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Historical Events

1801 William Henry Seward "Sue-erd", an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, is born.

He was also featured in the book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, in which she wrote about William as a naturalist. He loved his garden.

This little passage offers so many insights into William as a nature lover. As a gardener and just to set this up, this is taking place during the civil war when there's a little break in the action for Seward, and he accompanies his wife Frances and their daughter, back to Auburn, New York, where they were planning to spend the summer. 

Seward accompanied Frances and Fanny back to Auburn, where they planned to spend the summer. For a few precious days, he entertained old friends, caught up on his reading, and tended his garden.

The sole trying event was the decision to fell a favorite old poplar tree that had grown unsound. Frances could not bear to be present as it was cut, certain that she "should feel every stroke of the axe." Once it was over, however, she could relax in the beautiful garden she had sorely missed during her prolonged stay in Washington.

Nearly sixty years old, with the vitality and appearance of a man half his age, Seward typically rose at 6 a.m. when first light slanted into the bedroom window of his twenty-room country home. Rising early allowed him time to complete his morning constitutional through his beloved garden before the breakfast bell was rung. Situated on better than five acres of land, the Seward mansion was surrounded by manicured lawns, elaborate gardens, and walking paths that wound beneath elms, mountain ash, evergreens, and fruit trees. 

Decades earlier, Seward had supervised the planting of every one of these trees, which now numbered in the hundreds. He had spent thousands of hours fertilizing and cultivating his flowering shrubs. With what he called 'a lover's interest," he inspected them daily. 
 
Then I love what Doris writes next because she's contrasting Seward with Abraham Lincoln in terms of their love of working outside.

[Seward's] horticultural passion was in sharp contrast to Lincoln's lack of interest in planting trees or growing flowers at his Springfield home. Having spent his childhood laboring long hours on his father's struggling farm, Lincoln found little that was romantic or recreational about tilling the soil.

When Seward "came into the table," his son Frederick recalled, "he would announce that the hyacinths were in bloom, or that the bluebirds had come, or whatever other change the morning had brought."
 

1809 Martha Ballard recorded her work as an herbalist and midwife.

For 27 years, Martha kept a journal of her work as the town healer and midwife for Hallowell, Maine. Today Martha's marvelous journal gives us a glimpse into the plants that she regularly used and how she applied them medicinally.

And as for how Martha sourced her plants, she raised them in her garden or foraged for them in the wild. As the village apothecary, Martha found her own ingredients and personally made all of her herbal remedies.

Here's what the writer, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Wrote about Martha's work back in May of 1809. 

Martha's far more expansive record focused on the mundane work of gardening, the daily, incremental tasks that each season exacted. 
In May of 1809, she "sowed," "sett," "planted,' and "transplanted" in at least half dozen places, digging ground "west of the hous" on May 15 and starting squash, cucumbers, muskmelons and watermelons on "East side house" the same day. 
She planted "by the hogg pen" on May 16 and 18 on May 23 sowed string peas "in the end of my gardin," and on May 26, planted "south of the hous." The plots she defined by the three points of the compass were no doubt raised beds, rich with manure, used for starting seeds in cool weather.
The garden proper had a fence, which Ephraim mended on May 12. Whether it included the plot near the "hogg pen," we do not know. 
All of these spots, managed by Martha, were distinct from the "field." which Jonathan plowed on May 15, and DeLafayette and Mr. Smith on May 27 and May 31. 
Martha's was an ordinary garden, a factory for food and medicine that incidentally provided nourishment to the soul. "I have workt in my gardin, she wrote on May 17, the possessive pronoun the only hint of the sense of ownership she felt in her work. 
The garden was hers, though her husband or son or the Hallowell and Augusta Bank owned the land. 
"I have squash & Cucumbers come up in the bed East side the house," she wrote on May 22. 
The garden was hers because she turned the soil, dropped the seeds, and each year recorded in her diary, as though it had never happened before, the recurring miracle of spring.
 
 
1899 Luigi Fenaroli, the great Italian agronomist and botanist, is born.

Luigi wrote a flora of the Alps, and he was an expert in forestry, but today we remember him for his work with chestnuts. Luigi wrote two books on chestnuts, and he was passionate about chestnuts as a good source of nutrition - especially for people who've lived in the mountains.

Although today, of course, chestnuts are beloved in Italy, as well as other parts of the world.
Chestnuts are unique in that they contain very little fat and protein compared to other types of nuts, but they are an excellent source of both carbohydrates and water. There is about a 50-50 ratio there. And so it's not surprising to learn that Roman soldiers were given porridge made of chestnuts before they went into battle. It gave them sustenance, that simple Chestnut porridge.

Today chestnuts are known as a superfood. They are healthy and irresistibly tasty. And so they rank near the top of the list for most nutritious snacks.
 

1905 Herbert Ernest Bates (pen name H. E. Bates), English author, is born.
He is remembered for his books Love for Lydia (1952), The Darling Buds of May (1958), and My Uncle Silas (1939).

In his book, A Love of Flowers (1971), Herbert wrote,

It is wonderful to think that one of the few unbroken links between the civilization of ancient Egypt and the civilization of today is the garden.
 
Herbert also wrote, 

I shut my eyes it returns: the evocation of a whole wood, a whole world of darkness and flowers and birds and late summer silence... more than the mere memory of a wood, the first and the best wood.
 
Herbert wrote about gardeners. He said,

The true gardener, like an artist, is never satisfied.
 
And he also once wrote this about gardens.

Gardens... should be like lovely, well-shaped girls: all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises, and then still more curves.
 

1926 On this day, the state of Kentucky selected the Goldenrod for its Floral Emblem.

Prior to 1926, Kentucky's floral emblem had been the Bluegrass (which seems more fitting still today), but Kentucky gardening clubs felt Bluegrass wasn't representative of the whole state.
 
And here's a fun fact: Alabama and Nebraska also picked the native goldenrod to be the State Flower.
 
Goldenrod has a lot of haters because many people confuse it for ragweed. I hate to even write that - because it makes people think they must look similar. But that's just not true. Once you see Goldenrod and Ragweed individually - you could never confuse them.
Ragweed flowers are green and not eye-catching, while goldenrods are golden and very pretty.
 
I saw an infographic a few years ago that said,
 
Goldenrod Warning: if I'm here, so is ragweed. Stay indoors! Achoo!
 
This is clearly maligning Goldenrod. It might as well say the black-eyed Susans are blooming, so is ragweed. Or the Joe Pye Weed is blooming - and so is ragweed - and so, by the way, are all the late summer bloomers - echinacea, helenium, oriental lily, asters, balloon flowers, sedums, tickseed, autumn crocus, Japanese anemones, blue mist shrub, hydrangeas, the list goes on and on. It's just an issue of timing.
The genus name Solidago is taken from the Latin "in solidum ago vulnera" and it means "I make wounds whole." And so it's not surprising to learn that Native Americans and herbalists have long recognized the curative power of goldenrod when it comes to wound care.
 
Now, If you want to plant some Goldenrod, keep in mind that it is an early autumn bloomer. It's also an important food source for honey bees and makes for a fantastic cut flower.
 
Finally, the botanical painter Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden once painted the goldenrod and observed,
Abundant it may be, but repugnant it is not. 
 
Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation
Of Rhubarb and Roses by Tim Richardson

This book came out in 2013, and the subtitle is The Telegraph Book of the Garden.
Well, this is such a happy and fun book for gardeners in the summertime. I love the cover, which shows a gentleman sleeping on a garden bench with a little golden Tabby cat beneath him. There's also a lawnmower and a wheelbarrow full of produce. There are beautiful garden beds. There's a beautiful garden arbor. And then, of course, there's a newspaper of the daily Telegraph That's laid out on the wheelbarrow, right by the tomatoes and the carrots and the cabbage and so forth.

But this is a book that the Telegraph put together, and it is a compilation book - an anthology of garden essays by garden writers And so in this book, you will find fantastic garden essays from the likes of Stephen Lacey, Mary Keen, Helen Yemm, Bunny Guinness, Monty Don,  Rosemary Verey, and the like.

Now here's what Tim wrote in the introduction to this book.

I'm not sure quite what I was anticipating, but I know it was not diatribes against melon frappé or the best places to find wild chives on the Lizard peninsula. I'm not sure, either, that I was quite ready for the fact that a garden column appeared in the newspaper every single day from the late 1950s on. The result was bulging file after file brought up from the Telegraph's distant archive, each filled to bursting with carefully snipped clippings. Snow, drought, storm, new plants launched, old plants rediscovered, the latest furor at the Chelsea Show - the garden columnist falls upon everything that makes one year different from the last, for with a cyclical subject such as horticulture there is the ever-present danger of repeating oneself.

The Telegraph's writers have avoided this for the most part, though I was amused to come across at least four versions of a 'May I introduce you to euphorbias?" piece by the same author. One of the fascinations of gardening is the way the same issues arise year after year while always seeming different, somehow - perhaps because of the vagaries of the seasons.
 
Thomas walks us through some of the history of garden writing over at the Telegraph. And he concludes with these words.

The best writers can achieve this balance between practical advice and lyrical appreciation - in the case of newspapers, all to a strict deadline. 

I suppose this theme of writing to order looms large for me today since the deadline for this introduction is suddenly upon me, and I find myself writing during a weekend away. As it happens, the place is Sissinghurst, and the borrowed desk I am sitting at was Vita's, my view through casement windows that of burnished orange echinacea, crimson salvias, clipped yew, and the beatific, wondering smiles of the visitors gliding by. Their expressions make me think, 

Does anything in life give as much pleasure as a beautiful garden?'

Last night, the white garden at midnight was a revelation. But that is not a subject to be enlarged upon now; I am going to write it up in the next day or two. It will, I hope, become another garden article fit for publication in the pages of the Daily Telegraph.

If you like garden writing and you love anthologies, this is the perfect book for you.

Personally, I think this is a great summer gift for gardeners because this book has already been out for a decade already -it came out in 2013, and so used copies are readily available on Amazon for a song.

But again, this is a beautiful and fun book. One reviewer wrote,

[It's] an assorted box of chocolates. I happily skipped between essays by the likes of Vita Sackville-West, Germaine Greer, and Sir Roy Strong, greedily consuming one after the other in quick succession. For those with more restraint, this is a book that promises many hours of savoured delights.
 
This book is 464 pages of funny and well-informed garden writing dating back to the 1950s.

You can get a copy of Of Rhubarb and Roses by Tim Richardson and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $2.

 
Botanic Spark

1861 Jacob Ritner, a Union captain in the civil war, wrote to his wife Emeline.

In fact, there's a great book that features all of the letters that he wrote to his wife Emeline during the Civil War, and it's called  Love and Valor: Intimate Civil War Letters Between Captain Jacob and Emeline Ritner by Charles Larimer.
 
Anyway, I stumbled on this letter that Jacob wrote on this day during the civil war when I was reading an excerpt from a book by DC Gill called How We Are Changed by War.

In this excerpt, Gill reveals how soldiers survived the war, not only physically but also mentally, and quotes Kirby Farrell:

"To preserve their sanity," writes Kirby Farrell, "soldiers [often] concentrated on a prosthetic "reality" by which to ground themselves" (Farrell 1998, 179).
 
We already know that the garden is grounding. DC writes that mental images of happy places, like gardens, can mitigate bad environments, such as a war zone.

An artificial image of home can substitute for the deficiencies of a present-day environment in a war zone. It allows soldiers to mentally project themselves into a more comforting geography.

Soldiers' letters repeatedly ask for details to furnish these environments of the mind.

"Now Emeline dear," writes Union Captain Jacob Ritner on May 16, 1861, "you must write me a great long letter next Sunday.. .. Tell me all the news, how the trees grow, the garden and grass, what everybody says"
 
The power of the garden to anchor us extends past space and time, and even merely thinking of our gardens can lift our spirits and calm our worries.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener
And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

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Historical Events
1497 John Cabot, the Canadian Explorer, set sail from Bristol, England, on his ship, Matthew.
He was looking for a route to the west, and he found it. He discovered parts of North America on behalf of Henry VII of England.
And in case you're wondering why we're talking about John Cabot today, it's because of the climbing rose named in his honor. And it's also the rose that got me good. I got a thorn from a John Cabot rose in my knuckle and ended up having surgery to clean out the infection about three days later. It was quite an ordeal. I think my recovery took about eight months. So the John Cabot Rose - any rose - is not to be trifled with.
 
1519 Leonardo da Vinci, the mathematician, scientist, painter, and botanist, died.
Leonardo once said,
We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.
 
He also wrote,
The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself.
 
And if you're spending any time outdoors, we are learning new lessons in spring. Isn't that the truth? There's always some new development we've never encountered - and, of course, a few delights.
Leonardo continued to study the flower of life, the Fibonacci sequence, which has fascinated them for centuries. You can see it in flowers. You can also see it in cell division.
And if you've never seen Leonardo's drawings and sketches of flowers, you are missing a real treat, and I think they would make for an awesome wallpaper.
Leonardo once wrote about how to make your own perfume.
He wrote,
To make a perfume, take some rose water and wash your hands in it, then take a lavender flower and rub it with your palms, and you will
achieve the desired effect.
That timeless rose-lavender combination is still a good one.
 
I think about Leonardo every spring when I turn on my sprinkler system because of consistent watering. Gives such a massive boost to the garden. All of a sudden, it just comes alive. Leonardo said,
Water is the driving force in nature.
 
The power of water is incredible, and of course, we know that life on Earth is inextricably bound to water. Nothing grows; nothing lives without water.
Leonardo was also a cat fan. He wrote,
The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
 
In 1517 Leonardo made a mechanical lion for the King of France. This lion was designed to walk toward the king and then drop flowers at his feet.
Today you can grow a rose named after Leonardo da Vinci in your garden. It's a beautiful pink rose, very lush, very pleasing, with lots of lovely big green leaves to go with those gorgeous blooms.
It was Leonardo da Vinci who wrote,
Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, or more direct than does nature because in her inventions, nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
 
1803 On this day, Napoleon and the United States inked a deal for the Louisiana Purchase and added 828,000 square miles of French territory to the United States for $27 million.
This purchase impacted the Louis and Clark Expedition because they had to explore the area that was bought in addition to the entire Pacific Northwest.
To get ready for this trip, Meriwether Lewis was sent to Philadelphia. While there, he worked with a botanist, a naturalist, and a physician named Benjamin Smith Barton.
He was the expert in Philadelphia, so he tutored Meriwether Lewis to get him ready because Lewis did not know natural history or plants. So he needed to cram all this information to maximize what he saw and collected.
Now, in addition to all of this homework, all of this studying about horticulture and botany and the natural world, Meriwether made one other purchase for $20. He bought himself a big, beautiful Newfoundland dog, and he named him Seaman. It's always nice to have a little dog with you while exploring.
 
1806 The garden writer John Abercrombie died. 
The previous day, John had fallen down some steps. He had broken his hip a few weeks earlier, and so this last fall is what did him in.
John was a true character. He loved to drink tea. He was a vegetarian. He was Scottish, and he was a lifelong gardener. His most significant success was his book, Every Man His Own Garden.
John would go on to write other books on gardening like The Garden Mushroom, The Complete Wall and Tree Pruner (1783), and The Gardener's Daily Assistant (1786), but none of them rose to the level of popularity as Every Man His Own Garden.
John and his wife had 17 children, and they all died before him - with his last child dying about ten years before he died on this day in 1806.
 
