This month's Greenhouse Management magazine is about native plants and sustainability

Photo © Joe Szurszewski
Photography

It was a frigid day in the sugarbush. My family was bundled up against the cold as gentle snow fell around us. About 30 yards down the path from us, thick steam poured from the chimney of the sugar house. Beside it, two enormous black draft horses stood hitched to a sled and patiently accepted pets on their velvet muzzles.

My wife, our two boys and I listened patiently as a woodsy gray-haired fellow explained the various ways maple trees had been tapped and their sap collected through the ages. He walked us through the way Indigenous peoples cut the trees and collected the sap in baskets. He passed my 11-year-old a long auger and a hand-carved spile so he could experience the pioneer method. And he let us see the modern techniques involving power drills and gravity-fed tubing.

There were several purposes for our visit to the Sap’s-a-Risin’ event held by my local park district. The first and most important reason was we were promised samples of maple syrup made fresh from sap less than a day out of the trees. The second reason was that documenting the experience would give my youngest extra credit in science class. The last reason was unadulterated curiosity.

And our curiosity was most certainly sated. We learned some amazing things about maple syrup. For instance, we learned that the annoying atmospheric chaos of Northeast Ohio’s spring is crucial for the trees to produce sap at the correct rate and consistency. We also learned that microbial life inside the trees is responsible for the sugar content in the sap. Ultimately, the amount of sugary byproduct from the microbe’s digestive work makes the color of the processed sap lighter or darker and the flavor more or less “maple-y.”

A working sugarbush is an example of the ecological wonder of native species. The maples create an excellent habitat for fauna. They provide shade, capture carbon, filter water and give humans something to put on our pancakes.

As Earth Day comes back around on April 22, it’s a time for celebrating ecological wonders. That’s why this issue explores native and eco-beneficial plants.

Our cover story explores Izel Native Plants, an e-commerce company that partners with some of the top native plant nurseries in the United States. The story explores how the business works and its co-founders’ dedication to ensuring consumer gardens and landscapes are filled with eco-beneficial plants.

Its companion story delves into how the conversation around native plants is changing and wonders if perhaps the term is no longer a helpful marketing tool. With help from some incredible landscape architects, designers, ecologists and authors, we try to bridge the rift between cultivars and native plants and find common ground in the sheer pleasure of plants.

And if there were ever a plant to help us understand finding pleasure in native species, it’s the sugar maple. So, join me in raising a waffle to sustainability as we plunge into spring. Sap’s a-risin’!