I am thinking today about adaptation. Perhaps because I am a fan of the evolutionary theorists Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, the current news about mutations and variants doesn’t fill me with the same dread some friends are expressing. I think my response is also informed by my love of plants and animals. As the world awaits the decline of Omicron with a persistent sense of foreboding about what might come next, my friend Shanyn is in the process of opening an ecological nursery and we have spent time discussing the variations that occur among seed-grown wildflowers. And our conversations provide me with comfort about how plants and animals—as well as viruses—adapt and move forward through the world.
I have long been a proponent of growing non-hybrid plants from seed because it is important to ensure that the genetic variation of a species is not compromised. Evolution and adaptation will not occur (at least without some form of external genetic interference, read GMOs) without a broad gene pool that comes from maintaining local ecotypes of species, which mutate and adapt to their setting through natural selection over time. This is at the heart of the work that my friend Shanyn is supporting with her nursery. The soon-to-be opened nursery results from her attempt to restore the landscape on her property in Connecticut. By growing plants from open-pollinated seed, first for her garden and now for the nursery, she is ensuring that the breadth of a species is being maintained, whereas the vegetative propagation techniques often used by commercial growers create clones that have no genetic variation, limiting their ability to adapt.
Her goals and her approach—growing plants from seeds that are locally and responsibly sourced and growing them at a population size that maintains as much of their genetic breadth as possible—mean those seeds and plants, like us, can continue to adapt to changing conditions and to the local environment. I find comfort in this, even though it is the same force that allows the coronavirus to mutate and keep itself out and about in the world, by reminding myself that in the natural world, some form of equilibrium among species within an ecosystem typically does occur. It is not about survival of the fittest but often about co-evolving peacefully side by side, which hopefully in time may be where we get with the coronavirus.
This last wish is an act of faith, a faith filled with hope that the natural order of things will help lead us forward —a concept increasingly hard to hold onto in a world where we have done so much damage to the natural kingdom, but one I still find essential. The fact that all of this comes on the anniversary of the death my beagle Fred brings this home even more. When I lecture about genetic diversity and open-pollinated seed saving, I often demonstrate the difference between clonal propagation and seed-grown plants by showing a picture of Barbra Streisand with her coton de tulear dogs, which were cloned from one of her previous pets at the not inconsiderable expense of $50,000 each. I understand her desire to hold on to what was. When I think of burying Fred in his final resting place amongst a naturalized clump of snowdrops, I would have done anything to have him back. He taught me so much about life and even about gardening. Who would not have wanted that to continue? But I also realize that what I loved about Fred were the things that made him unique. A year later, to the day, Henry was born and came into our home eight weeks later. He was also a beagle, but not Fred, more serious than playful, at least at that time. Now a year old with beautifully freckled white legs, he has variations from his predecessor that make him uniquely adapted to bringing me forward in an ever-changing world. Mysteriously, he loves to dig, which Fred did not; given all the planting going on this year, I cannot help but see Darwin and Wallace nodding in approval about the evolving skills of this young pup.
Henry has inspired my desire for seed-grown plants, and for celebrating not the sameness of a stand of flowers, but the occasional spots that set one flower or leaf apart from another plant of the same species. As I come through this weary month, filled with variant warnings and rising death tolls, I am hopeful that the world will right itself and we will find a way to live side by side with all creatures, bacteria, and flora in a harmonious way, without forgetting the losses that have gotten us here. And my mailbox is filled with a few specialty seed catalogs that offer me a path forward.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