1867 Thomas Hanbury bought a property in the French Riviera that he called La Mortola.
In 1913, The Botanical Journal shared the story of Thomas and his brother Daniel, and it also described the moment that Thomas saw his property for the first time.
It had been the dream of Thomas Hanbury from his early youth to make a garden in a southern climate and to share its pleasures and botanical interests with his favorite brother.
While staying on the Riviera, in the spring of 1867, after many years of strenuous work in the East, he decided to carry out his plan.
He was first inclined to buy Cap Martin, near Mentone, but gave up the idea as soon as he became acquainted with the little cape of La Mortola.
As he first approached it by sea, he was struck by the marvelous beauty of this spot. A house, once the mansion of a noble Genoese family, and at that time, though almost a ruin, known as the Palazzo Orego, stood on a high commanding position.
Above it was the little village, and beyond all rose the mountains.
To the east of the Palazzo were vineyards and olive terraces; to the west, a ravine whose declivities were here and there scantily clothed by Aleppo pines; while on the rocky point, washed by the sea waves, grew the myrtle, to which La Punta della Murtola probably owed its name.
 
So Thomas purchased this incredible property in May of 1867, and by July, he returned with his brother, and together the two of them started to transform both the home and the garden.
The article says that Thomas's first goal was to get planting because the property had been destroyed by goats and the local villagers who had come in and taken what they wanted from the property during all the years that it was left unoccupied now Thomas and Daniel went all out when it came to selecting plants for this property, and by 1913 there were over. Five thousand different species of plants, including the opuntia or the prickly pear cactus, along with incredible succulents (so they were way ahead of their time).
Thomas loved collecting rare and valuable plants and found a home for all of them on this beautiful estate.
Now, for the most part, Thomas and his brother Daniel did the bulk of the installations, but a year later, they managed to find a gardener to help them. His name was Ludwig Winter, and he stayed there for about six years. Almost a year after they hired him, Thomas's brother Daniel died.
This was a significant loss to Thomas, but he found solace in his family, friends, and gorgeous estate at La Mortola - where Thomas spent the last 28 years of his life.
Thomas knew almost every plant in his garden, and he loved the plants that reminded him of his brother.
Thomas went on to found the Botanical Institute at the University of Genoa. The herbarium there was named in his honor; it was called the Institute Hanbury and was commemorated in 1892.
As Thomas grew older, the Riviera grew more popular, and soon his property was opened to the public five days a week.
The garden is practically never without flowers. The end of September may be considered the dullest time. Still, as soon as the autumnal rains set in, the flowering begins and continues on an ever-increasing scale until the middle of April or the beginning of May. Then almost every plant is in flower, the most marked features being the graceful branches of the single yellow Banksian rose, Fortune's yellow rose, the sweet-scented Pittosporum, the wonderful crimson Cantua buxifolia, and the blue spikes of the Canarian Echium.\\
 
But Thomas knew that there were limitations, frustrations, and challenges even in that lovely growing zone.
It was Thomas Hanberry who said,
Never go against nature. 
 
Thomas used that as his philosophy when planning gardens,  working with plants, and trying to figure out what worked and what didn't - Proving that even in the French Riviera, never go against nature.
 
1928 On this day, folks were lined up to see the lilacs in bloom at Hulda Klagers in Woodland, Washington.
Here's an excerpt from a book by Jane Kirkpatrick called Where Lilacs Still Bloom. In it, she quotes Hulda.
Beauty matters… it does. God gave us flowers for a reason. Flowers remind us to put away fear, to stop our rushing and running and worrying about this and that, and for a moment, have a piece of paradise right here on earth.
 
Jane wrote,
The following year there were two articles: one in Better Homes and Gardens and yet another on May 2, 1928, in the Lewis River News. The latter article appeared just in time for my Lilac Days and helped promote Planter's Day, following in June. They were covering the news, and we had made it!
In the afternoon, a count showed four hundred cars parked at Hulda Klager's Lilac Garden in one hour, the road being lined for a quarter of a mile. It is estimated that at least twenty-five hundred people were there for the day, coming from points all the way from Seattle. In addition, there were several hundred cars during the week to avoid the rush.
Today you can go and visit the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens. It's a nonprofit garden, and of course, it specializes in lilacs.
The gardens are open from 10 to 4 pm daily. There's a $4 admission fee - except during lilac season when the admission fee is $5.
 
Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation
A Gardener's Guide to Botany by Scott Zona
This book came out in December of 2022, and the subtitle is The Biology Behind the Plants You Love, How They Grow, and What They Need.
I think it's that last part - what they need - that most gardeners are intrigued by.
If you're a true botany geek, you'll love every page of Scott's book.
I wanted to share a little bit from the preface of Scott's book. Scott, by the way, is truly an expert. He's a research botanist by training, and his undergraduate degree is in horticulture, so he's a lifelong gardener and a trained expert. He's a conscious-competent. He knows exactly what he is writing about,
Here's what he wrote in the preface of his book.
As I sit down to write, I gaze at the windowsill near my desk. On it sits a dwarf sansevieria forming little rosettes of deep green leaves above. It hangs a slab of cork on which is mounted a tiny air plant that is pushing out oversized violet flowers, one at a time.
Nearby are two plants, an agave, and an aloe, that have similar forms, but one evolved from Mexico and the other in South America. Above them, a furry-leaved and a hybrid philodendron both grow contently in the diffuse light that reaches the shelf next to the window. My most curious visitors might ask a question about a plant or two, and when that happens, I can barely contain my delight. There is so much to tell.
Well, this book starts out with a chapter called Being a Plant, and if you are a bit of an empath, you may feel that you understand what it's like to be a plant, but Scott is going to tell you scientifically what does it mean to be a plant.
 
He writes in chapter one,
For most people, the plant kingdom is a foreign land.
It's inscrutable. Inhabitants are all around us, but they communicate in a language that seems unintelligible and untranslatable. Their social interactions are different. Their currency doesn't fit in our wallet and their cuisine. Well, it's nothing like what we eat at home in the plant kingdom.
We are tourists.
 
So I would say this book is for the very serious and curious gardener- and maybe you. This book was a 2023 American Horticulture Society Award winner. I love the cover.
It's beautiful, and of course, I love the title, A Gardener's Guide to Botany.
This is the perfect book to round out your collection. If you have the Botany in a Day book, it looks like a big botany workbook. I love that book. This book is a great companion to that.
There's also a book called Botany for Gardeners, and when I think about Scott's book here, I will be putting it on the shelf beside both books.
This book is 256 pages that will amp up your understanding of plants - No more mystery -and provide all of the answers you've been looking for.
You can get a copy of A Gardener's Guide to Botany by Scott Zona and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $20.
 
Botanic Spark
1772 Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, better known by his pen name Novalis, is born.
He was an 18th-century German poet and writer, mystic, and philosopher of early German romanticism.
All last week I was watching videos about Novalis. He led such an exciting but short life. He had a tragic romance after falling in love with a girl who tragically died of tuberculosis, and then Novalis himself died young. He died at 28 of tuberculosis as well.
But in his concise life, he accomplished so much, including the fact that during his life, he had three moments of mystical revelation, which led to a deeper understanding of the world and time, and humanity. This is partly what makes him such a fascinating person to examine.
One of the things that we remember Novalis for is his fascination with blue flowers. He made the blue flower a symbol of German romanticism. To Novalis, the blue flower represented romantic yearning. It also meant a point of unification between humanity and nature. It represented life, but it also described death.
And if you are a gardener who the blue flower bug has bitten (and who hasn't? I mean, who does not love a blue flower?), you know what I'm talking about. Blue blossoms are so rare. They're so captivating. Most people can relate to Novalis' love of Blue Flowers and why it became so significant in his writing.
Now the book where Novalis wrote about the Blue flower is a book called Henry of Ofterdingen, and it's here where we get these marvelous quotes about the blue blossom, which some believe was a heliotrope and which others believe was a cornflower,
But whatever the case, the symbolism of the blue flower became very important.
Novalis wrote,
It is not the treasures that have stirred in me such an unspeakable longing; I care not for wealth and riches. But that blue flower I do long to see; it haunts me, and I can think and dream of nothing else.
 
And that reminds me of what it was like to be a new gardener 30 years ago. A friend got me onto growing Delphinium, and I felt just like Novalis; I could not stop thinking about the Delphinium and imagining them at maturity around the 4th of July, standing about five to six feet tall, those beautiful blue spikes.
And, of course, my dream of the Delphinium always surpassed what the actual Delphinium looked like, and yet, I still grew them. I loved them. And I did that for about ten years. So there you go, the call and the power of the blue flower.
Novalis writes later in the book,
He saw nothing but the blue flower and gazed at it for a long time with indescribable tenderness.
 
Those blue flowers command our attention. Well, I'll end with this last quote. It's a flower quote from Novalis, and it'll get you thinking. Novalis was a very insightful philosopher and a lover of nature, and he believed in the answers that could be found in nature. And so what he does here in this quote is he asks a series of questions, and like all good philosophers, Novalis knows that the answer is in the questions and that the questions are more powerful than the answers. Novalis writes,
What if you slept? 
And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? 
And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and plucked a strange and beautiful flower? 
And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? 
Ah, what then?
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener
And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

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Historical Events
1771 On this day, heavy rains caused the ancient raised peat bog known as the Solway Moss to burst over its earthen banks and flowed down into a valley covering four hundred acres of farmland.
The next day, Solway Moss covered the surrounding land with 15 feet of thick feculent mud. Solway Moss was a one-by-two-mile-long moss land growing since the end of the last Ice Age. The raised bog was an estimated 50 feet higher than the surrounding farmland. The living surface of the Solway Moss was a unique mix of bog cotton, sphagnum, and heather. The porous soupy surface hosted a few shrubs and standing pools of water. But the rotting vegetation created a dangerous predicament that no man or cattle would dare traverse throughout the year.
Over two hundred years before the Solway Moss burst, the English and the Scots fought over the land surrounding the bog in the Battle of Solway Moss. After the English victory, hundreds of Scots drowned in the bog as they tried to return home by crossing the moss hillside. Like a sponge, peat expands to absorb moisture when it gets wet. And, during wet months like November of 1771, the peat swells; in this case, the peat swelled until it bursts.
The incredible event was recorded in a journal:
A farmer who lived nearest the moss was alarmed with an unusual noise.
The crust had at once given way, and the black deluge was rolling toward his house.
He gave notice to his neighbors with all expedition;
others received no other advice but... by its noise,
many by its entrance into their houses....
some were surprised with it even in their beds.
[while some] remaining totally ignorant…until the morning
when their neighbors with difficulty got them out through the roof.
The eruption burst… like a cataract of thick ink...
intermixed with great fragments of peat...
filling the whole valley... leaving... tremendous heaps of turf.
 
1785 Birth of Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, American Lutheran Pastor and botanist.
He was always referred to by his second name Heinrich. The Muhlenberg family was a founding family of the United States, and Heinrich came from a long line of pastors. His father, Pastor Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg, was known as the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America. His brother was a major in the Revolutionary War, and his other brother was a Congressman.
Muhlenberg's journals are a treasure trove of his thoughts on botanical self-improvement. He would write:
How may I best advance myself in the knowledge of plants?
 
And Muhlenberg would set goals and reminders to challenge himself, writing:
It is winter, and there is little to do . . . Toward spring I should go out and [put together] a chronology of the trees; how they come out, the flowers, how they appear,. . . . I should especially [take not of] the flowers and fruit.

The grass Muhlenbergia was named for Heinrich Muhlenberg.
Muhly grasses are beautiful native grasses with two critical strengths in their plant profile: drought tolerance and visual punch. In addition, Muhly grasses are easy-going, growing equally well in harsh conditions and perfectly manicured gardens.
The Muhly cultivar 'White Cloud' offers gorgeous white plumes. When the coveted Pink Muhly blooms, people often stop and ask the name of the beautiful pink grass. Lindheimer's Muhly makes a fantastic screen, and Bamboo Muhly commands attention when it
is featured in containers.
All Muhly grasses like well-drained soil and full sun. If you plant them in the fall, be sure to get them situated and in the ground at least a month before the first frost.
And here's an interesting side note: Muhlenberg also discovered the bog turtle. In 1801, the turtle was named Clemmys muhlenbergii in his honor.
 
1818 Death of England's Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III.
Charlotte is remembered as the patroness of the arts, an amateur botanist, and a champion of Kew Gardens.
In addition to the astounding fact that Charlotte gave birth to 15 children, she was a fascinating royal.
Born in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany, Charlotte was the first person in England to bring a Christmas tree indoors to celebrate the holiday season. Charlotte had gotten the idea from her home country of Germany. In December 1800, Charlotte selected a yew which was brought inside Windsor Castle and festively decorated.
Charlotte and her husband, King George, both loved botany. After his mother died, George gained control of Kew and Charlotte set about expanding Kew Gardens.
On the property, Charlotte had a little cottage installed along with a rustic cottage garden. Her daughter Elizabeth likely painted the attic room ceiling with nasturtium and morning glory.
Charlotte was quite serious in her pursuit of botany. She collected plants and had a personal herbarium to help with her studies.
The President of the Linnean Society, Sir James Edward Smith, personally tutored Charlotte in botany, along with her four daughters.
And. George and Charlotte both became close friends with the botanical tissue paper artist Mary Delaney. At the end of Mary's life,
George and Charlotte gave her a house at Windsor along with a pension.
When plant hunters in South Africa discovered the Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae) flower, it was sent to England and named for
Charlotte's birthplace, Strelitz. The botanical name for the Bird of Paradise is Strelitzia reginae, "stray-LIT-zee-ah REJ-in-ee."
The early part of Charlotte's reign occurred before the American Revolution, which is why so many American locations were named in Charlotte's honor. Eleven cities are named Charlotte, the most famous being Charlotte, North Carolina. It's no wonder that Charlotte, NC, has the nickname The Queen's City," and there's a 25-foot tall bronze statue of Charlotte outside the Charlotte airport. Mecklenburg County in North Carolina and Virginia are both named in honor of Charlotte's home in Germany.
Charlotte died at 74 in the smallest English royal palace, Kew Palace, at Kew Gardens. She reigned for 57 years.
Today, gardeners love the Japanese Anemone Queen Charlotte. It's the perfect plant for adding late color to the garden with light pink
petals and golden-yellow centers.
 
1889 Birth of Ethel Zoe Bailey, American botanist.
Ethel graduated from Smith College in 1911 after majoring in zoology.
Ethel was the daughter of the American horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey. Her father instilled in her a love for botany, adventure, and archiving. Liberty brought Ethel along on his travels to Latin America and Asia in his quest for new plant discoveries.
One of her obituaries shared a story from one of their more daring trips:
One of the pair's most daring expeditions was to the wild jungle island of Barro Colorado in the Panama Canal Zone. Disregarding
warnings about disease and boa constrictors, Miss Bailey her father, then 73, and a few other botanists trekked through hip-deep water of the Mohinja Swamp in search of a rare palm.
They found it growing in the swamp, as Bailey had predicted, and photographed it in the pouring rain with the camera tripod almost
submerged in water.
In turn, Ethel became the curator of the Bailey herbarium above the Mann Library at Cornell University - a position she held for over two decades until 1957. For Ethel, maintaining the collection was her personal mission. She was essentially the steward of her father's work after he donated his private plant collection to Cornell University.
For Ethel, Cornell was home. In fact, she was one of the few people to have the honor of being born on the Cornell campus on the spot where Phillips Hall now stands.  
One biography of Ethel noted that 
She continued to volunteer on a daily basis at the Hortorium, until her death in 1983. Still driving herself to and from work, Miss Bailey had reached the auspicious age of 93. Driving had always been an important part of Miss Bailey's life. She was the first woman in Ithaca to receive a chauffeur's (driver's) license.
Ethel's remarkable ability to organize and catalog large amounts of information led to an impressive notecard filing system of every single plant that had been listed in most of the published plant catalogs during Ethel's lifetime. This massive indexing project on simple 3" x 5" cards helped Ethel's father with his research and became an invaluable resource to other researchers and plant experts worldwide. The catalog was later named the Ethel Z. Bailey Horticultural Catalogue in her honor.
Ethel received much well-deserved recognition for her work during her lifetime, including the George Robert White Medal in 1967 from the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Smith College Medal in 1970.
 
