Reading Past the Headlines with Scientist Dianne Azzarello

Hi, welcome to The Garden Shift.

In this episode, my favourite scientist and fellow Toronto Master Gardener, Dianne Azzarello, joins us to talk about reading past the headlines and getting good information from verified sources on your shift to ecological gardening.

I hope you enjoy.

Tina: Hi Dianne, how are you?

Dianne: Good, nice to see you Tina.

Tina: Yeah, nice to have a fellow Master Gardener joining me again. Dianne, you know how I love talking science with you ‘cause I have no science background and you have lots. So I love it when you join.

So the other day I was on Instagram and I found this, headline about the spotted lantern fly, that plant hopper that's, an invasive species in the US doing lots of damage. And the Instagram post that I sent you said something about planting milkweed to stop the spotted lantern fly. And I thought, oh, great, we can tell everyone to go plant milkweed and we can get on top of this.

Well, you being the great critical thinker you are, did a little bit more research. So you want to talk about what we found out?

Dianne: I'm always skeptical of things on Instagram. The only social media I follow is Instagram, but it's mostly because I want to see things from gardeners or people who, well, just people who are interested in the same types of things as me.

But I never believe what I read on Instagram because there's no regulations of it, there's no controls, there's no consequences of putting in false information, so people can say and do and write whatever they want. So I always check. I know that is tedious, but you don't want to get hoodwinked.

So in this particular case, it sounded too good to be true, the claim that was being made. So the claim was implied that this was already a proven methodology.

And kind of tickled my brain a little because I thought if that was true, we would all know about it. It would be everywhere and we'd never seen this before.

So I started to do some digging and it wasn't easy. It was hard to find what I was looking for, but luckily there was a code number for this research and eventually I got to the place where it was and I read the description.

So it was, a study that's being funded. It's not complete. The report isn't coming out till 2027, I think it was. I can't remember off the top of my head. And so essentially, the study was just starting.

So it was an aspirational statement, not a statement of fact that it had been proven that this technique would be successful. So it is funded by a legitimate organization. It's a legitimate organization who's doing the study. The only thing that was wrong was the statement that was made on Instagram.

And it's possible that just some random person put that in there and not the people who are involved in the actual study. So I'm not, I'm not faulting those people. But as, as consumers, we have to always be vigilant.

If you go back 20, 30 years, most of the time, scientific claims, publications, you could rely on them. That is no longer the case, and we have to take that responsibility for ourselves to do a little bit of digging. Just because somebody wrote a sentence on Instagram does not make it true.

And so either you do the research yourself or you talk to a friend who likes to do that, and they do it for you. But it is important because you don't want to waste your energy on things that may or may not actually cause a benefit from an ecological point of view.

Tina: Right. Well, it's interesting because I guess I was so excited because the upside of this post was that it was asking us to plant milkweed. And as ecological gardeners, we know that the significance of milkweed plants.

But again, let's, let's figure out, the fact that we figured out where this claim was coming from and that we have to just be patient and wait for the results, was a, was a good find.

Ok. So let's talk a little bit about being citizen scientists and what we really should be doing rather than just reading headlines and Instagram about invasive species that are scary and, and that, you know, are gonna make people worried about going outside.

I know that with the spot lantern fly, I was quickly aware of the importance of removing the Tree of Heaven cause it's primary host. So I did remove a Tree of Heaven that was in my son's backyard in Burlington. So there's best practices for anything that's invasive, a pest a disease, and I think that we need to go to, to the sources that can give us good science. So where would you go for figuring out what you can do as a good citizen and a good ecological gardener when you know there's something invasive going that's going to be hitting your garden, conceivably?

Dianne: Well, there's some, some publicly funded organizations. So certainly the province of Ontario, the Canadian government has a system as well, Invasive Species Center. These are all legitimate organizations. They have people with expertise working for them. They are constantly monitoring things, collecting data all the time. They are measured in their comments that they make. So those would be great places to start.

I would not rely on magazine articles or social media, certainly not Facebook. Those would not be good places to get information.

