Do you talk to your plants?
I am fascinated by the idea of plants communicating with us and with other plants. I’ll explore both topics this month. Today I will look at how plants communicate with one another and later this month, in The Language of Flowers, I’ll look at how plants communicate with us.
On the 20-acre property we used to own, the first plants to emerge in the spring were the trout lilies, followed closely by the mayapples. You may not be familiar with these plants as they aren’t very commonly found in garden centers. The trout lilies sent up 3-6-inch, elliptical leaves mottled with brownish-maroon spots resembling a brook trout. They would later get a delicate, violet-type flower. The mayapples sent up shoots looking like a closed beach umbrella and they would gradually open and get a white, drooping flower and later fruit underneath the protection of the umbrella (caution: the underripe fruit and seeds are toxic). My oldest sister remembers being told as a child in Arkansas that the fairies lived under the umbrella shoots of mayapples.
It was so exciting as we walked the trails of our property and saw the leaves poking out for the first time, announcing the start of spring. They were numerous along the trails, but when we cleared a new trail, deep into the woods one year, we discovered a magical fairy land of trout lilies and mayapples. It was a glorious sea of umbrellas!
Curious, I had to find out more about these plants and why there was a forest of them here. I discovered that these plants produce in colonies. Imagine how many years of undisturbed growth allowed them to form this dense growth that I was now witnessing. For the most part, human eyes never even saw them. But they thrived in the conditions presented here.
When we moved to our current house in a narrow band of Cross Timbers that cut through the typical black-clay prairie, I thought the conditions would be the same for trout lilies and mayapples to thrive. Research told me that these plants don’t transplant well. Only recent development in hybridizing mayapples has allowed them to start showing up, rarely, in garden centers. I wanted to recreate the spring magic from our acreage in our new yard.
So, I dug up and stored several plants of each until I could get them in the ground. Only a few lived. I set them at the edge between the yard and the wild woods where I could find them easily and give them additional water if needed.
Only two of the mayapples and three of the trout lilies survived to the next spring. I was so excited to see those little fishy swords poking out of the ground!
Now in the seventh year of watching them and holding my breath that they will return each year, I’m curious why they aren’t thriving here. They seemingly have all the same conditions. But in the areas surrounding my house where I can walk trails, I’ve never seen them naturalized.
Why don’t they colonize here?
I’ve recently started studying Korean Natural Farming (KNF). Wikipedia defines KNF as a method of raising plants that takes advantage of indigenous microorganisms (IMO) (bacteria, fungi, nematodes and protozoa) to produce fertile soils that yield high output without the use of herbicides or pesticides.[1] A result is improvement in soil health, improving loaminess, tilth and structure, and attracting large numbers of earthworms.
These microorganisms are the communication tools amongst plants and trees. Through mycorrhizal fungi relationships, the plants have a huge underground network that allows them to share food and water, to trigger defense-related chemicals and build up their immune systems. Fungus expert, Paul Stamets, calls these networks the “earth’s natural internet”.
I stumbled across a Facebook post on one of my native plant groups that offered me a possible explanation as to why my mayapples and trout lilies weren’t thriving.
The post was about a plant the person had cherished from childhood. She had gathered seeds from the plant in the wild but could never get any to germinate. One spring she happened upon a growing specimen at a master gardener plant sale and she snatched it up. It had been dug up and potted with the surrounding soil.
When she planted this plant along with its native soil, not only did it thrive, but the other seeds started germinating! It turns out, this particular plant is very reliant on a fungus that lives in the soil and without that fungi, the seeds will not get the message to germinate. The fungi act as a translator for the plant and tells it, hey, this spot looks good for our family.
Thinking back to when I dug up the mayapples and trout lilies – I didn’t pot them up with their surrounding soil. It was in August and they were long dormant. I dug the bulbs where I knew these plants existed and saved them. By doing so, maybe I didn’t get enough of the required fungus? Maybe the plants don’t speak the language of their new home and need the fungi to translate.
Plants communicate with each other; they just don’t do it the way we do. Under the principles of KNF I have learned that this underground network of mycelium is the brain and the key to their communication. They live and serve in a community.
Not having legs to get up and walk, their needs must be met in situ or they will fail to thrive. But they can help each other with this process. They can communicate their needs and trade with each other. Maybe the slow spread of my transplanted mayapples and trout lilies is due to the slow build-up of their network. Had I inoculated the soil with a heavy dose of their native soil, I might have brought the translator along with the plants to speed things up.
But they carry on each year and my hope is that they’ll eventually colonize and generations from now will stand and marvel at the magical forest of fairy plants.
Yes, I’ve considered driving out to the old property like a crazed woman and ask for permission (or not) to go deep into the woods and scoop up a bucket of fungi filled soil. It wouldn’t be the craziest thing I’ve done in the name of gardening!
But I’m content to wait this out and just observe nature.
If the plants can’t thrive in this location, that’s okay. I still have the memory of coming through the woods that spring and being completely amazed at the endless miniature forest of fairy plants. The memory still fills me with delight.
We humans are fortunate to have many ways of connecting with one another. Social distancing requirements may have us longing for touch and interaction with our loved ones, but we have an amazing network of neurons in our brains, similar to the plants mycelium, that allows us to feel love and connection even when we are not literally connected.
When I’m sheltering in place and longing to feel love from friends and family, all I need to do is feel it.
If my spouse or kids do something nice for me or bring me flowers, they aren’t making me feel loved. My thought about their action is making me feel loved. It’s incredibly powerful to understand that no one can make you feel-or not feel love. You have complete control.
We can feel connected with our loved ones without verbal communication or touch. Using our brains, we can conjure up our beautiful memories and connection happens. Feed your soul with your memories and remember that our connection never goes away.
Unlike the transplanted bulbs, our network never leaves us. I don’t have to go find the location where my memories lay and dig up a clump of neurons. I carry them with me. Always. And because of that, I can feel connected whenever and wherever I want.
This is not an easy time for any of us, but we will get through and we will thrive. Until we can be with each other again, we will connect in place.
Happy Gardening!
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