1916 Birth of Shelby Foote, American writer, historian, and journalist. 
He is remembered for his massive, three-volume, 3,000-page history of the Civil War - a project he completed in 1974.
Shelby lived in Memphis and loved to spend days in his pajamas. He did most of his writing in his home study with a view of his small and tidy garden. Shelby was old-fashioned. He took to writing with hand-dipped pens, which slowed the pace of his writing - a practice he felt made him a better writer.
One of his favorite books was The Black Flower by Howard Bahr, an acclaimed historical fiction book set during the Civil War.
 
Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation
Rosa by Peter Kukielski ("Kooh-KEL-ski")
This book came out in 2021, and the subtitle is The Story of the Rose.
Peter is a world-renowned rosarian or rose expert. He has written many popular books on roses, including Roses Without Chemicals. He spent twelve years as the curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden. During that time, he oversaw a $2.5 million redesign of a massive rose collection in a garden designed by Beatrix Farrand. He helped lead the launch of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Ontario. He also promotes disease-resistant roses as a leader on the National EarthKind team.
A review in Maine Gardener by Tom Atwell raved that this book is a beauty with lavish illustrations and the long, fascinating history of the rose.
In chapter one, Kukielski lists all the plants other than roses in the Rosacea family (surprising ones include mountain ash, apples, raspberries and strawberries.) He also shows, with pictures (the book has 256 color illustrations in total), the many different classes of roses. Modern roses, defined as those introduced since 1867, get their own section.
 
Tom Atwell's review also revealed the origin story of this book.
Three or four times, editors and publishers at Yale University Press asked Portland resident and rose expert Peter E Kukielski to please write a
history of the rose. Kukielski kept saying no. The last time they asked, he responded, "Perhaps you should ask why I am saying no."
When they did, he told them he'd had read many rose histories, and they all said the same thing. The world didn't need another one, he said.
What Kukielsk wanted to do was tell stories about roses. Yes, include some history, but also encompasses the rose's role in religion, literature, art, music and movies. He wanted to offer true plant geeks a bit about the rose's botany, too. In the end, that's the book he was able to write.
 
In Rosa, Peter takes us on a chronological journey through the history of the rose, including a close look at the fascinating topic of the rose water or rose oil industry. These rose-based products were an essential part of life in the middle east and Asia, with entire population centers springing up around the craft.
In a 2007 article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Peter shared that,
the only way to know a rose is to grow roses. [Peter] grew up watching his grandmother tend her rose garden in Stone Mountain, Ga. Little did she know that she was planting the seed for her grandson's future career.
 
And in a 2008 article featured in the Red Deer Advocate, Peter shared great insights into why roses reign supreme in the fall.
It turns out, as many gardeners will attest, roses often save their best blooms for fall. All year long, roses store energy, which is ultimately released at the end of their season, resulting in gorgeous showy blossoms in autumn.
Peter advised,
"In my opinion, late September into October is a very close second to June as far as beauty. The days are nicer, the nights are cooler and the sunlight is better, coating everything with a golden glow."
Summer is hard on roses, which require a lot of energy to flower. 
"It's hot, humid and exhausting. Roses have their fabulous spring, shut down a bit in summer and then display another burst of glorious colour in the fall when they're less stressed."
 
And in a 2021 interview with Margaret Roach, Peter shared his tip regarding what rose to plant. 
Talk to the local rose society, Kukielski suggests, and neighbours who garden: "If the person down the street is growing Queen Elizabeth and it looks great, take that as a cue.
 
And that passion and pragmatism made Peter Kukielski the perfect author for this book on roses.
This book is 256 of the story of the rose, the Queen of flowers, and her long reign through human history.
You can get a copy of Rosa by Peter Kukielski and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $7.
 
Botanic Spark
1861 Birth of Archibald Lampman, Canadian poet, and naturalist.
Archibald loved camping and the countryside. The natural world inspired his verse, and he became known as "The Canadian Keats."
As a result of contracting rheumatic fever in his childhood, Archibald's life was cut short, and he died at 37.
Archibald's poem Knowledge compares our quest for wisdom to a garden.
What is more large than knowledge and more sweet;
Knowledge of thoughts and deeds, of rights and wrongs,
Of passions and of beauties and of songs;
Knowledge of life; to feel its great heart beat
Through all the soul upon her crystal seat;
To see, to feel, and evermore to know;
To till the old world's wisdom till it grow
A garden for the wandering of our feet.
Oh for a life of leisure and broad hours,
To think and dream, to put away small things,
This world's perpetual leaguer of dull naughts;
To wander like the bee among the flowers
Till old age find us weary, feet and wings
Grown heavy with the gold of many thoughts.
 
Archibald is buried at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa, and a plaque near his grave is inscribed with his poem "In November," which ends with these words:

The hills grow wintery white, and bleak winds moan
About the naked uplands. I alone
Am neither sad, nor shelterless, nor grey,
Wrapped round with thought, content to watch and dream.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener
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Historical Events
1769 Birth of Samuel Thompson (books about this person), American self-taught New Hampshire holistic doctor, and herbalist. In 1809, he was tried and acquitted for the murder of Ezra Lovett after treatment with lobelia inflata, a herb commonly called puke weed that he regarded as a key to treating disease. Despite his iconoclast approach to medicine, Samual's herbal remedies and vapor baths were popular, and his followers were known as Thompsonians. In addition to lobelia, Samuel primarily used herbs like barberry bark, red clover, and cayenne. In his New Guide to Health (1833), Samuel wrote,
I have made use of Cayenne in all kinds of disease, and have given it to patients of all ages and under every circumstance that has come under my practice... It is no doubt, the most powerful stimulant known, but its power is entirely congenial to nature, being powerful only in raising and maintaining that heat on which life depends.
 
1830 Birth of Henry Arthur Bright (books by this author), English gardener and writer. Henry began a diary, which would become a book called A Year in a Lancashire Garden. In February 1874, Henry was doing what gardeners do this time of year: cleaning up and editing the garden for the new season, looking through garden catalogs, and mulling over unappreciated plants - like the humble spring Crocus.
But all things are now telling of spring. We have finished our pruning of the wall-fruit; we have ...sown our earliest peas… We have been looking over old volumes of Curtis's Botanical Magazine and have been trying to get... old forgotten plants of beauty, and now of rarity. We have found enough, however, to add a fresh charm to our borders for June, July, and August...
I sometimes think that the Crocus is less cared for than it deserves. Our modern poets rarely mention it, but in Homer, when he would make a carpet for the gods, it is of Lotus, Hyacinth, and Crocus.
 
1944 Birth of Alice Walker (books by this author), American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she published The Color Purple, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In her book, In Search of Our Mother's Garden (1983), Alice wrote,
In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.
 
Grow That Garden Library™ 
Book Recommendation
The Wardian Case by Luke Keogh
This book came out late in 2020, and the subtitle is How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World.
When Australian Luke Keogh ("Key-oh") set out to tackle the topic of the Wardian case, he was working in Munich on an Anthropocene Exhibit and curating a piece about how goods had been moved around the globe. This topic led him to the topic of the Wardian Case. Wardian Cases are a great topic, and original Wardian cases are getting harder and harder to find.
For all their miraculous functionality, Wardian cases are actually quite simple. They essentially are wood boxes with a glass top. The box could be filled with potted plants or be layered with bricks, moss, and soil and then have plants potted directly into the box.
Luke's book is a look back at not only the cases but the inventor of the Wardian case and the man they were named for: Nathanial Bagshaw Ward. Nathaniel's story began in 1829 when he was struggling to grow plants. He lived close to the London docks, and there was a lot of air pollution, which wasn't suitable for plants or people. Anyway, Nathaniel was a life-long naturalist, and he decided that he wanted to create this perfect environment for a moth to grow in. So he settled on using a large bottle, and then he put the moth pupa in the bottle along with some plants. As he was waiting for the moth to hatch, he realized that he had a beautiful little fern growing in the little biosphere he created, and he was suddenly struck by how well the fern had grown in that sealed environment (as opposed to his home garden). And that was the inspiration for the Wardian case, which was essentially the precursor to the terrarium.
Nathaniel experimented for years before finally creating a Wardian case that could be used on ships and long voyages and make it possible for explorers to bring back live specimens. His first case went all the way to Australia. Ward waited for seven months for the ship to return, and he was pleased to hear from the captain that his case was a grand success. In fact, halfway through the journey, the plants were doing so well that they had to prune back some of the growth during the voyage.
In his book, Luke shares many fascinating stories about Ward and his cases and how they transformed plant exploration, food, and the world. For instance, Ward was passionate about having windowsill boxes in the homes of the lower class so that they could grow plants in their home. Luke's book offers wonderful insights, history, images, and maps of trade routes to help contextualize the importance of this simple and yet profound invention.
You can get a copy of The Wardian Case by Luke Keogh and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for $25.
 
Botanic Spark
1874 Birth of Amy Lawrence Lowell (books by this author), an American poet of the imagist school. In 1926, she posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for a collection that included her popular poem Lilacs.
In Madonna of the Evening Flowers, Amy wrote:
You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me these things.
 
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Historical Events
1809 On this day, Thomas Jefferson (books about this person) wrote to his friend and favorite nurseryman, Bernhard McMahon.
At the time, Jefferson was counting the days until he retired from the White House.
From Jefferson's letters, it's clear that he was looking forward to spending more time in his garden.
The previous July, Jefferson had written McMahon and confided:
Early in the next year I shall ask [for] some cuttings of your gooseberries 
and [I'll also] send a pretty copious list for...the best kinds of garden seeds and flowers. 
I shall be at home early in March [and plan to] very much devote myself to my garden… 
I have the tulips you sent to me in great perfection, also the hyacinths, tuberoses, amaryllis, and artichokes.
 
And so, when Jefferson wrote to McMahon on this day - a month before leaving office - he was following up with the list of plants he wanted at Monticello ("MontiCHELLo"). As you might imagine, Jefferson's letter reads the same as any written by an avid gardener in pursuit of new stock:
Sir
I have been daily expecting some of the large hiccory nuts from Roanoke… 
but they [have] not yet arrived.   
I must now ask [a] favor of you 
to furnish me with the [items mentioned below] for the garden, 
which will occupy much of my attention... at home. 
…If you will be so good as to send them by the stage 
which leaves Philadelphia on the 1st of March… 
they will come in time for me to carry on to Monticello. 
I salute you with esteem.
Th: Jefferson

• Chili strawberry
• Hudson strawberry
• Some of the fine gooseberry plants of which you sent me the fruit last year
• Some roots of Crown imperials(Fritillaria imperialis - a dazzling and unique member of the Lily (Liliaceae) family)
• lilium convallarium (lily of the valley)
• Auricula
• Sea kale, or Crambe maritime
• One gallon of Leadman’s dwarf peas (mentioned in your book page 310)

 
1823 John Galvin was born. An English-American born in Kent, he mastered his grandfather's nursery business in Ireland before immigrating to America with his mother at 18.
After working for several nurseries in New England, including the property owned by Thomas Motley which would eventually become the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard, John went on to beautify Boston as the City's Forester. John's greatest legacy was transforming old circus grounds and a playground into the Boston Public Garden. After the Massachusetts Public Garden Act was passed in 1856, George Meacham was hired to design the park. But it was John Galvin, and his crew who installed the trees, shrubs, flowers, and turf.
Outside of his work for the city, John opened the very first retail florist shop in Boston, making life much easier for him and his customers. Before John's flower shop, Bostonians had to order their roses and other cut flowers by mail. They would put their orders in little post boxes that John had placed in various stores around the city. It was a cumbersome process. John named his business John Galvin & Co., and the work became a family affair as John's wife and seven children helped the business prosper. Over time, the middle child, a son named Thomas, took over the business, and he became a successful gardener, landscape designer, and florist in his own right.
John was a beloved member of many Boston social and charitable groups. He embraced his Irish heritage and loved dancing jigs and reels. One obituary noted that his favorite Irish song was Malony Don't Know that McCarthy is Dead, sung to the tune of the Irish Washerwoman.
Two years before he died, at the age of 76, the April 6th, 1899 edition of the New England Florist shared a little story about John. They wrote,
The veteran florist John Galvin, the father of Thomas W Galvin, had his pocket picked on the street the other day - March 31st, we believe. But [he] knew nothing about it until told by a friend whom [John] suspected of trying to spring an April Fool's on him. [That is,] until he found his pocketbook with $70 in cash missing.
[But in a stroke of good fortune,] the thief, while being chased by the police, [dropped the pocketbook.] [John's ownership] was ascertained [after finding] his name marked [inside].
The moral is to get $70 in your pocketbook and then be sure your name is on it.
 
1944 On this day, Del Monte ran an ad supporting the quality of their canned and jarred fruit over homegrown. 
Despite prior marketing in support of Victory Gardens, on this day Del Monte floated a pitch to consumers on this day during WWII that featured a woman holding a can of peaches saying,
I learned the hard way all right! — and believe me, since I put up fruit of my own I appreciate Del Monte quality more than ever!
 
Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation
Treasures of the Mexican Table by Pati Jinich
This book came out late in 2021, and the subtitle is Classic Recipes, Local Secrets.
This is Pati's third cookbook. It follows two previous cookbooks that were very well received: Pati's Mexican Table: The Secrets of Real Mexican Home Cooking and Mexican Today: New and Rediscovered Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen.
Born and raised in Mexico City, Pati Jinich ("Hee-nich") hosts her PBS television series Pati's Mexican Table, which is going on its tenth season and has won numerous awards, including James Beard Awards and Emmys.
In her latest cookbook book, Treasures of the Mexican Table, Pati is sharing heirloom recipes that have been held onto in families for generations. These recipes utilize vegetables like peppers, onion, garlic, and countless herbs straight from the garden. If Chipotle's success indicates the popularity of Mexican food, then Pati's Treasures will be sure to please - taking center stage on your outdoor dining tables this summer. Pati's cookbook is a hefty work - 416 pages and weighing in at almost three pounds.
Inside, you'll find history and tradition, as well as cherished family recipes covering every category of cooking from soups to tacos, quesadillas, burritos and tamales and salsas, pickles, guacamole, beans, rice, and pasta, just to name a few.
You can get a copy of Pati Jinich Treasures of the Mexican Table by Pati Jinich and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for $23.
 
Botanic Spark
1819 Birth of John Ruskin (books by this author), Victorian-era English art critic, watercolorist, and philanthropist.
John's love of nature is reflected in much of his writing. John wrote:
Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.
 
John also recognized that beauty and utility didn't always go hand in hand. He once observed,
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance.
 
John's named his home and garden Brantwood. The name Brantwood is Norse; Brant means steep. Situated on a wooded highpoint overlooking a lake, today Brantwood is administered by a charitable trust.
As with most gardens from time to time, John's own garden experienced times of neglect. By the end of the summer in 1879, John wrote,
Looking over my kitchen garden yesterday, I found it [a] miserable mass of weeds gone to seed; the roses in the higher garden putrefied into brown sponges, feeling like dead snails; and the half-ripe strawberries all rotten at the stalks.
 
