When hiking through the nearby forests, I often come upon moss covered stone walls.  I marvel to think of the sheer muscle it took for the farmers, even with the help of their cattle or horses, to wrest the stones off their fields, cart them to the construction site, and hoist them on top of one another in such a way that they still stand today.
 
These hardy folks often made the walls to corral their animals—mostly sheep--but it also had the added benefit of offering a neat place to put all those darn rocks. Here’s an interesting piece of trivia—In 1840 there were 600,000 sheep in New Hampshire which is two sheep for every human being. 
 
Although these stone walls are mostly found in the woods, I know that when they were laid, the land was clear cut with only an occasional wolf tree in sight.  Nature has reclaimed the land which has mostly gone back to the natural forest but with a big difference—now there are thousands of miles of stone walls meandering through the woods. Raccoons, skunk, porcupines, and weasels make comfy winter dens in among the rocks. I’ll bet the farmers hunted those animals for dinner and would probably shake their heads to learn that all their hard work has resulted in sanctuaries for those once hunted critters. They would be completed baffled if someone in the 1800’s told them people are going to write blogs about their stone walls in 200 years.

For 17 years, the Grantham Garden Club has donated subscriptions for two popular garden magazines: Fine Gardening and Garden Gate to Grantham’s beloved library. I recently learned that these magazines are available for card holders to check out and read in the comfort of their homes.
 
The latest issues include 2023’s Best New Plants for Sun and Shade, Veggie Garden Mistakes We Wish We Never Made, Tips for Fast Filling Gardens, and Four Season Container Inspiration.
 
Here’s some interesting information from Garden Gate:  When putting your vegetable garden to bed in the fall, leave the roots of legumes like peas and beans in the ground (clip the plants at the base). As they decompose, they release nitrogen into the soil.
 
To clean a vase, drop a denture tablet or two into a vase of water and let it fizz which will get rid of bacteria and mineral deposits—rinse thoroughly.
 
Fine Gardening has an article about growing sedums which included the idea that “some sedums are so tough and forgiving that you can actually propagate them by taking a leafy steam cutting without roots and planting it.” That’s not intuitive.
 
I love this suggestion from a Garden Gate reader who recommended that, if you’re a pickleball player, don’t throw out those cracked balls. Use them to fill the lower portion of a large pot before adding soil and plants. Brilliant.

​In my experience, people are either ‘language people' or ‘numbers people'.  I definitely fall into the ‘language’ category. So on first learning about the mathematical Fibonacci sequence I dismissed it as a bunch of numbers. When I did a little more research, I have to say that I was impressed.
 
Mother Nature in her wisdom has embraced Fibonacci which can be seen over and over again if we just look for it. Although the reasons for this are practical, I believe, that they also make trees, flowers, and plants more pleasing to our eyes. Maybe it’s the symmetry—the order of it all.
 
First I should explain the the Fibonaci sequence looks like this: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,55,89,114… and is derived from adding a number to the one beforehand.
 
As much as 90% of all plants organize their leaves in a way that involves Fibonacci numbers which helps every leaf get the maximum amount of sunlight and rain. This same principle is at work in the formation of pine cones, sunflowers, pineapples, and cacti. All have a double spiral structure that allows their smaller elements (seeds, for instance) to pack closely and efficiently. Look at the middle of a sunflower: you will see that the seeds line up in crisscrossing spirals radiating from the center, and if you count the number of spirals turning in each direction (clockwise/counterclockwise), they will always be Fibonacci numbers.  More disk flowers can be squeezed into an aster plant by using the Fibonacci sequence. If you count petals, leaves, or ray flowers you will find that most are Fibonacci numbers. 

GGC member and good friend Michele Dominy sent me a picture of a Fibonaci Garden display at the Chelsea Flower Show in London that she visited in 2016. Michele also send me this link to the Khan Academy which explains Fibonacci in a wonderful way.

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/math-for-fun-and-glory/vi-hart/spirals-fibonacci/v/doodling-in-math-spirals-fibonacci-and-being-a-plant-1-of-3
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As Mathematicians have always known and what I understand a little better is that math can be beautiful.