Growing Oranges in North Dakota

Could one grow oranges in North Dakota? Definitely! My Oxford dictionary defines an “orangery” or “orangerie” as ”a structure or building in which orange-trees are reared and kept, where the climate does not allow them to be cultivated in the open.” The word dates from the year 1664. In those days, persons with a lot of money were not able to hop a plane to their favourite resort so they tended to make their immediate environment as interesting and as enjoyable as possible. They assembled amusing and intelligent people around them, employed musicians, foresters and gardeners and even owned small zoos. As part of this effort, some of them maintained greenhouses in which they grew oranges and rare plants.

How much would an orange grown in North Dakota cost? That would depend on whether the price of the orange was based on the variable expense of labour, materials, heating and lighting, or whether it included part of the outlay for the construction of greenhouses and related facilities. In any event the oranges would cost many times more than those which are currently shipped to Minot or Fargo supermarkets from thousands of miles away. The project of growing oranges in North Dakota is completely ridiculous since orange trees require a hot sunny climate and temperatures which never dip much below freezing. Every plant has a natural environment in which it thrives, but most are able to survive under tolerable circumstances in marginal environments. Clearly North Dakota is not even marginal. All of this is no great surprise. What is surprising is that lawns in southern California and in similarly arid regions consist of grasses to which these environments are as hostile as North Dakota is to oranges. A chart of summer rainfall (inches) in Los Angeles, St. Louis and Boston taken from the Statistical Abstract of the United States looks like this:

This means that L.A. gets substantially no rain during three summer months and a mere quarter of an inch in September. Lawn grasses are usually a mix, but Kentucky bluegrass, a very thirsty plant, is usually a major component. In L.A. lawns depend entirely on being watered during the four months in question and substantially at other times except during the relatively short “winter.” Figures on specifically outdoor water use are hard to come by. After an extensive search and getting nowhere, I was kindly steered by a biologist at the California Water Resources Department to Amy Vicker’s Handbook of Water Use and Conservation (Water Plow Press, Amherst Ma.) in which I found that such use varies greatly depending on the climate experienced by the users; the hotter and drier, the greater the use. Thus outdoor use in gallons per capita per day is about 10 in Waterloo, Ont; 20 in Seattle, WA; and 100 in San Diego, CA. Given the hundreds of thousands of lawns in California, water consumption for lawns alone, is of a staggering magnitude and has until recently been accepted as a given. It does not have to be that way, particularly if there is an impending general and permanent water shortage. Vickers reports that the city of Albuquerque in 1995 undertook a long-term water conservation initiative which has substantially reduced water consumption. I first noticed the juxtaposition of thirsty lawns and general water shortage on several visits to Los Angeles and thought that other ground cover such as Ajuga, ivy and Pachysandra might be more appropriate than the traditional eastern lawns.

Little did I know that there are much better solutions. There is an entire world of literature and practical botany available dealing with the re-introduction of native plants in places as dry as Arizona. An organization such as the California Native Plant Society of Sacramento has counterparts in thirty (!) other States. Even here in a water- rich part of Canada, I found two books on this subject at the local library: Carole Rubin: How to Get Your Lawn off Grass and Andy and Sally Wasowski: The Landscaping Revolution. There is a buzzword for this movement: Xeriscaping — from the Greek “xeri” meaning dry. The expression was actually coined by the Denver Water Department in 1981. State governments as well as regional water districts and municipalities have been very supportive of the efforts of volunteers and experts to get gardeners to think “nature.” Converting from “exotic” (botanese for non-native) plants can not be done overnight. It requires some effort and at the beginning even some watering. But the illustrations in books and on the web show how very attractive native gardens can be. Once they are established, they require far less care than a conventional garden and less expense. So why isn’t everyone doing it? Being a gardener myself, I can understand. The annuals being produced by growers — not only tulips and daffodils, but even geraniums, begonias and marigolds— are definitely more brilliant and colourful than they were a few years ago. It’s like switching from an outstanding band to someone playing Beethoven piano sonatas. This conversion, while desirable in Vermont, is a matter of urgency in dry North American environments and should be a source of justifiable pride for all those who take the “nature” plunge.Think what satisfaction comes from re-establishing flowers, bushes and other plants that have been destroyed by those to whom the idea of a natural environment was totally foreign! But if past experience is a guide, Xeriscaping will have to be adopted by some high profile people before it becomes popular.

July 2004