The Bookless Club: How do you deal with sleeplessness?

A single 7.5 zopiclone pill can register an effect similar to a blood-alcohol level between 0.5 and 0.8 mg/mL. That level of impairment is associated with an up to three-fold increase in the risk of becoming involved in a traffic accident.

So, there you have it: Something new to fret about on those sleepless nights.

Jane Macdougall is a freelance writer and former National Post columnist who lives in Vancouver. She writes The Bookless Club every Saturday online and in The Vancouver Sun. For more of what Jane’s up to, check out her website, janemacdougall.com

Question: How do you deal with sleeplessness?

Send your answers by email text, not an attachment, in 100 words or less, along with your full name to Jane at thebooklessclub@gmail.com. We will print some next week in this space.

Question: What is your horticultural specialty?

• I reluctantly admit that my greatest success has been the growing of weeds. However, I also have geraniums that have been propagated through cuttings, year after year, from a single plant that was free in 1974. I have had my grandmother’s Christmas cactus since she died in 1972 and also a hibiscus from a cutting of hers. I also have grown the same gladioli from a dozen bulbs purchased in 1993. The number has varied from as high as 20 down to just one last year, but it doubled and so I have two glads to plant this year.

Venny Xaronski

• I don’t want to even think about what I’ve spent on spring bulbs. I simply cannot turn away from a display of bulbs — the more exotic, the better. Garden centres are like quicksand to me. I could spend hours there. I think gardeners are the most hopeful of people as they are always planning for a beautiful tomorrow.

B. Singh

• It is difficult to pick a horticultural specialty — seasonally? year round? fragrant?colour? Yes, the early scent of sarcococca and presence of bees signals spring is upon us. Dwarf daphne is a great fragrant accompaniment planting. Hyacinths provide colour and scent. Follow this up with a beautifully fragrant evergreen osmanthus. Limelight hydrangea is deciduous, not fragrant, but changes its colour from June to October — white to limelight to pink. Phlox is fragrant and attracts the bees in the fall. Of course peonies, roses, hostas, astilbes, astrantia major, dahlias, and oriental lilies. For winter floral arrangements add teddy bear magnolia and hinoki cypress trees.

Vivian Jervis

• Garlic. I grew garlic for 12 years in my community garden plot. September would arrive and I would plant over a hundred — always Red Russian. The delight of seeing the tops come through the soil before the fall and winter season came upon us. Harvest time would arrive in July or August. After carefully pulling it up, drying and curing, I would keep a few for myself and give the rest away. That was always the best part.

Kathleen Houston

• Well, I’m a plantaholic, and for over 35 years I have collected about a hundred rhododendrons. My goal has been to acquire the earliest and latest blooms — it makes for a longer season. I also look for fragrant ones, and for species that don’t even look like a rhodo. Just a little rub and they smell like green pitch. My goal has been to let them “marry”, that is, to fill in the space so the fence is no longer visible. As well, I detest open soil, so ground cover plants are a must. No weeding necessary. Friends used to call me “Rhoda, the moss fairy.”