As for his legacy, there's one famous garden saying from John Ruskin that has remained popular through the years:
Kind hearts are the garden,
Kind thoughts are the roots,
Kind words are the blossoms,
Kind deeds are the fruit.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener
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Historical Events
1688 Birth of Cadwallader Colden (books about this person), Scottish-American physician, botanist, and Lieutenant Governor of New York. The genus Coldenia in the borage family is named for him. After arriving in the United States in 1718, Cadwallader and his wife raised ten children in Queens on their Coldenham estate. His fifth child was a girl named Jane, and early on, she expressed interest in botany. Cadwallader could not resist teaching her the topic. He opened up his library to her, shared his correspondence with her, and allowed her to be present when the family was visited by many of the leading botanists of the time, like John Bertram. Today Jane is remembered as America's first female botanist. Cadwallader was so proud of Jane that he once wrote to a friend,
I (have) often thought that botany is an amusement which may be made greater to the ladies who are often at a loss to fill up their time… I have a daughter (with) an inclination... for natural philosophy or history… I took the pains to explain to her Linnaeus's system and put it in English for her. She [has] grown very fond of the study… Notwithstanding that, she does not understand Latin. She has already (written) a pretty large volume in... the description of plants.
 
1812 Birth of Charles Dickens (books by this author). The English Victorian-era writer and social critic had a garden at Gad's Hill Place, and he walked around the garden every day before writing. Charles' favorite flower was the Mrs. Pollock geranium (1858). The bloom is a classic geranium, bred by the Scottish gardener and hybridist Peter Grieve. Charles grew geraniums in his garden and conservatory at Gad's Hill. He even wore geraniums on his lapel. Charles' novels contain many garden references.
In Hard Times, he wrote,
Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.
And in Bleak House, he wrote:
I found every breath of air, and every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass and every passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight for me.
 
1880 On this day, Henri Frederic Amiel (books about this person), Swiss philosopher and poet, wrote in his journal:
Hoarfrost and fog, but the general aspect is bright and fairylike and has nothing in common with the gloom in Paris and London, of which the newspapers tell us. This silvery landscape has a dreamy grace, a fanciful charm, which is unknown both to the countries of the sun and to those of coal smoke. The trees seem to belong to another creation, in which white has taken the place of green…. No harshness anywhere -- all is velvet. My enchantment beguiled me out both before and after dinner. 
 
Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation
Green by Ula Maria
This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is Simple Ideas For Small Outdoor Spaces.
Jason Ingram did a lovely job capturing beautiful images of these enchanting outdoor vignettes designed by Ula Maria.
Ula Maria is a young landscape designer from Lithuania. She won the RHS Young Designer of the Year Medal back in 2017.
In her book, Green, Ula is determined to reveal a simple truth about dealing with outdoor spaces: you don't have to be a plant guru to have a beautiful and functional outdoor space. There are styles and types of gardens to suit every individual.
In this book, Ula focuses on outdoor spaces that are on the smaller side. Do you want to install a tiny Oasis on the balcony of your apartment? No problem. Are you looking to add a touch of the Mediterranean to your garden space and incorporate more color and vibrancy into an outdoor dining room? Well, Ula has you covered.
Ula shares some of her favorite plants, and she divides them into functional areas like plants that can be used for structure or interest, et cetera.
Stepping outside the comfort zone of your home and into the unknown of the outdoors may seem daunting at first. But remember that, unlike interior spaces, even the best gardens are never truly finished and are often frayed around the edges.
This sentiment is something that Ula embraces, saying, "that's the beauty of nature." 
Ula's book is 176 pages of doable ideas and encouragement to get your creativity flowing regarding your 2022 outdoor spaces - whether they're around your home or out in the garden,
You can get a copy of Green by Ula Maria and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes.
Note: I saw that a few used copies were going for around $4, but you'll need to act quickly if you want to get one at that price.
 
Botanic Spark
1867 Laura Ingalls Wilder (books by this author)was born.
The writer, Marta McDowell, profiled Laura in one of her recent books, and she shed new light on Laura as a naturalist in one of her blog posts. She wrote,
Long before she was a writer. Laura Ingalls Wilder was a gardener and farmer growing food for the table and raising crops for sale.
In early February of 1918, over a hundred years ago, this month, Laura Ingalls Wilder used her writing talents to encourage people to garden in an article that she wrote for a local newspaper. Laura wrote,
Now is the time to make a garden. 
Anyone can be a successful gardener at this time of year and I know of no pleasant, her occupation these cold snowy days than to sit warm and snug by the fire making a garden with a pencil and a seed catalog. 
What perfect vegetables do we raise in that way? Best of all, there is not a bug or worm in the whole garden and the work is so easily done. 
How near the real garden of summer approaches the ideal garden of our winter fancies depends upon how practically we dream. and how hard we work. 
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener
And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

Today in botanical history, we celebrate Laurel Hill and Root Crop Preservation in 1835.
We'll also remember the botanist who discovered the Titan arum and a little poem about the November garden by Louise Driscoll.
We'll hear an excerpt from Pomegranate Soup.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a beautiful garden book from 2016.
And then we'll wrap things up with a look back at a charming garden column from 1999.
 
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• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there's no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Circulating Specimens: History | herbariumworld.wordpress.com | Maura Flannery
 
Important Events
November 16, 1776
On this day, around 7 am Hessian troops allied with the Britsh opened fire on the American revolutionaries on Laurel Hill in Philadelphia. Laurel Hill is not named for the plant called Laurel. Laurel Hill was originally part of the Joseph Sims estate, and Joseph went by "Laurel," the property was named Laurel Hill in his honor.
Mountain Laurel is botanically known as Kalmia latifolia in honor of the Finnish botanist Pehr Kalm.
After his expedition to North America in the mid-1700s, Pehr correctly predicted that the American colonists would eventually rebel.
Laurel Hill became America's first National Historic Landmark Cemetery.
 
November 16, 1835
On this day, the Hartford Courant wrote a piece called Gardener's Work For November.
It is now quite time to [preserve] the roots and ...Mr. McMahon's method of preserving roots is as follows:
Previous to the commencement of severe frost, you should take up, with as little injury as possible, the roots of your turnips, carrots, parsnips, beets, salsify, scorzonera, Hamburg, or large-rooted parsley, skirrots, Jerusalem artichokes, turnip-rooted celery, and ...horseradish…
On the surface of a dry spot of ground, in a well-sheltered situation, lay a stratum of sand two-inches thick, [the place the root crops], covering them with another layer of sand, (the drier the better,) and…continue to layer about of sand and roots till all are laid in…
then cover the heap or ridge [with] a good coat of straw, up and down as if thatching a house.
 
November 16, 1843
Birth of Odoardo Beccari, Italien botanist.
After growing up an orphan, Beccarri managed to get an education in his native Italy, and he eventually traveled to England to study at Kew.
Beccarri was friends with Hooker and Darwin, but he also befriended James Brooke, which meant he could spend three years exploring Borneo.
During his lifetime, Becarri traveled all over India, Malaysia, and New Zealand. But it was on a little voyage he took to central Sumatra (in Indonesia) in 1878 that Beccarri discovered the plant with which he will forever be associated: the Amorphophallus titanum - or the Titan arum - the largest flower in the world.
Seven years later, in 1885, the first Titan arum specimen bloomed at Kew, and when it happened, it created a sensation.
Today, a Titan arum bloom still draws thousands of visitors. People love to take a selfie in front of the giant blooming plant.
The flower is commonly referred to as the corpse flower as it smells like rotting flesh.  
In a recent fascinating article, scent scientists identified the compounds that make up that terrible smell. The odor includes aspects of cheese sweat, rotting fish, decomposing meat, and garlic, among even worse unmentionable compounds.
The putrid smell is meant to attract beetles and other insects to move pollen between blooming plants so that they can reproduce. It takes the corpse flower a decade before it can bloom. Incredibly, the plants only bloom for 24-36 hours before collapsing.
Between that first bloom at Kew (back in 1885) and the year 2000, fewer than fifty Titan arum blooms had been recorded. But, in 2016, suddenly, dozens of corpse flowers around the world bloomed within weeks of each other. Horticulturists are still attempting to discern the reason for the clustered bloom event.
 
November 16, 1920
On this day, The Buffalo Times shared a poem by Louise Driscoll that had appeared in The New York Times called November Garden. Here's the first and last verse.
In my November garden,
I found a larkspur blossoming, 
A lovely, radiant blue thing. 
It swayed and shone, 
And did not seem to know
It was alone 
In my November garden. 
Where dry, dark leaves are falling 
And all the birds have flown.
The birds and Summer went 
A way that no man knows.
But here is honey that
No bee will find. 
No bird will linger at 
This larkspur cup.
This grace the butterfly 
Has left behind.
Summer went away
And gave it up
Yet it is bravely blue
Swinging there alone 
As if to challenge you!
 
 
Unearthed Words

It is the pomegranate that gives Fesenjoon its healing capabilities. The original apple of sin, the fruit of a long-gone Eden, the pomegranate shields itself in a leathery crimson shell, which in Roman times was used as a form of protective hide. Once the pomegranate's bitter skin is peeled back, though, a juicy garnet flesh is revealed to the lucky eater, popping and bursting in the mouth like the final succumber of lovemaking.
Long ago, when the earth remained still, content with the fecundity of perpetual spring, and Demeter was the mother of all that was natural and flowering, it was this tempting fruit that finally set the seasons spinning. Having eaten six pomegranate seeds in the underworld, Persephone, the Goddess of Spring's high-spirited daughter, had been forced to spend six months of the year in the eternal halls of death. Without her beautiful daughter by her side, a mournful Demeter retreated to the dark corners of the universe, allowing for the icy gates of winter to finally creak open. A round crimson herald of frost, the pomegranate comes to harvest in October and November, so Fesenjoon is best made with its concentrate during other times of the year.
― Marsha Mehran, Pomegranate Soup
 
Grow That Garden Library
Plant by Phaidon Editors 
This book came out in 2016, and the subtitle is Exploring the Botanical World.
This book is gorgeous. You might remember it - it's got a black background and then a simple blossom design. Each of the leaves is made with a different type of fabric which makes for a magnificent cover.
Now, of course, like all Phaidon books, this book is so visually appealing from the cover to the inside of the book. The whole point is to show the beauty and the diversity of plants through 300 works of botanical art that date back from ancient times all the way to modern times.
You'll see plants and flowers and the entire botanical world portrayed using a variety of different mediums.
Phaidon did a great job of curating all of these images. This is the first book to pull together botanical art across so many different media types and from such a broad timeline and every corner of the globe.
Of course, in this book, you're going to see beautiful botanical art, but then you're also going to get lots of expert information about the pieces of art and the plants that are depicted.
Phaidon is known for putting together high-level, very specialized books. And in this case, to tackle this broad topic of plants, they pulled together all kinds of experts, museum curators, horticulturists, historians, botanists, and more. Then they had each of them contribute their expertise in creating the text for this book.
I love what Gardens Illustrated wrote about this book:
"A dazzling collection of more than 300 images of plants that brings the evolution of botanical art right into the 21st century... Alongside old favorites, such as Redoute and Mary Delany, there is much here that is both unfamiliar and arresting... An extraordinary collection." 
This book is 352 pages of botanical art that gives us a new appreciation and understanding of plants and their role in our history and culture.
You can get a copy of Plant: Exploring the Botanical World by Phaidon Editors and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $17.
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
November 16, 1999
On this day, The Columbus Telegram shared a column by Elizabeth Coblentz  - an Old Order Amish woman who handwrote her column by lantern light in her Indiana home.
November is now on the calendar, and we are still having beautiful days in the 70s. The laundry is drying well out there on the clothesline, and work is continuing in our garden. 
I have been taking the celery, carrots, red beets, cabbage, and pumpkins out from the garden today. Hopefully, the weather will stay nice, and some vegetables will grow even larger. 
To the reader who sent me radish and turnip seeds to plant: I did plant them in August, and we are now feasting on them. They are very good and tender, which was surprising considering our hot, dry summer. 
I put some leftover small potatoes in the ground, and the yield was good. I should have put more sweet potato plants in the ground, but at least we have enough for a good taste this winter. We'll be glad for all this hard work in the garden during the long, cold, dark days of January when we can open those canning jars and taste the bounty of summer. 
Sunday evening, we planned a favorite around here for supper: tacos. 
We had a large gathering, but having family over is the best of times. Those sweet, precious grandchildren are always welcome here, so the house was full of children. We all enjoy a taco supper. The tomatoes, mangoes (peppers) and onions used on the tacos were all from our garden. Canned hamburger was browned for the tacos, and there was lots more to feast on because everyone else brought a covered dish. As the family gets bigger and older we have to use larger containers now. 
Here is a good dessert to use those beets from the garden:
 
Red Beet Chocolate Cake 
1 1/2 cups sugar 
3 eggs 
1 cup oil 
1 1/2 cups cooked, pureed, fresh beets 
2 (1 ounce) squares of unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled 
1 teaspoon vanilla 
1 3/4 cups flour 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
sifted confectioner's sugar

• Mix flour, soda, and salt. Set aside.
• Combine sugar, eggs, and oil in a mixing bowl. Stir vigorously. (People who use electric mixers can use them here at medium speed for 2 minutes.)
• Beat in beets, chocolate, and vanilla.
• Gradually add dry ingredients, beating well after each addition.
• Pour into buttered 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan.
• Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or till cake tests done when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in pan.
• Cover and let stand overnight to improve flavor. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

PS. You can put cream cheese icing on instead of powdered sugar.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate nutmeg, some flower recommendations for a green garden, and the rebirth of the NYC flower show after a ten-year hiatus.
We'll hear an excerpt from some writing by Ray Bradbury.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a beautiful book by Bunny Williams.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the fate of Empress Josephine's copy of Pierre-Joseph Redoute's botanical watercolors known as ''Les Liliacees'' (''The Lilies'').  
 
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
First NYC Tree Canopy Study Shows Growth as Storms and Budget Cuts Threaten Gains | thecity.nyc | Rachel Holliday Smith
 
Important Events
November 15, 1843
On this day, the New England Farmer ran a little blurb about the Nutmeg Tree.
The nutmeg tree flourishes in Singapore, near the equator. It is raised from the nut in nurseries, where it remains till the fifth year when it puts forth its first blossoms and shows its sex. It is then set out permanently. The trees are planted thirty feet apart, in diamond order a male tree in the center. They begin to bear in the eighth year, increasing for many years, and they pay a large profit. There is no nutmeg season. Every day of the year shows buds, blossoms, and fruit, in every stage of growth to maturity. The nutmeg is a large and beautiful tree, with thick foliage and of a rich green color. The ripe fruit is singularly brilliant. The shell is glossy black, and the mace it exposes when it bursts, is of a bright scarlet, making the tree one of the most beautiful objects of the vegetable world. 
Well, this article from 1843 was correct. Nutmeg trees can actually grow to be about 65 feet tall. They bear fruit for six decades or longer - so they're very productive. The fruit of the nutmeg tree resembles and apricots.  
And by the way, in case you're wondering the nutmeg is not a nut, it is a fruit - and that's why people with nut allergies can enjoy nutmeg because it's not a nut.
Now the botanical name for nutmeg is Myristica fragrans. The etymology of the word Myristica is Greek and means “fragrance for anointing”, which gives us a clue to one of the ways that nutmeg was used in ancient times.
You may have heard that nutmeg is illegal in Saudi Arabia. According to the journal of medical toxicology, nutmeg can be toxic and in Saudi Arabia, they consider nutmeg to be a narcotic.  Nutmeg is not allowed anywhere in the country unless it's already incorporated into some type of pre-blended spice mix.
 
