-pour liquid feed.
- Water container plants when required: plants grown in containers dry out more quickly than plants grown in the ground, so it’s a good idea to keep an eye on moisture levels regularly and water if necessary. Evergreen plants in pots won’t need much water in cooler months, but it’s still worth checking the soil on a regular basis.
- Useful tools for container gardening: you only need a few basics, but the right tools will make life easier and help your plants thrive. We recommend a *hand trowel, *gardening gloves, *small watering can, and *secateurs or *snips for pruning.
More container gardening advice

For more tips, inspiration and advice on gardening in containers, take a look at these articles:

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Catherine

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November 10, 2023
Diverse forests store 70% more carbon than monocultures

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Newswise — To slow the effects of climate change, conserve biodiversity, and meet the sustainable development goals, replanting trees is vital. Restored forests store carbon within the forest’s soil, shrubs, and trees. Mixed forests are especially effective at carbon storage, as different species with complementary traits can increase overall carbon storage. Compared to single-species forests, mixed forests are also more resilient to pests, diseases, and climatic disturbances, which increases their long-term carbon storage potential. The delivery of other ecosystem services is also greater in mixed species forests, and they support higher levels of biodiversity.

Although the benefits of diverse forest systems are well known, many countries’ restoration commitments are focused on establishing monoculture plantations. Given this practice, an international team of scientists has compared carbon stocks in mixed planted forests to carbon stocks in commercial and best-performing monocultures, as well as the average of monocultures.

“Diverse planted forests store more carbon than monocultures – upwards of 70%,” said Dr Emily Warner, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and biodiversity science at the Department of Biology, University of Oxford, and first author of the study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. “We also found the greatest increase in carbon storage relative to monocultures in four-species mixtures.”

Species richness increases carbon storage potential

The researchers analyzed studies published since 1975 that directly compared carbon storage in mixed and single-species forests, and combined this with previously unpublished data from a global network of tree diversity experiments. “We wanted to pull together and assess the existing evidence to determine whether forest diversification provides carbon storage benefits,” Warner explained.

The mixed planted forests assessed in the study ranged in species richness from two to six species. In the dataset the scientists worked with, four-species mixtures were the most effective carbon sinks. One such mix was made up from different broadleaf trees which can be found across Europe. Mixes with two species also had greater aboveground carbon stocks than monocultures and stored up to 35% more carbon. Forests made up of six species, however, showed no clear advantage to monocultures.

Accordingly, the researchers were able to show that diversification of forests enhances carbon storage. Altogether, aboveground carbon stocks in mixed forests were 70% higher than in the average monoculture. The researchers also found that mixed forests had 77% higher carbon stocks than commercial monocultures, made up of species bred to be particularly high yielding.

Forests for the future

“As momentum for tree planting grows, our study highlights that mixed species plantations would increase carbon storage alongside other benefits of diversifying planted forests,” said Dr Susan Cook-Patton, a senior forest restoration scientist at The Nature Conservancy and collaborator on the study. The results are particularly relevant to forest managers, showing that there is a productivity incentive for diversifying new planted forests, the researchers pointed out.

While showing the increased potential of mixed forests to store more carbon, the researchers cautioned that their study is not without limitations, including the overall limited availability of studies addressing mixed vs monoculture forests, particularly studies from older forests and with higher levels of tree diversity.

“This study demonstrates the potential of diversification of planted forests, and also the need for long-term experimental data to explore the mechanisms behind our results,” Warner said. “There is an urgent need to explore further how the carbon storage benefits of diversification change depending on factors such as location, species used and forest age.”

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Frontiers

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November 9, 2023
7 Ways To Prevent & Manage IBS + Why It’s More Common In Women

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Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder that affects the small and large intestines, causing a variety of uncomfortable symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, and irregular bowel habits. While there is no definitive cure for IBS, several natural approaches can help prevent its onset or minimize the severity of symptoms.

It’s worth calling out that IBS seems to be more prevalent in women. The fluctuation of hormonal levels, especially during menstruation, menopause, and pregnancy, can significantly impact IBS symptoms. So, one of the first things I recommend to women looking to manage their IBS symptoms is to track how they change throughout the menstrual cycle. Some women experience worse symptoms during their periods—so managing stress, maintaining a balanced diet, and staying hydrated (especially before and during menses) can help alleviate symptoms during this time. Your digestive capacity may also become more limited or variable during your period, so it’s important to focus on eating nutrient-dense, easily digestible foods.

Women may also experience changes in their digestive health and gut microbiome once they reach menopause. Consuming phytoestrogen-rich foods like soy, flaxseeds, and legumes can help mitigate these hormone-related symptoms.

Beyond monitoring gut health during these times of hormonal fluctuation, here are other ways I recommend preventing and managing IBS through dietary changes, lifestyle modifications, and stress management.

Research has shown that individuals with IBS often have an altered gut microbiota composition, with an imbalance in the ratio of beneficial and harmful bacteria. This dysbiosis can lead to gut inflammation, increased gut permeability, and heightened sensitivity in the intestines—all of which are associated with IBS symptoms.

Probiotics work by restoring the balance of the gut microbiota and creating a favorable environment for the growth of beneficial bacteria. Eating probiotic-rich foods like yogurt, kefir, and fermented vegetables can help you maintain a healthy gut microbiome, potentially reducing your risk of IBS development.

