YORKTON - This week’s gardening assignment: to make a small centrepiece, comprised of spruce, pine or cedar stems, to grace your kitchen table. Why? Evergreens of any type have always been meaningful as the winter solstice approached. These stems were symbolic of being immortal: they could endure the winter weather and still remain as they were in the summer….ever green.
Evergreen! The December Solstice is connected to so many festivals and celebrations in various cultures; imagine how ancient people must have dreaded the increasing darkness and long cold nights leading up to the solstice. No wonder the turning point became cause for a big party!
Tomorrow, gardening friends, is the day of the December solstice. It happens on Thursday, December 21, and as a science-class refresher, it is the time when the North Pole is tilted the furthest away from the sun. It will be the shortest day and the longest night of the year. And after that, gardeners, officially, the days will start getting longer again! The idea of it can give us hope!
So at this time when trees have lost their leaves and there is not much green remaining in nature, plants like evergreens became a symbol of new life and hope that spring would return again.
There are more ‘evergreens’ than pine, spruce and cedar. Holly, part of the large ilex family, is beautiful for decking the halls because of its dark waxy leaves and bright red berries, but it can actually be quite a pest out in nature. The birds love the seeds, which scatter and easily sprout. But the holly is a quick and persistent grower and can easily crowd out native plants.
Mistletoe, another evergreen, is know for more than a “kissing plant”. Step back with me into Norse history, where we meet Frigga, the Norse goddess of love and beauty, and her son Balder. Hovering in the background is the bad guy, Loki. Loki wanted to harm Balder and shot him with an arrow made of mistletoe. Luckily, Balder survives the attack, and in gratitude, Frigga uses her powers to change the mistletoe from being an evil plant into one that represents love. Her promise is that she will kiss anyone who passes underneath it. And so began a lovely tradition! Even ancient Druids respected the plant to the degree that if two enemies met under the mistletoe, they were supposed to put their weapons aside and be friendly towards each other, as least for a minute or two!
Horticulturally, though, mistletoe is an evergreen parasitic plant that belongs to the family Santalales and is found all over the world. It attaches itself to a variety of host trees and absorbs nutrients and water from the tree. Eventually the mistletoe can stunt or even kill the host tree.
Oaks the sun and strength, so they make their appearance on our list of solstice plants in the form of a yule log. The yule log tradition began in Scandinavia, prior to Christianity, when the people lit fires to celebrate the return of the sun during the fest of Juul.
Even though we have been blessed with an easy winter so far, let’s bring in even just a few sprigs of ‘evergreen’ as a nod to the solstice tomorrow, and the hope and assurance that spring will some again!
Thank you to our friends at YTW for their great work. Visit the hort society at www.yorktonhort.ca. On behalf of my husband Keith and I, we wish you every blessing of the season and a very Merry Christmas!