November 15, 1981
On this day, Henry Mitchell wrote an article for the Washington Post called Blooms in the Boxwood in which he shared some of his favorite plants to grow in a primarily-green garden.
Regarding the Japanese anemone, Henry wrote,
It abides a good bit of shade and never looks better than against a background of box and ivy. The delicate-looking (but tough as leather) flowers are like white half-dollars set on a branching stem about four feet high, with a yellow boss of stamens in the middle. Its leaves all spring from the ground, like large green polished hands, so it looks good from spring to fall, and in winter you tidy it up and the earth is bare (sprigs of the native red cedar or holly can be stuck in…
Regarding bugbane, Henry wrote,
...named for its supposed baneful effect on bugs... Its foliage is as good as or better than that of the anemone, and in October it opens its foxtail flowers (a quite thin fox, admittedly) on firm thin stems waist to chest high. The flowers are made of hundreds of tiny white florets, somewhat like an eremurus or a buddleis, only more gracefully curving than either. Against a green wall it is very handsome; gardeners who sometimes wonder what is wrong with marigolds and zinnias, reproached for their weedy coarseness, need only consult the bugbane to see the difference in elegance. 
For Chrysanthemums, Henry advises:
As fall comes, you might indulge in a white cushion chrysanthemum. Chrysanthemums in my opinion cannot be made to look very grand or elegant, so I would not overdo them. Of course, they are fine for specialists who like to grow hundreds of different sorts, but I am speaking of just a green garden with a touch of white. Then you come again to the white Japanese anemones and bugbanes.
 
November 15, 1984
On this day, The New York Times announced the return of a Spring Flower Show for the city.
The International Flower Show ended, after over 10 years of exhibiting in the Coliseum, because of increasing costs and the demise of estates that recruited their garden staffs to create and grow exhibits,
The new show's exhibition space will be 60,000 square feet, as against the 200,000 square feet provided by the Coliseum. An advantage of the new flower show's layout is that it will be on one floor.
Larry Pardue, executive director of the Horticultural Society of New York, sponsor of the show, said: 
''It will be unlike any show in the country. Rather than view a series of small gardens, visitors will be totally immersed in two huge gardens, 76 feet by over 100 feet long. It will be designed to be an emotional experience.''
By all accounts, the 1985 flower show was a huge success and was visited by more than 83,000 people.
Larry Pardue became the Sarasota, Florida executive director of the Marie Selby Botanic Gardens, which specialized in orchids, bromeliads, and other epiphytes.
 
Unearthed Words
One day many years ago, a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said,
"We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I'll make one. I'll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like the trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I'll make a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and to all who hear it in the distant towns. I'll make me a sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn, and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life."
The Fog Horn blew.
― Ray Bradbury, The Fog Horn
 
Grow That Garden Library
A House by the Sea by Bunny Williams
This fantastic book came out in 2016 and it is all about Bunny’s marvelous, Caribbean home called La Colina.
This book is a beautiful coffee table book and what's really neat about this book is that each chapter is written by her friends. So Bunny has one friend write about the architecture and then another friend discusses the collections and another friend talks about the cooking and the food. Then Paige Dickey, the garden writer, toured the gardens and writes this wonderful essay about Bunny's beautiful gardens at La Colina.
Of course,  if I wasn't a huge bunny Williams fan if I didn't have her book called An Affair With A House or her book On Garden Style,  I maybe would be tempted not to get this book. But I am a huge bunny Williams fan and I know that everything she does is done with so much beauty, grace, and style that I could not resist getting a copy of this book.
Then once I learned that Paige Dickey was the person that got to review the gardens? Well, then I had to get my copy of this book.
This beautiful book would make a great Christmas present. The photographs are absolutely incredible.
I'll tell you a few of my favorite things from the garden section of this book. There is an entrance to the cactus garden that features all of this blue pottery and in each one of these blue pots is a cactus which makes for a stunning entrance to her cactus garden.
There's also a gorgeous stone shell fountain at the end of the swimming pool and it's covered in vine. In fact, Bunny is known for her use of vines in the garden - something to keep your eyes peeled for if you get this book because you'll see her use of vines throughout the garden. Bunny not only has vines climbing up structures, but they also just ramble around and kind of make their way - softening a lot of the hard edges in the garden.
The hardscapes are absolutely to die for and there's an avenue of Palm trees in this over-the-top, incredible garden. The entire property is just truly breathtaking.
This book is 256 pages of Bunny Williams in the Caribbean and it's a must-have if you enjoy Bunny Williams and her work.
You can get a copy of A House by the Sea by Bunny Williams and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $20.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart

November 15, 1985
On this day, The New York Times announced the auction of Empress Josephine's copy of Pierre-Joseph Redoute's botanical watercolors for ''Les Liliacees'' (''The Lilies'').
Now the speculation in this article was that the auction could go from being five minutes long to five hours or longer. They had no idea who was going to ultimately win this particular auction and they estimated that Redoute The Lilies would go for anywhere from $5 to $7 million.
Now this work was extra special because it was commissioned by Marie Antoinette. In fact, there's a famous story that Marie wanted to make sure that Redoute was as good as what she had heard and so she summoned him to come to her chambers in the middle of the night, one night and when he got there, she ordered him to paint her a cactus on the spot. He did and so obviously he proved his worth to her and he began painting many of the flowers that were in the Royal Gardens.
Now Josephine Bonaparte was a huge lover of the gardens. She loved the flowers. She loved all of the new, exotic flowers from the tropics so she was always looking for new, beautiful blossoms to put in the Royal garden and of course, she was a huge Redoute fan.
This impressive Redoute collection became hers and was passed on through her family line until 1935 when the collection was auctioned off in Zurich. Since that time it was held in a vault, in a bank as part of a family trust.
Now, when it came to this particular auction, the reporter for this article spoke with a London dealer named Peter Mitchell who specialized in flower paintings and stressed the important significance of this work. He felt it was so unusual to have all of these originals still intact and still so beautiful and he expressed his concern that the collection might be bought by a syndicate, which basically means that a group of people would get together to buy the collection and then split it up. Thus, everybody in the syndicate would get their share of the collection.
To cut the suspense, that's exactly what ended up happening.
I checked the New York times for the result of this sale and here's what they wrote.
“The sale lasted only three minutes. It was one of the fastest ever for such an expensive property. And the price achieved was the 10th highest for work purchased at an art auction house. 
''I have $5 million against all of you on the phone and most of you standing,'' John L. Marion, Sotheby's president, said from the rostrum. ''Is there any advance on $5 million? I give you fair warning - sold for $5 million.'' The 10 percent buyer's commission brought the total selling price to $5.5 million.
Now the gentleman that represented the syndicate said that he thought the collection was worth $20 million and so he was thrilled with his purchase. He also gave a little insight into the syndicate, which was made up of executives from different companies, there was also a shopping mall developer, partners in law firms, commodities traders, as well as every major investment bank in New York. He said that. 75% of them wanted the watercolors for themselves (they wanted to own a piece of Redoute’s botanical art) while the other 25% were using it purely for investment.
And so that was the fate of Pierre Joseph Redoute’s The Lilies collection of botanical watercolors that had been owned by Empress Josephine Bonaparte.
Today for you and I, we can purchase copies of Redoute’s work on Etsy for around $20.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a German-American botanist who reached out to Queen Charlotte, an American poet who found inspiration in nature and the father of ecology.
We'll hear an excerpt from The Sugar Queen - a great fiction book.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that's part of a wonderfully informative series from the RHS.
And then we'll wrap things up with a little story about the glory of Kansas gardens in November.
 
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there's no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
The Almanac A Seasonal Guide to 2021by Lia Leendertz 

Mercy Park garden adds 3 new sculptures | The Joplin Globe | Emily Younker
 
Important Events
November 3, 1766
On this day, a young botanist named  William Young returned to America after receiving the title of the Queen's botanist.
William Young was born in Germany, and he immigrated to the United States when he was just a little boy at the age of two.
His family settled in Philadelphia and eventually became neighbors to one of America's first botanists, John Bartram.
Growing up, William spent a great deal of his childhood exploring Bartram's gardens. Bertram even encouraged him to pursue botany, and he took him along on some collecting trips.
By all accounts, William was a smart and self-directed young man. When he was in his early twenties, he decided that he wanted to get the attention of the brand new Queen of England, Queen Charlotte.
Charlotte was the bride of George III, and William put together a little parcel for her - a little gift of seeds - along with a letter (no doubt congratulating her on her wedding and introducing himself as an American botanist.)
Charmed by William's thoughtful gift, Charlotte decided to summon William to England. She wanted him to come to England to study botany for a year and then return to America to collect plants on behalf of the royal family. And so that's exactly what William Young ended up doing.
When he left America, he had no formal training in botany. He was, however, full of potential and eager to learn. This opportunity in England was an extraordinary chance for William to learn the science of botany from the worldwide center for botanical research: England.
At the same time, this series of events caused a bit of jealousy and a shock in the American botanical community. John Bartram himself was an old man by the time this happened for William, and he made comments along the lines of, "Hey, I've been in America, collecting and cultivating for decades, and I've never received an offer like this."
And so many of the American botanists really couldn't believe William's good fortune. His trip was essentially like winning a botanist lottery with the promise not only of training but steady work and support from a generous, well-funded patron.
Despite Charlotte's hopes for William, his peers were dubious of William's ability to measure up to the task. While William was passionate about botany, he hadn't demonstrated any particular acumen or success that should have garnered the kind of opportunity that had come his way. The bottom line was, they didn't think William had it in him.
Yet, William's critics were not entirely fair. After all, William had been bold enough to send that package of seeds to the new Queen. And he was smart enough to leverage his German heritage when he wrote to her. Charlotte had German heritage as well, and when she first came to England, she surrounded herself with other Germans who spoke her language and shared her history, customs, and culture. Summoning William to England was just another example of Queen Charlotte making herself feel more at home away from home.
When William arrived in England, he was in his early twenties. He had a huge learning curve to conquer when it came to his new station in life. He had no idea what it was like to be in front of royalty or how to behave in Royal circles.
Of course, William didn't have a ton of life experience as a young person in his twenties. So, he performed exactly as one might imagine he would: dazzled by the luxury and lifestyle, he quickly began racking up bills. With each passing month, he found himself deeper in debt until he ended up arrested and in jail for the large debts that he owed.
Incredibly, it was the Queen who bailed him out - but not before sending him home to Philadelphia with the hopes that he could still perform as a plant collector in America.
And so it was on this day. November 3 in 1766, that William returned to America with his new title as botanist to the King and Queen. Instead of being humbled by his financial misdeeds, William returned proud and haughty. He strutted about under the auspices of his Royal appointment, but his behavior didn't endear him to his American peers.
They heard the rumors about how William had acted when he was in England and they were turned off by his peacocking and attire. In a letter to the botanist Peter Collinson, John Bartram wrote,
“I am surprised that Young is come back so soon. He cuts the greatest figure in town and struts along the streets whistling, with his sword and gold lace.”
And then Bartram confided that William had visited his garden three times, feigning respect and bragging about his yearly pay from the Royal family, which amounted to 300 pounds sterling.
Now William was no fool, and it's clear that he craved acceptance from his peers. At the same time, he was probably aware of how some of his peers truly felt about him. But he did not dwell on this conundrum and focused on his work. He still had collecting to do for the King and Queen, and he needed to mend fences on that front if he ever hoped to make it as a botanist. And so, he set off for the Carolinas, where he spent an entire year collecting plants. Then, he carefully and quite expertly packaged up all of the plants that he had found and traveled back to London - personally bringing all of these plants to the King and Queen and hoping to get back in their good graces.
Although William arrived in England only to be refused to be seen by the King and Queen, he still managed to make his trip a resounding success. By shepherding rare, live plants in wonderful condition from the Carolinas to England, he impressed English collectors.
And there was one plant in particular that really helped to repair and save William's reputation, and that was the Venus Fly Trap. William brought many live specimens of the Venus flytrap to England, and as one might imagine, the plant caused a sensation.
Without the flytrap, there was probably little that William could say to restore his reputation. So in this sense, his plants, especially the Venus flytrap, did the mending and the PR work for him. What William did was essentially no different than an apologetic spouse who brings their partner flowers after a fight. That's exactly what William did on this trip when he returned and presented the Venus flytrap to England.
One other fact about this trip is that William proved himself to be an expert plant packer. Clearly, one of the biggest challenges for early botanists was keeping specimens alive - that was really hard to do. Dead specimens didn't garner anywhere near the attention or pay of living plants. William's skill in this area underscores just how intelligent and thoughtful William could be. A 1771 letter to Humphrey Marshall detailed William's packing technic:
William Young sends his plants very safely by wrapping them in moss and packing them pretty close [together] in a box. He ties the moss in a ball around the roots with a piece of packthread...It's very surprising how well they keep in this manner. 
William's method differs little from the way plants are packaged and sent by mail today.
William ends up devoting his life to botany. He returned to American and collected plants in the Carolinas, returning to England when he had a full shipment. William mastered his collecting strategy over his lifetime - returning again and again to the Carolinas, scouring the wilderness for rare plants like the Venus flytrap that had brought him so much success.
Along the way, William continued to struggle financially as he paid his debts. But by the end of his life, William was able to get his affairs in order, and he actually died a fairly wealthy man. Tragically, he died young at the age of 43.
In December of 1784, William decided to set out once again for the Carolinas. Unbeknownst to him, he was going on what would become his final collecting trip. He never did reach the Carolinas. He only made it as far as Maryland, where he collected along a waterway known as Gunpowder Falls, where he fell into the river and died after being swept away by the current. His body was found about seven weeks later.
 
November 3, 1794
Birth of William Cullen Bryant, American poet.  
William drew inspiration from the natural world. He once wrote a lovely verse about roses:
Loveliest of lovely things are they,
On earth, that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
William also wrote about the month of November in a little poem called A Winter Piece. 
...When shriek'd
The bleak November winds, and smote the woods,
And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades,
That met above the merry rivulet,
Were spoil'd, I sought, I loved them still,—they seem'd
Like old companions in adversity.
 
November 3, 1841
Birth of Eugenius Warming, Danish botanist.
Eugenius was one of the founders of modern plant ecology. He's credited with writing the first ecology textbook with his book, Oecology of Plants: An Introduction to the Study of Plant Communities (1895).
 