Tina: Right. And, and it seemed like when I was actually when I was looking up a little bit more information about the spotted lantern fly to see if it, if it had actually crossed into Ontario, it's not verified yet that it is here in Ontario, but as citizen scientists, we need to spot it, snap a picture of it, catch it if you can, and report it.

And that's kind of the best practice right now for this, invasive species. It's good to know what it looks like, right? It's like anything, you have a disease out in your garden, you have a bee that you don't know if that's a good bee or wasp or whatever you have flying around your garden or showing up in your garden as a disease, rather than just going into treating it, you really need to identify it.

So actually, the Toronto Master Gardeners actually have really good information on their website about invasives. But yeah, going to science-based, government-based, educational-based, as opposed to big content farms where you might have people writing articles and not having the credentials really to be providing that information.

Dianne: Definitely reporting to the legitimate organizations that are tracking these things is worthwhile, especially at the beginning where they don't really have many samples, and they will actually come to your property and do a proper investigation.

So if you do see something unexpected, like say somebody saw a spotted lantern fly in their backyard, telling the authorities right away is really important because they will come and they will do some, some, some assessment.

Tina: Yeah. So it's just, iNaturalist is also a really fantastic tool if you're an apps person and you're always have your phone in your back pocket.

Just in the last probably month, I think I've put, I've put in 4 or 5 observations and within 24 hours I've gotten IDs. Consistent IDs, like you get like 10 or 12 different people telling you it's the same thing, you know, you can look that up and you pretty much know that what you have is a carpenter bee or a certain kind of bee bomb or, it's great for identifying flora and fauna and helping you know what, what's going on in your backyard.

Hey, Dianne, let's shift the conversation a bit and talk about what inspires you as a gardener. I know you're very active at the Toronto Botanic Garden, and that must be a wonderful teaching and learning environment for you.

Dianne: Yes, well, it's one of my favourite places to be. I've been going there since the mid-1960s. I love the place. I've seen a change over time.

What I do there now is be a tour guide. About every other week, I lead a tour, meeting people from all over the world with all different types of questions.

But it's, it's because of the way the garden is put together into these kind of little rooms, each one sort of showing a different way to garden, shows people that no matter where they live, they can have some kind of a garden.

They demonstrate each of those different ways, whether it's a pot or a big landscape, there's a little bit of everything there for anybody. Plus different growing conditions as well, because in the city of Toronto, depending where you live, you have to deal with different difficulties.

So for example, there's an area there which is kind of divided into two parts. One faces east and one faces west, and it's terraced.

Well, the one facing east is getting sun for a much longer time, and in the winter time, it's getting sprayed with salt because it's right beside the driveway and you can't have people killing themselves in the driveway. So that one is all more succulent type plants.

And then if you go around the corner to the other side, it's terraced.

So when I have guests that I'm taking around, I talk to them about this and how you can have a garden no matter where you live. But if you, you, some of the places in Toronto that have steep front lawns, like in the beaches or in Hyde Park, they think they can't have a garden, but they can. It's really easy and they show that they're right at the garden.

Tina: Yeah, and you, you, you probably are touring, all, like, spring, summer, and are you touring now in the fall as well?

Dianne: I just did my last tour for this year, but I'll be back at it next May. May to September is kind of the time that I do tours.

Tina: So what, like, if I'm a beginner gardener, what's the learning that I can take away at a botanical garden, which is usually just for show?

Dianne: Well, a, a botanical garden is a library of plants. So if you think about it the same way you would think about it as a library, you're gonna see a lot of variety.

You’re gonna see a lot of things. Some of them are going to be things you're not interested in, and other things are gonna be things that you love, just like when you go to the library.

So they are showing exotic plants. They have native plants, and they're all mixed together.

And there's a, on the area, cause like, like I said, they kind of put it into rooms so you could show people that no matter what kind of property you have, you could build a garden. It gives you examples and mixtures of plants.

