In gardening you can learn something new everyday and still not know it all. Last year my wife and I took a trip to Scotland and on that trip found out some interesting knowledge about Vicki’s family. Her mothers maiden name was Forsyth and I always used to joke that forsythias must have been named for someone from her family. 

Well last year in Scotland researching the Forsyth name, clan and tartan, we came across just that. The forsythia is named in honor of William Forsyth. William Forsyth, born in 1737, in Oldmeldrum in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, became superintendent of the royal gardens at Kensington and St James’s Palace in 1784. It was a position he held until his death on July 25th, 1804. The forsythia, originally known as Syringa suspensa was discovered in China by Carl Thunberg in the mid 1770s and later brought to Europe where it eventually wound up in the royal gardens. In 1804 upon the death of William Forsyth, Syringa suspensa was renamed into the genus Forsythia, to honor the Scottish botanist, royal gardener and founding member of the Horticultural Society of London, William Forsyth. So what started out as a joke back in the 1980’s turned out to be the truth. With the weather we have been having lately, I think it will be quite a while before we see our forsythias blooming this spring. With more bad weather in the forecast for outside, I have been getting things ready inside for seed starting. 

It is too early to start that yet, so in the meantime I have been repotting some houseplants and potting up a number of baby aloe plants from one large aloe that we have had for years. Every year around this time I have to repot my aloe to freshen up it’s soil. Al, my aloe plant, seems to like it because each year it will throw off at least a dozen new baby aloe plants that I need to pot up. These have gone to friends and family in the past, but because they all have them now, I’ll take them to the store to sell them in the spring. I did recently see an interesting video on YouTube about using aloe clippings to start cucumber and squash seeds. You take about a one inch piece of aloe frond and place a seed into the side-center, right in the gooey part. 

As the seed germinates it uses the decaying aloe as an immediate food source and this is suppose to jump-start your plant. I’m not sure if it works yet, but I am going to try it out this spring. Like I said in the beginning, in gardening you can learn something new everyday. Always keep learning.