Unearthed Words
She went to the window. A fine sheen of sugary frost covered everything in sight, and white smoke rose from chimneys in the valley below the resort town. The window opened to a rush of sharp early November air that would have the town in a flurry of activity, anticipating the tourists the colder weather always brought to the high mountains of North Carolina.
She stuck her head out and took a deep breath. If she could eat the cold air, she would. She thought cold snaps were like cookies, like gingersnaps. In her mind, they were made with white chocolate chunks and had a cool, brittle vanilla frosting. They melted like snow in her mouth, turning creamy and warm.
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Sugar Queen
 
Grow That Garden Library
Genealogy for Gardeners by Simon Maughan  and Dr Ross Bayton
This book came out in 2017, and the subtitle is Plant Families Explored & Explained.
Anything that has genealogy and gardening in the title is a book that I'm interested in.
Before I get into this particular review, I should mention that this book is part of one of my favorite garden series by the RHS. So in this series is the book Latin for gardeners as well as botany for gardeners.
And now this book Genealogy for Gardeners is designed to help you explore and understand plant families - and plant family trees, which to me is even more exciting.
Now you may be wondering why. Well, I think the authors do a great job of explaining that in the preface to their book. They write,
While most of us think of plants, that’s belonging to one big happy family. The fact is they don't. There are hundreds of different plant families, which botanists have cleverly grouped together using what they know of family histories and genealogy and now, of course, DNA to bring some sense and order to more than a quarter of a million different plant species. 
But why should this matter to you as a gardener, aside from just wanting to become more knowledgeable about plant families?
Well, here's the explanation from the authors:
Plant families are all around us. Whatever the time of year, go for a walk and look for wild or garden plants. You'll be surprised at how many plant families are represented within a small radius of your home. Even in your own garden, there will be a fantastic genealogy of plants. 
Thanks largely to the efforts of plant collectors and horticulturists who brought the plants into cultivation from the four corners of the world. 
When it comes to being a good gardener making connections is what it's all about. And if you are faced with a strongly acidic soil, and know that rhododendrons will grow, then you can broaden your planting ideas to include other plants in the same family, such as Heather. Mountain Laurel, leather leaf, blueberries, and others. If you are designing with plants, you may know that all plants and a particular family, and share certain features, which enables you to mix displays effectively and extend your range. 
Now that is a very compelling reason to get to know your plant families.
One of the things that I love about this particular series of books is that the illustrations are incredible. The editors have pulled images of botanical art that truly are the best example of some of these plants. The beauty of these books, including the cover, just is not rivaled.
In fact, the minute I spot these books, they just have a look and a feel to them - I know immediately that it's part of this series from the RHS. These books are in my office on a special little bookshelf of books that I reference all the time, and this little series from the RHS is such a gem. This particular book about plant family, garden, genealogy - Basically the genealogy of plants-  is one that I go back to again and again, and again. So this is a fantastic book.
As I mentioned, the illustrations are great. It is very clearly laid out.
They've really done the heavy lifting when it comes to simplifying this material, making it very understandable and accessible. And yet, they do not dumb it down. That's not what this book is about.
If you want a book on this topic that is exceptionally clear And is a delight to read, then this is the book that you've been waiting for.
So, whether you're a landscape designer, a horticulture student, or just an amateur gardener, Genealogy for Gardeners will help you better understand and utilize plant families in your garden.
This book is 224 pages of plant families and plant family trees - and it's part of one of the top garden book series on the market today.
You can get a copy of Genealogy for Gardeners by Simon Maughan and Ross Bayton and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $20.
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
November 3, 1903
On this day, The Cherokee Sentinel (Cherokee, Kansas) published this heartwarming blurb about the gardens in the Heartland of America. Here's what they wrote:
It's November, and gardens and flowers are as green and beautiful as in summer. Verily, Kansas is an American Italy and the garden spot of the world. 
Well, I don't know how true that was, and I question whether that was written for the benefit of enticing immigrants to come to Kansas.
Nevertheless, I found it very sweet, and I thought it was a great way to end the show today.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate the botanical name of the Saguaro Cactus, a Russian writer and mystic, and November potpourri.
We'll hear an excerpt from Tom Perrotta's best-selling 2011 book.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that celebrates the Islamic Garden.
And then we'll wrap things up with some hip Book Recommendations from 1975.
 
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• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
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I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Getting Happier with Horticulture: The Healthy Benefits of Gardening | gradynewsource.uga.edu | Gianna Perani
 
Important Events
November 2, 1902
On this day, Nathaniel Britton, one of the founders of the New York Botanical Garden, wrote to the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie asking for permission to name a genus of Giant Cactus native to Arizona and northern Mexico in his honor.
Three days later, Mr. Carnegie's secretary responded:  
“Mr. Carnegie has yours of November 2nd and asks me to say he is greatly honored by the proposal and will do his best to live up to it.” 
And so, the majestic Saguaro ("suh-GWAR-oh") Cactus, the largest cactus in the United States and a plant synonymous with the American West, was christened the Carnegiea gigantea.  
Saguaros can live for over two centuries. The Saguaro root system has one large tap root accompanied by a very intricate and shallow root system that lies within the top three inches of the soil. Any precious drops of rain are guided down to the ground beneath its mighty arms.  After thirty-five years of life, Saguaro's produce a white night-blooming flower that is bat-pollinated. Saguaros begin to develop their arms after reaching the age of fifty. The average Saguaro weighs three tons.
The largest Saguaro ever recorded was called "Granddaddy." Granddaddy stood forty feet tall, had over 52 limbs, and was estimated to be three hundred years old.
 
November 2, 1906
Birth of Daniil Andreyev ("Da-NEEL An-drave"), Russian writer, poet, and mystic. He wrote a book called The Rose of the World over eight-and-a-half years as a prisoner in a Stalin prison camp.
Daniil once wrote,
"Perhaps the worst will never come to pass, and tyranny on such a scale will never recur. Perhaps humanity will forevermore retain the memory of  Russia’s terrible historical experience. Every heart nurses that hope, and without it life would be unbearable."
Daniil had uncanny powers of recall and memory. He was also a voracious reader and grew his personal library to over 2,000 books by the time he was arrested in 1947. Daniil suffered from a spinal defect and wore an iron corset while in prison to cope with the pain.
Daniil began having mystic experiences as an adolescent. His first poem was called The Garden. In 1949, at the Vladimir high-security prison, Daniil started to have regular spiritual encounters and visions. And so he used those experiences to write Rose of the World at night. He had his final transcendent revelation in November of 1953 and then finished the book after his release from prison in 1957. And then, Daniil kept the book to himself - hiding it from the government in order to keep it from being destroyed.
Daniil's Rose of the World remained hidden before finally getting published in 1991 under Gorbachev. The Rose of the World was an instant bestseller. Daniel H. Shubin wrote the latest English translation in 2018.
Shubin writes that,
“[Daniil] Envisioned the reign of rows of the world on Earth in the twenty-third century, the future Epoch being a golden age of humanity, whose essence will develop… into a close connection between God and people. It includes a society that consists of a worldwide ecclesiastical fraternity.”
Daniil himself explained Rose of the World this way:
Rose of the World can be compared to an inverted flower whose root is in heaven, while the petal bowl is here, among Humanity, on Earth. Its stem is the revelation through which the spiritual sap flows, sustaining and strengthening its petals... But other than the petals, it also has a pith; this is its individual teaching.
 
November 2, 1954
On this day, The Journal Herald (Dayton, Ohio) ran a little snippet on the wonder of Potpourri from the November garden.
The November garden has her odors. In most instances, they are not so beguiling as those of spring and summer, yet they are far from displeasing. 
There is the sharp, vinegary tang that rises from leaves, sodden and cold. 
There is the odor of soil on which frost has laid whiteness; an odor, which seems different from that of earth newly turned in spring. 
There is the pungence that rises from rotting apples and pears; and the heavy fragrance which issues from the chrysanthemum leaf and blossom. 
Occasionally a flower remains whose breath is that of July. Even though the hand of chill has pressed heavily on the garden, the sweet alyssum has summer perfume. And a rose, spared, has a scent which speaks nostalgically of June. 
But in the main, the odor of the November garden is distinctive, sharp, penetrating, and has something of that element of age, which cannot be associated with redolence but rather with a potpourri.
 
Unearthed Words
She felt strong and blissfully empty, gliding through the crisp November air, enjoying the intermittent warmth of the sun as it filtered down through the overhanging trees, which were mostly stripped of their foliage. It was that trashy, post-Halloween part of the fall, yellow and orange leaves littering the ground.
― Tom Perrotta, The Leftovers
 
Grow That Garden Library
The Art of the Islamic Garden by Emma Clark
This book came out in 2011 - so an oldie, but goodie. (It's already ten years old.)
And here's what Emma wrote at the beginning of this book:
Even a glimmer of understanding of traditional Islamic art and architecture clearly reveals that its beauty is not simply surface decoration, but is a reflection of a deep knowledge and understanding of the natural order and of the divine unity that penetrates all of our lives. Studying Islamic art and architecture and completing a master's thesis on Islamic gardens and garden carpet at the Royal college of art opened my eyes to the meaning of art. 
Understanding something of the religion of Islam in general and Islamic art in particular, it became clear that all art to a greater or lesser degree should be a vehicle of hope. 
It should remind us what it means to be human of our place in the universe and our role as is said in Islam as God's vice-regent on earth.
And then she writes, and bear in mind; this is 2011:
In the increasingly difficult times in which we live, it is good to be reminded that gardens and nature, transcend nationality, race, religion, color, and ideology. The Islamic garden is not only for Muslims, it's beauty is apparent to  everyone. 
In her book, Emma offers an introduction to the design, the symbolism, and the planting of the traditional Islamic garden. Emma also gives some practical tips if you're interested in creating an Islamic garden for yourself.
Emma points out that we all have different starting points for our gardens. We have different garden sizes and situations (urban garden or a country garden), obviously different climates and soils, etc.  And so, she spends a couple of chapters offering up ideas for plants and trees and shrubs that you might want to consider incorporating into an Islamic-inspired garden.
Now there is a pattern to Islamic gardens. They're often constructed around a central pool or fountain with four streams flowing symbolically to the earth's four corners.
My favorite part of this book is exploring the symbolism behind Islamic art and gardens. And by the way, there is a magnificent chapter in this book that is all about the prince of Wales carpet garden. It's just spectacular.
Now this book is out of print, and I predict that copies of this book will only get harder to get as time goes on. So if you have any interest, you should make sure that this one gets on your list.
You can get a copy of The Art of the Islamic Garden by Emma Clark and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $26.
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
November 2, 1975
On this day, The New York Times Around the Garden segment recommended some new garden books.
Some bright newcomers have been added to the trowel‐watering can library. Here they are. 
Masakuni Kawasumi spent three years in this country adapting his Japanese methods of bonsai growing to American species of trees. His “Bonsai With American Trees” ($10, Kodansha International) is the result, an excellent basic primer...
Tapeworm plant, living stones bead vine, spiderweb, and polka dot are a few of the off‐beat plants described in “Fun With Growing Odd and Curious House Plants” Virginie and George Elbert ($8.95, Crown). The odd‐sized book, 6½ x 11 inches, gives brief biographies and how‐to‐grow tips for many unusual house plants, delightful changes from the tried‐and‐true.
And while on the subject of fun, there is Jack Kramer's “How to Identify & Care for House Plants” ($8.95, Doubleday). The fun comes in matching line‐drawings and silhouettes to the author's organizational key. Though probably not meant to be a puzzle book, it is. ...a plant number 8‐1‐3 turns out to be none other than a cattleya orchid.
Thalassa Cruso, television “lady of the trowel” has done it again. This time she is telling about “Making Vegetables Grow” ($8.95, Knopf), one of her best with chatty helpful tips on bringing the crop in abundantly. 
Light gardens are booming, especially among those who have dark apartments and want some greenery indoors. “The Complete Book of Houseplants Under Lights” by Charles Marden Fitch ($9.95, Hawthorn) updates the hobby and is full of ideas. 
Joining the series of “state” books on wildflowers by John E. Klimas Jr., is “A Pocket Guide to the Common Wild Flowers of New York” ($5.95, Walker). Compact tuck in a backpack, Descriptions are in everyday language, not botanist's twang.
Environmental awareness has come full circle with “Organic Flower Gardening” by Catherine Osgood Foster ($12.95, Rodale Press). An organic gardener's book on raising flowers? Mrs. Foster explains why, 
“One is for the sake of the bees, wasps and other beneficial insects and butterflies … another good reason is to protect the birds … the most important is that you avoid starting chain reactions in the environment from poisonous chemical sprays and dusts you might introduce.” 
And for winter reading by the fireplace, here are a few: 
“A Gardener Touched With Genius, The Life of Luther Burbank” by Peter Dreyer ($10, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan): 
“The Best of American Gardening” by Ken and Pat Kraft ($10, Walker), a clip hook of garden tips gleaned from 100‐year‐old seed catalogues; 
“The Plant Hunters” by B. J. Healey ($8.95, Scribners), a brief biography of discoverers of exotic species from the 17th century to the present.
And for reference; “Ornamental Grasses” by Mary Hockenberry Meyer ($9.95, Scribners), an excellent well-illustrated guide to this unusual group of plants. 
“The Personal Garden, Its Architecture and Design” by Bernard Wolgensinger and Jose Daidone ($30, Van Nostrand Reinhold), beautifully illustrated with design concepts from European, Western and Japanese gardens. 
“Plant A Tree” by Michael A. Weiner ($15.95, Macmillan) subtitled, “A working guide to regreening America.” 
Good reference book for city planners, libraries, and schools on tree planting and care, nationwide. Florida, Texas, and California where the avocado is grown commercially, the trees do not start flowering until six years old, or sooner if grafted. One rare exception was reported by Barbara Stimson, a gardener in Maine, who wrote in a recent Letters to the Editor, Flower and Garden, that her indoor avocado did flower, but no fruit, when it was about two years old and four feet high.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a wealthy gardener and Apothecary whose garden became his legacy, a ​​pioneering Landscape architect who left his mark on the world in his all-too-short life, and the fine fine fun that can be had dying flowers - a hobby that’s been around for quite a longe time.

We'll hear an excerpt from a book by a Quaker woman who spent a year tending sheep.

We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about flowers in all their glory, and it takes us inside the Secret World of Plants...

And then we’ll wrap things up with a little poem written by an American writer, and it’s a little poignant - so kleenex should be on standby.

“If you’re the first of November, you’re Scorpio. A large reporter of his owne Acts. Prudent of behaviour in owne affairs. A lover of Quarrels and theevery, a promoter of frayes and commotions. As wavery as the wind; neither fearing God or caring for Man.’

‘Better,’ said Lymond coldly, ‘to be stung by a nettle than pricked by a rose.”

― Dorothy Dunnett, Checkmate

Maggie Dietz poem

1995  Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden

1995 The Unsung Season: Gardens and Gardeners in Winter: Sydney Eddison, Karen Bussolini

2001 A Garden from Hundred Packets of Seed by James Fenton

What plants would you choose to grow, given a blank slate of a garden, and given the stipulation that everything you grow in this garden must be raised by you from seed?

2009 Jane Colden: America's First Woman Botanist Paperback – November 1, 2009

Interview with Lee Smith, Southern Writer | Southern Environmental Law Center

1944 Here's a short clip with writer Lee Smith about the importance of the natural world for writers and inspiration.

In the video Lee says that the South does have a very strong literary tradition that is grounded in place and specifically a rural place.

Lee says the land is so important to southern writing.

Land not only shows up in southern stories but also in southern music and southern culture.

Lee tells how her father used to fight her when she tried to get him to leave the mountains and move to her home in North Carolina

and so he would always say

I could never leave the mountains

he said I need me a mountain to rest my eyes against

and

That resinates with lee who went on to say that there’s

something in the

contemplation of mountains

of nature  of natural places

that leads us to think of things that are really important

that leads us to think of the real questions and

issues and things that people need to be working on.

And so Lee, like many of us, gets her inspiration from

the natural world

To borrow her phrase,

I need me a garden to rest my eyes against...

November 1, 1666
Birth of James Sherard, English apothecary, botanist, amateur musician, and composer.

His older brother, William, was also a botanist.

James served as an apprentice to an apothecary named Charles Watts at Chelsea Physic Garden. He later followed his entrepreneurial instincts and started his own business, which made him quite wealthy.  In August of 1716, he wrote that,

“the love of Botany has so far prevailed as to divert my mind from things I formerly thought more material.”

After retiring, he purchased three residences - two manor homes and a place in London. At his London residence, he established a garden and began collecting and cultivating rare plants.

Around the time his garden was becoming one of England’s top gardens, James’s brother William invited the German botanist Johann Jacob Dillenius to visit England. Dillenius created an illustrated catalog that described the plants cultivated in James’s collection in London. The English botanical writer Blanche Henrey called Dillenius’s book,

“the most important book published in England during the eighteenth century on the plants growing in a private garden."

Today, the walls of the Herbarium Room at the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum are graced with the illustrations from Dillenius’s book - so the plants in James Sherard’s beautiful garden live on in that marvelous place.

November 1, 1859
Birth of Charles Eliot, American landscape architect.

In his brief career, Charles established principles for regional planning and natural systems for landscape architecture. He also helped set up the world's first land trust and the Boston Metropolitan Park System. He was a prolific writer and observer of nature and Landscapes. His work set the stage for conservancies across the world.

Charles was born into a prominent Boston family. In 1869, the year his mother died, his father, Charles William Eliot, became the president of Harvard University.

In 1882 Charles went to Harvard to study botany. A year later, he began apprenticing with the landscape firm of Frederick Law Olmsted.

As a young landscape architect, Charles enjoyed visiting different natural areas, and he conducted regular walking tours of different nature areas around Boston. In his diary, Charles made a charming list titled, "A Partial List of Saturday Walks before 1878".