For those already experiencing IBS symptoms, probiotics can also be an essential part of a comprehensive treatment plan. However, it’s important to consult with a healthcare professional to determine the most suitable probiotic product and species for your specific symptoms and needs.

Here are some specific probiotic species that have demonstrated promise in IBS prevention and treatment:

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Christine Tara Peterson, PhD, RYT

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November 9, 2023
Californians bet farming agave for spirits holds key to weathering drought and groundwater limits

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MURRIETA, Calif. — Leo Ortega started growing spiky blue agave plants on the arid hillsides around his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked.

A decade later, his property is now dotted with thousands of what he and others hope is a promising new crop for the state following years of punishing drought and a push to scale back on groundwater pumping.

The 49-year-old mechanical engineer is one of a growing number of Californians planting agave to be harvested and used to make spirits, much like the way tequila and mezcal are made in Mexico. The trend is fueled by the need to find hardy crops that don’t need much water and a booming appetite for premium alcoholic beverages since the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s attracted entrepreneurs such as Ortega, as well as some California farmers. They’re seeking to shift to more water-efficient crops and irrigation methods to avoid fallowing their fields with looming limits on how much groundwater they can pump, as well as more extreme weather patterns anticipated with climate change. Agave, unlike most other crops, thrives on almost no water.

“When we were watering them, they didn’t really grow much, and the ones that weren’t watered were actually growing better,” Ortega said, walking past rows of the succulents.

He is now investing in a distillery after his initial batches of spirits, made from Agave americana, sold for $160 a bottle.

Consumers started spending more on high-quality spirits during the pandemic shutdowns, which spurred a rise in premium beverage products, said Erlinda A. Doherty, an agave spirits expert and consultant.

Tequila and mezcal were the second-fastest growing spirit category in the country in 2022, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

Both are proprietary spirits under Mexican laws, which are recognized in U.S. trade agreements. Much like how champagne hails from a region of France, anything called tequila must contain at least 51% blue Weber agave and be distilled in Jalisco or a handful of other Mexican states. Mezcal can be made from a variety of agave types but must be produced in certain Mexican states.

Agave growers and distillers in California — as well as some in Texas and Arizona — are betting there is an appetite for more agave-based spirits even if they are produced outside of Mexico and not called tequila or mezcal.

“We seem to have this insatiable thirst for agave, so why not have a domestically grown supply?” Doherty said. “I am kind of bullish on it.”

Alfonso Mojica Navarro, director of the Mexican Chamber of the Tequila Industry, said tequila has a lengthy history, global reputation for excellence and close connection with Mexican culture. While he didn’t comment specifically on California’s foray into agave spirits, he said he believes Mexico can respond to the growing demand.

“The tequila industry is concerned that each time there are more players trying to take advantage of tequila’s success by producing agave spirits, liqueurs or other beverages that allude to the Mexican drink, its origins and characteristics despite not being the same,” he said in a statement.

Agave isn’t grown on a large scale in California yet, and it would take years for that to happen. But spirits, made by cooking the plant’s core to produce sugars that are fermented, are proving popular, said Ventura Spirits owner Henry Tarmy, who distilled his first batch five years ago.

“We’ve sold everything we’ve made,” he said.

Much like Mexico has, California is taking steps to protect its nascent industry. The state legislature enacted a law last year requiring “California agave spirits” be made solely with plants grown in the state and without additives.

A dozen growers and a handful of distillers also formed the California Agave Council last year, and the group has tripled in size since then, said Craig Reynolds, the founding director who planted agave in the Northern California community of Davis. He said those making agave spirits have a deep appreciation for Mexican tequila.

“We have about 45 member growers,” he said. “All of them want more plants.”

Agave takes little water but presents other challenges. The plant typically takes at least seven years to grow and is tough to harvest, and a mature plant can weigh hundreds of pounds. Once cut, it has to be grown all over again.

Still, many see agave as a viable alternative as California — which supplies the bulk of the country’s produce — explores ways to cut back water use.

While record rain and snowfall over the winter mostly ended a three-year drought in California, more dry periods are likely in store. The state enacted a law nearly a decade ago to regulate the pumping of groundwater after excessive pumping led some residents’ wells to run dry and the land to sink. Scientists expect extreme weather patterns will become even more common as the planet warms, causing more drought.

Stuart Woolf, who grows tomatoes and almonds in the state’s crop-rich Central Valley, said he started thinking about agave after estimating he’ll only be able to farm about 60% of his land in 20 years due to water limitations. And that’s despite investing in solar energy and groundwater recharge projects to protect the farm that has been in his family for generations.

After trying out a test plot a few years ago, Woolf went on to plant some 200,000 agave on land he otherwise would have fallowed. Each acre of agave is taking only 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of water a year — a tenth of what row crops demand and even less than pistachio and almond trees, he said.

Woolf and his wife Lisa gave a $100,000 donation to the University of California, Davis, which formed a research fund to look at the succulent’s varieties and its potential as a low-water crop.

“I have been trying to figure out what is a crop that I can grow that is somewhat climate-resilient, drought-tolerant, so I can utilize our land,” Woolf said. “The amount of water I am giving them is so low, I don’t think I am ever going to have a problem.”

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November 4, 2023