So if somebody, and I've had lots of people on tours who are there because they want to change their garden or they want to make a garden.

So people come from all over the world to see that garden, and a lot of it's for entertainment or just, you know, to be with friends, but they also have the opportunity to learn about what would be the plants, the right plants for them to have in their garden, and it's different depending on their situation.

Tina: Right. And then, like, I think that when I walk through the TBG as we call it, I get a sense of plant communities. So I'll see plants that mix well together. I'll see plants that are maybe a prairie, a prairie plant scheme. You'll see a woodland scheme. And I think that really helps a beginner gardener, because when you have these huge plant lists, it's like, where do I go? Where do I start? And as we know, as ecological gardeners, we're not, we shouldn't just be picking pretty flowers. We need to think past that into community of, of plants that grow well together.

I know in the entry garden, there's been quite an evolution, which happens in gardens. Do you want to just talk about how that was first planted?

Dianne: Sure. It was first planted by a gentleman named Piet Oudolf, it was the first garden that he did in Canada or in North America. And he didn't have a lot of experience with our climate, which we all know well. And some of the plants that were put into that area were very, very, very happy there, and they kind of took up a little bit too much space and had impact on other plants.

So they've had to readjust here and there to make it more fair so that every plant has their, their time in the sun.

The other thing is that's nice about that garden is that right from the beginning of May into the end of September, it always looks different. There's so many different plants there that bloom at different times that you can see what it's like to have a succession of blooms if you come time after time. And that, I think that helps people.

Because sometimes people just plant for the spring and then they don't have much to look at later on. Whereas this one shows how you can have things from the spring right into October. And that, that's helpful.

And then there's some plants that are, there's a few plants that are there all year, and they're always blooming. So there's always something in bloom.

Tina: Let's just get back to the Weston Family Library, because that's a really important library in Canada, right?

Dianne: It's the largest privately held collection of, garden-related material in the country. And there are some very old books because it is 70 years.

So when you think about 70 years of books, now some, there was a fire back in the day, back in the 60s, there was a fire, and not every book survived, but many of them did survive and many of them are quite old.

Great, great knowledge in all these books. It's a good place to do your own research.

Tina: Right. And just it's, it's really a nice environment to just to go and, and have a walk. And then, I don't know, I love sitting in a library. So, I mean, it might be old fashioned, but I mean, just pull a book, even if it's old, it's still, still very valuable.

Dianne: There's something else there that I really like that's going on because they've got a display at the, in the one, the big huge display on a whole wall.

It goes through the whole story of the garden from, back to Edward's time. Well, actually to the Milne family's time. And it's really, really cool to see all that stuff.

Tina: So something for the historians as well.

Again, as a beginner gardener, I know Toronto Master Gardeners do courses and workshops there, but there really is a variety of learning opportunities. And there are, I think, they're probably all listed online, right?

Dianne: Yeah, they will put out what's coming up, and then once it's filled, it wouldn't show up again on the website.

If you're a member, then you get an email every week, so you know exactly what's going on.

They have a very wide variety of courses. They have courses on growing plants from seed. It's everything you can imagine. You could probably do it there one way or another.

Tina: Yeah, and I know that I have an upcoming workshop with some fellow master gardeners on collecting seed, which we did last year, and it's a great opportunity to learn how to collect seed, and if you are interested in it, grow your own native plants. And I think that's happening in October. Anyways, it'll be online and it's very popular, so hopefully it'll fill up.

Dianne: And there's a seed library in the library. The library full of books also has a seed library.

Tina: That's right. I forgot about that. And it's a little cart packed with little seed envelopes, right?

Dianne: Yes, you can leave seeds and you can take seeds.

Tine: And those are all kinds of seeds. Last time I looked, there was even veggie seeds there.

Dianne: Yeah, they’ve got everything.

Tina: Yeah, which is really popular now.

Well, Dianne, this has been a great segment, and I want you to come back again and I won't take no for an answer. Thank you for thanks for your time, Dianne. Take care.

Dianne: Always a pleasure.