Early in his career, Charles spent 13 months touring England and Europe between 1885 and 1886. The trip was actually Olmsted’s idea, and it was a great training ground for Charles's understanding of various landscape concepts. During this trip, Charles kept a journal where he wrote down his thoughts and sketches of the places he was visiting. During his time in Europe, Charles's benchmark was always Boston. Throughout his writings, he continually compared new landscapes to the beauty of his native landscape in New England.

Charles's story ended too soon. He died at 37 from spinal meningitis.

Before his death, Charles had worked with Charles Sprague Sargent to plan The Arnold Arboretum. When Charles died, Sargent wrote a tribute to him and featured it in his weekly journal called Garden and Forest.

Charles's death had a significant impact on his father, Charles Eliot Senior. At times, the two men had struggled to connect. Charles hadn’t liked it when his dad remarried and, their personalities were very different. Charles, the architect, could be a little melancholy.

After Charles died, his dad, Charles Sr., started culling through his son’s work.

In April 1897, Charles Sr. confided to a friend,

"I am examining his letters and papers, and I am filled with wonder at what he accomplished in the ten years of professional life. I should’ve died without ever having appreciated his influence. His death has shown it to me."

Despite his heavy workload as the president of Harvard, Charles Sr. immediately set about compiling all of his son's work. He used it to write a book called Charles Eliot Landscape Architect. The book came out in 1902, and today it is considered a classic work in the field of landscape architecture.

November 1, 1883
On this day, the Brown County World (Hiawatha, Kansas) published a little blurb that said,

A distinguished botanist has found that by simply soaking the stems of cut flowers in a weak dye solution, their colors can be altered at will without the perfume and the freshness being destroyed.

On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed, and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember skates and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze.

A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that?

Maybe not. [...]

It's an ugly woods, I was saying to myself, padding along a trail where other walkers had broken ground before me. And then I found an extraordinary bouquet. Someone had bound an offering of dry seed pods, yew, lyme grass, red berries, and brown fern and laid it on the path: "nothing special," as Buddhists say, meaning "everything." Gathered to formality, each dry stalk proclaimed a slant, an attitude, infinite shades of neutral.

All contemplative acts, silences, poems, honor the world this way. Brought together by the eye of love, a milkweed pod, a twig, allow us to see how things have been all along. A feast of being.

― Mary Rose O'Reilley, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd

Flora by DK

Flora was also contributed to by Kew,the Royal Botanic Gardens.

This book was published back in 2018, and the subtitle is Inside the Secret World of Plants.

Well, let me tell you that when I got my copy of this book, I was so pleasantly surprised.

This is a big book - it's a coffee table book. The cover is predominantly white, and then it just has a single flower featured on the cover - and it is stunning.

I like to think about this fantastic book as a floral scrapbook. So imagine if you were to put together a book of flowers, and on each page, you feature: a different blossom, details about the plant, the history and some outstanding characteristics of the flower, and other various aspects of the plant. This book also reviews a little bit of the science behind why plants do what they do and how they do what they do. Flora is beautifully illustrated with modern photography and also some incredible botanical art from the ages. And it is just a joy to leaf through.

So whether you are a gardener or even a non-gardener, I think you would enjoy this book.

You can get a copy of Flora by DK and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $12.

November 1, 1871
Birth of Stephen Crane, American poet, novelist, and short-story writer.

Stephen started writing at the tender age of four.  As a young adult, he dropped out of college at Syracuse and started working as a reporter and writer. By 1895 his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage won acclaim despite Stephen never having any personal experience as a soldier.  

The following year he was asked to go to Cuba as a war correspondent. During the voyage, his ship, the SS Commodore, sank off the coast of Florida. Stephen survived after spending thirty hours adrift at sea in a small dinghy along with other survivors.  The experience became the basis for his book called, The Open Boat.

Despite surviving the shipwreck, Stephen Crane died young of tuberculosis at the age of 28.

Today, The Red Badge of Courage is considered an American classic. But Stephen also wrote short stories and poetry. One of his biggest fans was Ernest Hemingway, who credited Stephen as a source of his inspiration.

In Stephen’s poem, The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895), Stephen wrote,

There was set before me a mighty hill,
And long days I climbed
Through regions of snow.
When I had before me the summit-view,
It seemed that my labour
Had been to see gardens
Lying at impossible distances.

Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:

"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an American poet and writer, a look back at a one-of-a-kind event at the gardens at Iowa State, and the English gardener who bred phenomenal lupins.
We'll hear an excerpt from Thomas Merton's diary entry for October.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with an award-winning modern book on scent in the garden.
And then we'll wrap things up with the legacy of a college head gardener and how his memory still lives on at the greenhouse.
 
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
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If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
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The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
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Curated News
10 Things Your Landscape Architect Wishes You Knew (But Is Too Polite to Tell You) | Gardenista | Barbara Peck
 
Important Events
October 15, 1830
Birth of Helen Hunt Jackson, (pen name H.H.) American poet and writer. She fought for the dignity of Native Americans and wrote about mistreatment by the US government in A Century of Dishonor (1881) and Ramona (1884).
Today Helen is remembered for her light-hearted poems like:
By all these lovely tokens September days are here, with Summer's best of weather and Autumn's best of cheer.
And
O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather
Her poem Vanity of Vanities is a favorite of gardeners.
Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame;
Each to his passion; what’s in a name?
Red clover’s sweetest, well the bee knows;
No bee can suck it; lonely it blows.
Deep lies the honey, out of reach, deep;
What use in honey hidden to keep?
Robbed in the autumn, starving for bread;
Who stops to pity a honey-bee dead?
Star-flames are brightest, blazing the skies;
Only a hand’s breadth the moth-wing flies.
Fooled with a candle, scorched with a breath;
Poor little miller, a tawdry death;
Life is a honey, life is a flame;
Each to his passion; what’s in a name?
Swinging and circling, face to the sun,
Brief little planet, how it doth run!
Bee-time and moth-time, add the amount;
white heat and honey, who keeps the count?
Gone some fine evening, a spark out-tost!
The world no darker for one star lost!
Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame;
Each to his passion; what’s in a name?
 
October 15, 1897
On this day, The Des Moines Register ran a headline from Ames Iowa: Crowd Ruins Iowa State's Flower Plots.
An unfounded rumor that flowers in the Iowa State college gardens could be had for the picking because of an expected frost led to an unprecedented display of vandalism here. 
A crowd estimated at 150 to 200 persons Sunday went through the horticulture department gardens, stripping off flowers and pulling up bushes until routed by Ames police. 
Officers relieved the mob of most of the flowers they had seized, but members of the horticulture department said the loss would be heavy. 
Most of the flowers and plants stripped were being used for experimental work, they added, and the loss, therefore, could not be measured in dollars and cents. 
Chrysanthemums sent to Iowa State by E. G. Kraus of the University of Chicago were picked clean. 
The flowers were being used In tests to determine resistance to cold weather and the experiment was ruined, officials said. The college gardens are used primarily for research, and their part in campus beautification is secondary. 
The college rose garden is one of 16 being used as part of a national research program. Horticulture department members said it never has been college policy to permit picking of flowers by the public, although visitors always have been welcome to come and look at any time. Signs are displayed prominently throughout the gardens warning visitors not to pick anything. 
College officials were at a loss to explain how the rumor might have started and said it was the first time the gardens ever had been invaded by any sizeable number of flower pickers. 
Ames townspeople and Iowa State college staff members were among those who went through the gardens on the picking spree, police said. Professor E.C. Volz reported that more than a dozen persons, some from nearby towns, stopped at his office Monday to find out where they might get flowers.
 
October 15, 1951
Death of George Russell, English gardener and plant breeder. He's remembered for his work with lupins and the creation of his stunning Russell Hybrids.
George was a professional gardener, but his interest in lupins was ignited after seeing a vase of the blossom at one of his clients, a Mrs. Micklethwaite. When he examined the bloom, he fell in love with the architecture and form of the flower, but he wasn't thrilled by the solid purple color. He reportedly remarked,
Now, there's a plant that could stand some improving.
Starting at age 54, George spent the next two decades cultivating five thousand lupines every year on his two allotments, and he used bee pollination to develop his hybrids. From each year's crop, just five percent were selected for their seed based on the traits George found most appealing.
For over two decades, George kept his lupines to himself. But finally, in 1935, nurseryman James Baker struck a deal with George: his stock of plants in return for a place to live for him and his assistant and the opportunity to continue his work. Two years later, George's lupines - in a rainbow of colors - were the talk of the Royal Horticulture Society flower show. George won a gold medal and a Veitch Memorial Medal for his incredible work.
After George died on this day, much of his work died with him. Without his yearly devotion, many of his lupines reverted back to their wild purple color and tendencies or succumbed to Cucumber mosaic virus.
Today, Sarah Conibear's ("con-ah-BEER") nursery Westcountry Lupins in North Devon is doing her own exciting work with this plant.  In 2014, her lupines were featured in the Chelsea Flower Show and her red lupin, the Beefeater, is a new favorite with gardeners.
Now, the history of Lupins is pretty fascinating.
The first lupins in England were sent over from the Mediterranean. Other lupins were found in the Western Hemisphere.
During his time in North America, the Swedish botanist Pehr Kalm observed that livestock left lupin alone even though it was green and "soft to the touch."
George Russell planted the variety discovered by the botanist David Douglas in British Columbia.
Lupins are a plant in motion. They follow the sun in the daytime, but Charles Darwin observed that they sleep "in three different [ways]" when they close their petals at night.
Henry David Thoreau wrote about Lupins in his book, Summer. He wrote,
Lupin seeds have long been used by the Navajo to make a medicine that not only relieves boils but is a cure for sterility. 
[Lupine] is even believed to be effective in producing girl babies.
 
Unearthed Words
Brilliant, windy day—cold. It is fall. It is the kind of day in October that Pop used to talk about. I thought about my grandfather as I came up through the hollow, with the sun on the bare persimmon trees, and a song in my mouth. All songs are, as it were, one's last. I have been grateful for life.
― Thomas Merton, A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals
 
Grow That Garden Library
The Scentual Garden By Ken Druse
This book came out in October of 2019, and the subtitle is Exploring the World of Botanical Fragrance.
The author Joe Lamp'l said,
"A brilliant and fascinating journey into perhaps the most overlooked and under-appreciated dimension of plants. Ken's well-researched information, experience, and perfect examples, now have me appreciating plants, gardens, and designs in a fresh and stimulating way."
Ken Druse is a celebrated lecturer and an award-winning author and photographer who has been called "the guru of natural gardening" by the New York Times. He is best known for his 20 garden books published over the past 25 years.
And, after reading this book, I immediately began to pay much more attention to fragrance in my garden.
The book is 256 illustrated pages of 12 categories of scented plant picks and descriptions for the garden - from plants to shrubs and trees.
You can get a copy of The Scentual Garden By Ken Druse and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $40.
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 15, 1959
On this day, Bloomington's Indiana University captured a photo of head gardener Hugh Wallace Scales (who always went by "Wally") hard at work with the plants in the greenhouse.
Today, in memory of Wally, greenhouse staffers have named their prized Amorphophallus titanum (a.k.a. titan arum, corpse flower) "Wally." Wally was the first manager of the Jordan Hall greenhouse, and the building now serves as home to the biology department.  In addition to collecting plants, Wally helped establish the teaching collection and conservatory.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a fun little story from the White House, a New Zealand writer, and a pop culture film that debuted on this day 27 years ago today.
We'll hear an excerpt from an Eva Ibbotson book.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that promotes an awareness of and appreciation for Georgia’s rich garden heritage.
And then we’ll wrap things up with an adorable little poem from one of the most prolific haiku writers who ever lived.
 
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Curated News
Gardener’s Checklist for October 14th | Berkshire Edge | Ron Kujawski (“kee-AH-skee”)
Adele - Easy On Me
 
Important Events
October 14, 1862
On this day, President Lincoln wrote Navy Captain John Dalgren and asked him to find a gun for his youngest child, 9-year-old Tad. In the note, Lincoln specifically asked for, “a little gun that he can not hurt himself with.”
Tad was seven years old when he arrived at the White House. The following day the Civil War started, and the constant presence of soldiers and battle talk sparked the boy’s early love of the military.
He and his brother Willie played together and pretended to be soldiers in the White House, where the roof was their fort, and the attic was a prison.
One of Tad’s favorite toys was a doll he named Jack that he received from the Sanitary Commission. Jack was part of many imaginary battles and skirmishes. Jack suffered grueling amputations (which were promptly sewn back on) and injuries and was even sentenced to prison.
Julia Taft’s younger brothers played with the Lincoln boys, and she would often babysit all four of them. In her memoir of the Lincoln White House entitled Tad Lincoln's Father (1931), she tells of Jack being regularly buried with honors in the White House Gardens to the dismay of the head gardener, John Watt. Tad had already irritated Mr. Watt after eating strawberries that were intended for a White House dinner. When Mr. Watt suggested Jack might be pardoned, Tad asked his father to give Jack another chance.
President Lincoln got out a pen and paper and wrote,
The Doll Jack is pardoned by order of the President. 
A. Lincoln.
 
October 14, 1888 
Birth of Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand poet, and writer. She once wrote,
The mind I love must have wild places.
Reflecting on her life, she wrote,
I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing.
Katherine’s book The Garden Party is a collection of short stories that cover the gamut of emotions and begins with The Garden Party.  The first paragraph is a delight:
And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine. As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden-parties, the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing. Hundreds, yes, literally hundreds, had come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as though they had been visited by archangels.
In her poem Camomile Tea she wrote,
Outside the sky is light with stars;
There’s a hollow roaring from the sea.
And, alas! for the little almond flowers,
The wind is shaking the almond tree.
How little I thought, a year ago,
In that horrible cottage upon the Lee
That he and I should be sitting so
And sipping a cup of camomile tea!
Light as feathers the witches fly,
The horn of the moon is plain to see;
By a firefly under a jonquil flower
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.
We might be fifty, we might be five,
So snug, so compact, so wise are we!
Under the kitchen-table leg
My knee is pressing against his knee.
Our shutters are shut, the fire is low,
The tap is dripping peacefully;
The saucepan shadows on the wall
Are black and round and plain to see.
 
October 14, 1994 
On this day, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction opened in theaters. In the movie, Uma Thurman’s character tells this joke:
Three tomatoes are walking down the street - 
a papa tomato, a mama tomato, and a little baby tomato. 
Baby tomato starts lagging behind. 
Papa tomato get angry, goes over to Baby tomato, and squishes him.....
and says 'Ketchup!’"
 
