The Heritage Herb Gardens at the Ozark Folk Center grace the park with visual colors and textures, sweet and pungent aromas. With their natural display, they help us to interpret the history of the human use of plants.
The specimen plants growing within the boundaries of the Heritage Herb Garden are not necessarily native to the Ozark region. Since plants can be kept under cover for the winter and can be grown in containers with specific recipes for the growing medium, we can exhibit plants from all over the world. In order to be displayed in the gardens at the Ozark Folk Center, they must have some tie to the history of the region or some relevant importance. A particular plant growing in the Heritage Herb Garden may not have been found growing near an Ozark Mountain log cabin before 1940; rather, it could have been contained in products of that era, such as an ingredient for food, medicine, toiletries, textiles, fragrance, insect control or industry. It may have been an old-time pass-along plant, grown for pleasure. Of course, ideally, the plant should be applicable to life today. Every plant in the Heritage Herb Garden has a story behind it. The story begins at the place on earth where it was first found growing and made useful by human beings. Though the human story is compelling and will be told, let us start with the plant and its environment.
In order to grow herbs from places other than the Ozarks it is good to know everything about the environment from which they come. All plants are native to particular biomes. Biomes are geographical areas of the world that are inhabited by plant and animal communities adapted to the environmental conditions found in the regions. The environmental conditions are created by climate and geography. World biomes that are not under water include tundra, taiga, grassland, deciduous forest, chaparral, desert, desert-scrub, savanna, rainforest and alpine. Three basic climate groups, controlled by planetary air masses and latitude, dominate specific biomes. This week we will look at Group I for clues to growing herbs in the Ozarks.
Group I consists of Low-latitude climates; these three climates are controlled by equatorial, tropical air masses.
Tropical Moist Climates (the rainforest) have heavy rainfall all year and temperature is pretty constant at 80° F. The latitude range is 10° south to 25° north. The rainforest biome is present in the Amazon Basin, Congo Basin of equatorial Africa and the East Indies from Sumatra to New Guinea. Tropical houseplants such as peace lilies, Philodendrons and Dieffenbachias hail from the rainforest as well as coffee, vanilla and sugarcane which are economically important plants that play a role in our daily lives. A greenhouse or sunroom is necessary to successfully cultivate these plants.
Wet-Dry Tropical Climates (the savanna), exist in places where wet tropical air masses and dry tropical air masses create seasonal temperature changes, however precipitation is low. The latitude range is 15° to 25° north and south. India, Indochina, west Africa, the southern tip of Africa, South America and the northern coast of Australia contain the savanna biome. The scented geraniums, Pelargonium spp. are native to the Cape of Good Hope on the very southern tip of Africa. Herbs from that region may be tender perennials, requiring winter protection.
The Dry Tropical Climate (the desert), takes up 12% of the Earth’s land mass. As one might expect, the climate is characterized by very low annual precipitation (0.1 inch) and intense heat. Southwestern United States, northern Mexico, Argentina, North Africa, South Africa and central Australia are desert. Cactus varieties, including prickly pear, Opuntia spp. are desert plants. With determination it is possible to grow desert species on an Ozark mountain top. Just ask our local desert plant aficionado, Pete Klinkhammer about his collection! His century plant lives in native Ozark soil and is hunkered down under a plastic tent for the winter.
Next week we will move on to Group II which includes the steppe, chaparral and grassland biomes. If I don’t see you in the future—I’ll see you in the pasture.