Garden "Greatastrophy"

This was an awfully difficult year for our MN Gardens. I look forward to them with high expectations - each flower is a gift that has a mere few days each year to share its bounty. So when the calendar and nature sell them short, it can devastate me. On our local front we have had a Perfect Storm to contend with. Our last mild winter had a huge impact on root systems and many with short tendrils took a toll. Creeping Phlox and Monarda were a few that either diminished or went away completely. Then we had weeks of heavy rain. That rotted most seedlings I put in or washed away attempts at grass seeding. It also laid the table for the inevitable diseases and insects that followed over with the recent heat wave; orange rust o the grass, aphids, Japanese Beetles and plenty of powdery mildew! What should have been a banner Cherry crop dwindled with small fruits pummeled to the ground in 2 hail storms. Every plant from Coneflowers, to Roses to Hydrangea needed some meds to yield any sort of bloom. All I can say is thank God I work at Gerten's where I have a whole apothecary at my disposal to play plant doctor.



But the crisis looms on a global level. Lest anyone be wary of climate change - it is indeed a real and haunting factor. Note this article about the Global Seed Vault. It was constructed on the Norwegian isle of Spitsbergen. There is a huge vault underground in an Arctic mountainside which stores precious reserves of millions of seed packets. It was built to safeguard our food ancestry in case of any sort of global apocalypse. Built in 2008 it was deemed fail proof to man and natural disasters. But a mere 10 years later, with record temps, somehow there was leakage into the entry which then froze and created a glacial tunnel leading towards the precious reserves. The vault is now under 24 hour surveillance with temperature monitors to see if the occurrence was rare or in fact predictable on a regular basis. Scary at the least. It brings new meaning to the old phrase
"what is this world coming to?"