Unearthed Words
“Gardeners are never wicked are they?' said Ruth. 
'Obstinate and grumpy and wanting to be alone, but not wicked. 
Oh, look at that creeper! I've always loved October so much, haven't you? 
I can see why it's called the Month of the Angels.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Morning Gift
 
Grow That Garden Library
Seeking Eden by Staci L. Catron and Mary Ann Eaddy 
This book came out in 2018, and the subtitle is A Collection of Georgia's Historic Gardens.
What a fantastic topic!
I always say that Georgia loves her gardens on a level that could rival the way England loves hers.
And of course, what I love about this book is that it's marrying the beauty of these gardens, the design, the particular elements that make them special.  A little bit about the families and the people that grew up and got to live in these beautiful gardens. Along with the great history of the gardens. So I just absolutely love this book and it is so, so, so, so beautiful.
Now this book takes us back to the mid 18th century to the early 20th century - so that's the time period that we're focusing on here. And surprisingly, you're going to see all kinds of gardens in this book, not just colonial revival gardens, or country place era landscapes, but also you're going to see rock gardens, town squares, college campuses, and even an urban conservation garden.
Now the authors do a wonderful job of walking us through the history of Georgia's gardens. And by the way, all of the gardens that are featured in this book, with the exception of ten, are all public gardens, so you can go and visit them with no problem.
And, you know, another thing to keep in mind when you're reading about Georgia and Georgia’s gardens is that Georgia was a battlefield during the civil war. So even if some of these gardens managed to get through unscathed, they still had to pull themselves out of the upheaval of the time, Because you had all of the economic, social, and political factors that definitely impacted these gardens and that adds a very unique dimension to the history of these gardens as well.
But as I mentioned earlier, Georgians love gardening.
In fact, the very first garden club that was founded in the United States that was super official - complete with things like a constitution and bylaws - was the lady's garden club and it was established in Athens, Georgia in 1891.
Then, of course, you've got the garden club of America that gets formed in 1913.
And that was really through a United effort of 11 different garden clubs, including, of course, The Garden Club of Georgia. So I share all of this to underscore the deep love of gardens and gardening in the state of Georgia - and that's why, of course, this is such a wonderful book.
And it's a big book. This book is 488 pages of Georgia garden. Heritage.
You can get a copy of Seeking Eden by Staci L. Catron and Mary Ann Eaddy and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $24.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 14, 1867 
Birth of Masaoka Shiki, “Masah-oh-ka Sha-KEY” Japanese poet, author, and literary critic. He died of tuberculosis at age 34 in 1902.
Regarded as one of the four haiku masters, he helped develop the modern form of haiku poetry, and he personally wrote nearly 20,000 haiku verses in his all-too-short life.
Now in researching Masaoka, I stumbled on a wonderful video by Roger Pulvers, who not only reads some of his haikus but does a masterful job explaining his most controversial haiku, which happened to be about the coxcomb. It was about a simple flower.
Now I'm not going to ruin it for you. I don't want to spoil it, but you really should head on over to the Facebook group and check out this video by Roger Pulvers, where he helps us to better understand and appreciate Masaoka’s poetry - plus I think you'll really enjoy hearing that haiku that he wrote about coxcomb.
I do not know the day
my pain will end yet
in the little garden
I had them plant
seeds of autumn flowers
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

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Historical Events
1643 Birth of Sir Jean Chardin, French jeweler and traveler.
Jean is remembered for his ten-volume work, The Travels of Sir John Chardin, which is considered one of the most important early accounts of Persia and the Near East.
In Travels, Jean wrote about the Persian love language of tulips.
When a young man presents a tulip to his mistress he gives her to understand, by the general color of the flower that he is on fire with her beauty, and by the black base of it that his heart is burnt to a coal.
 
1845 Death of Elizabeth Fox, also known as Baroness Holland, English political hostess and flower lover.
When she was 15, Elizabeth married Sir Godfrey Webster, who was twenty years her senior. After having five children in six years, Elizabeth began an affair with a Whig politician named Henry Fox, the 3rd Baron Holland. When she had his child, she divorced Godfrey and quickly married Mr. Fox. Together they had six more children.
Elizabeth is remembered for her strong will and domineering nature. She was a zealous socialite and highly passionate about flowers. In garden history, Elizabeth is remembered for introducing the Dahlia to England.
In 1804 during a visit to Madrid's Royal Botanic Gardens, Elizabeth received Dahlia pinnata seeds from the botanist Antonio José Cavanilles ("Cah-vah-nee-yes"). When she returned to England, the little seeds were successfully cultivated in her gardens at Holland House.
Twenty years later, Elizabeth's beloved second husband, Henry Fox, was so proud of her effort to share the Dahlia with England that he wrote these words in a little love note:
The dahlia you brought to our isle
Your praises forever shall speak;
'Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,
And in color as bright as your cheek.
 
1964 Death of Denys Zirngiebel, Swiss-born naturalist, florist, and plant breeder.
After establishing a home in Needham, Massachusetts, Denys sent for his wife and little boy. Denys and Henrietta had four children. Their only daughter (also named Henriette) married Andrew Newell Wyeth, and their son was NC Wyeth, the Realistic Painter.
During the 1860s, Denys worked for the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University.
He later bought a 35-acre tract of land along the Charles River in Needham and started his floral business. An excellent businessman, Denys expertly marketed his inventory. Denys shipped flowers to the White House and the State Department each week.
In a nod to his Swiss heritage, Denys was the first person in America to cultivate the Giant Swiss Pansy successfully. Denys's Needham nursery grew so many Giant Swiss Pansies that
the town adopted the flower as their floral emblem, and Denys became known as the "Pansy King."
 
2001 On this day, the French Film Amelie was released in the United States. 
In the movie, Amélie steals her father's garden gnome to help him escape his depression after losing his wife.
Amélie gives the gnome to an airline stewardess. Her father starts receiving photos of his garden buddy visiting iconic travel destinations like Monument Valley, The Empire State Building, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, The Blue Mosque in Instanbul, and The Sphinx in Cairo, Egypt.
In the end, Amélie's plan works. In the last scene, her dad sets off on his own adventure inspired by a little garden gnome.
 
On a historical note, one of the earliest mentions of garden gnomes I could find was from July 9, 1928, in the Liverpool Echo. 
The article announced:
Quaint Garden Ornaments... a quaint littie tribe of people - garden gnomes, sixty in number - [were] sold by auction, in Liverpool. They were imported from the Continent.
 
Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso 
This book came out in 2018, and the subtitle is A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior.
The Wall Street Journal raved about this book in their review:
In this thought-provoking, handsomely illustrated book, Italian neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso considers the fundamental differences between plants and animals and challenges our assumptions about which is the 'higher' form of life.
 
The editor wrote,
...world-renowned scientist Stefano Mancuso reveals the surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, offering us creative solutions to the most vexing technological and ecological problems that face us today. Despite not having brains or central nervous systems, plants perceive their surroundings with an even greater sensitivity than animals. They efficiently explore and react promptly to potentially damaging external events thanks to their cooperative, shared systems; without any central command centers, they are able to remember prior catastrophic events and to actively adapt to new ones.
 
Stefano introduced the controversial topic of plant memory this way,
After years spent investigating the many aspects of plant intelligence, I have been consistently surprised and fascinated by plants' clear capacity for memory. Maybe that sounds strange, but think about it for a moment. It isn't too difficult to imagine that intelligence is not the product of one single organ but that it is inherent to life, whether there is a brain or not. Plants, from this point of view, are the most obvious demonstration of how the vertebrate brain is an "accident," evolved only in a very small number of living beings-animals-while in the vast majority of life, represented by plant organisms, intelligence-the ability to learn, understand, and react successfully to new or trying situations--has developed without a dedicated organ.
All plants are capable of learning from experience and therefore have memorization mechanisms. If you submit a plant, for example an olive tree, to a stress such as drought or salinity, it will respond by implementing the necessary modifications to its anatomy and metabolism to ensure its survival. Nothing unusual in that, right? If, after a certain amount of time, we submit the same plant to the exact same stimulus, perhaps with an even stronger intensity, we notice something that is surprising only on the surface: this time, the plant responds more effectively to the stress than it did the first time. It has learned its lesson. Somewhere it has preserved traces of the solutions found and, when there was a need, has quickly recalled them in order to react more efficiently and accurately. In other words, it learned and stored the best answers in its memory, thereby increasing its chances of survival.
 
Stefano's clarity and conversation tone take these scientifically modern concepts and help us to see plants on a new plane of understanding.
This book is 240 pages of the latest plant research and gorgeous botanical photographs to illustrate some wild ideas about the plant world.
You can get a copy of The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $4.
 
Botanic Spark
1890 Death of Shirley Hibberd,  English journalist and garden writer.
He is remembered as one of the most successful gardening writers of the Victorian era.
Shirley edited three enormously popular gardening magazines, including Amateur Gardening, which is still published today.
Shirley's life story was lost to time until the garden historian Anne Wilkinson wrote his biography after fifteen years of painstaking research. Anne shares a wonderful timeline of what she could piece together about Shirley's life. The result is a wonderful and poignant mix of gardening passion and personal tragedy, as evidenced by the events between 1877 and 1885.
1877 The Amateur's Kitchen Garden.
1878 Home Culture of the Watercress leads to Shirley Hibberd being awarded a gold medal by the RHS.
1879 'Water for Nothing Every House its own Water Supply'; Familiar Garden Flowers starts to be issued.
1880 Shirley Hibberd and Sarah move to Brownswood Park, Highbury. 
Sarah dies of heart disease and is buried in Abney Park Cemetery.
1881 Feud between Shirley Hibberd and William Robinson generated by Shirley Hibberd's criticism of William Robinson's asparagus competition. 
Shirley Hibberd invited to edit Amateur Gardening, a new cheap paper, published by Collingridges. 
Marriage to Ellen Mantle, his cook.
1884 They move to Priory Road, Kew. 
Shirley Hibberd works for the RHS on renovating their garden at Chiswick; is a member of the Floral Committee and the Garden Committee. 
1885 Birth of Shirley Hibberd's daughter Ellen, and death of Ellen, his wife; she is buried in Abney Park. 
The Golden Gate and Silver Steps. Shirley Hibberd organises a Pear Conference.
 
Shirley was a champion of amateur gardening during an era when it was thoroughly rebuked by horticultural high society. But Shirley's curiosity and passion for gardening and its ancillary interests overpowered any scorn. When it came to gardening, Shirley was a conscious competent, and he was eager to educate others about gardening, a topic of many of his books. Shirley's topics ranged from town gardening and aquariums to beekeeping and conservation. Shirley was ahead of his time.
Shirley Hibberd once wrote,
...the social qualities of flowers [are so many] that it would be a difficult ... to enumerate them. 
... [Upon] entering a room, [we always feel welcome when] we find a display of flowers on the table. 
Where there are flowers about, the hostess appears glad, the children pleased, the very dog and cat are grateful...
the whole scene and [all souls seem] more hearty, homely, and beautiful, [in the presence of] the bewitching roses, and orchids and lilies and mignonette!
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener
And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a French writer and poet, an adorable poem called Song of October that's kind of faded into obscurity, and a Forester's advice about pine needles.
We'll hear an excerpt from an English writer often called the prince of paradox.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a lovely recipe book as we settle into fall - it's called The Flower Recipe Book.
And then we'll wrap things up with a charming little story from the Thoreaus. This one comes our way via Sophia Thoreau, the friend, and collaborator of her brother, Henry David Thoreau.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there's no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
 
Curated News
Fall Garden: Outside In | Rural Intelligence | Madeline Sparks
Pumpkin Turkey Chili | P. ALLEN SMITH
 
Important Events
October 13, 1878
On this day, the Chicago Tribune ran a feature article on Victor Hugo, French poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist.  
Opposed to the Second Empire of Napoleon III, Hugo was banished from his home country of France. In October 1855, the exiled Hugo was in desperate need of asylum, and he arrived on the rainy island of Guernsey seeking refuge. (Guernsey is just twenty-six miles off France's Normandy coast.)
In deep sorrow, Hugo wrote in a letter,
Exile has not only detached me from France, it has almost detached me from the Earth.
Eventually, Hugo came to see the island as his "rock of hospitality and freedom." Hugo was a prolific writer during the serenity of fifteen years of island life. It's where he completed his masterpiece Les Misérables. He also enjoyed spending time doing something he had never experienced before:  working on his home and garden, the first he ever owned.
Today, the City of Paris has renovated Hugo's island garden, including a kitchen garden, fruit trees, a large fountain, and his bench of contemplation.
In 1870, Hugo planted an oak tree in the middle of his lawn, and he named it the United States of Europe. The tree was symbolic and represented Hugo's vision of European unification. He would not have been a fan of Brexit.
In 1878, the Chicago Tribune piece described the magnificent view beyond the garden visible from Hugo's 2nd-floor study.
It is impossible to conceive a finer view than one gets from this aerial room of glass... At our feet, the furthermost rocks of Guernsey plunge themselves into the sea. Everywhere the great ocean. At the extreme point of the port, we view the old castle and the red-coated soldiers of Great Britain. In front, the Islands of Herm and Sark bar the horizon like a colossal dyke. On the right, the lines of Jersey are vaguely to be seen, always in a perpetual fog. And finally, in the far, far dim distance, the coast of France. But it takes clear weather to view it. This is the magical panorama before which Victor Hugo has worked for sixteen years.
When I descended [the outdoor staircase], I found [his] old face under a huge straw hat in his garden, playing with his little granddaughter, and following with rapt attention the frolics of young George Hugo, who was blowing with terrible effort a tiny [boat] across the fountain-basin.
 
October 13, 1895
On this day, the Omaha Daily Bee (Nebraska) shared a little poem called An October Song from Clinton Scollard, which had been shared in the Ladies Home Journal.
There's a flush on the cheek of the pippin and peach,
And the first glint of gold on the bough of the beech; 
The bloom from the stem of the buckwheat is cut,
And there'll soon be a gap in the burr of the nut. 
The grape has a gleam like the breast of a dove. 
And the haw is as red as the lips of my love; 
While the hue of her eyes the blue gentian doth wear,
And the goldenrod glows like the gloss of her hair. 
Like bubbles of amber the hours float away
As I search in my heart for regrets for the May; 
Alas, for the spring and tho glamour thereof;
The autumn has won me the autumn and love.
 
October 13, 1995
On this day, Iowa Forester Mark Vitosh ("Vit-tosh") shared information about falling pine needles. Many folks can get alarmed by the amount of pine needle loss, and the enormous amount of shedding that takes place this time of year. Mark reminds us what is expected and what we can expect from his post via Iowa State University Extension.
I have had many calls in the last few weeks concerning the abrupt discoloration of the interior needles in many different types of conifers.  The good news in most cases is that this is a normal characteristic of many different conifers in the fall and not some fatal disease.
This time of year, we are used to seeing deciduous (broad-leaved) trees showing their brilliant colors.  However, when we see this on conifers, it does not appear normal and becomes alarming. Unlike their deciduous counterparts, evergreen conifers only discard a portion of their foliage each fall.  For example, pine trees tend to keep 1-3 years of needles active, and in the fall, the old needles turn yellow-brown before they are shed.  The pine species showing the most brilliant color change this year are white, Austrian, and Scotch. The color change is also noticeable on arborvitae and sometimes spruce. This color change occurs each year, but in some years, such as 1995, it is more eye-catching.
As long as the color change is in the inner portion of the tree and in the fall, you should have no worries. So instead of worrying, enjoy the brilliant yellow fall color of your conifer tree(s).
 
Unearthed Words
October knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter, or of shutting a book did not end a tale.
Having admitted that, he would also avow that happy endings were never difficult to find: "It is simply a matter," he explained to April, "of finding a sunny place in a garden, where the light is golden, and the grass is soft; somewhere to rest, to stop reading, and to be content."
― G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was October
 
Grow That Garden Library
The Flower Recipe Book by Alethea Harampolis and Jill Rizzo  
This book came out in 2013. And the subtitle is 100 magical sculptural. Seasonal arrangements, and they are beautiful.
And so that's where they get the title, The Flower Recipe Book, because they're pulling these things together. And they do a marvelous job.
They dedicate the book to their nature-loving mothers, And I thought that was so touching.
And then, right upfront in the book, they introduce the flowers they will be working with. And I love this idea because, as in many cookbooks that share a master list of ingredients - That's what Elisia and Jill are doing with their book.
So, if you've struggled in the past with flower arranging, if you feel that you can just never get the look that you've been striving for., Jill and Alethea  Are going to break this down, and they have three words that are their mantra for when they're creating their arrangements: base, focal, and bits.
 So they start with this group of flowers and greenery- That's their base. They add in a hero flower- that's their focal point. And then they toss in a little bit of color and character - and that's their bits. And that's what fills out their arrangements.
 Now, what I love about these two is that they genuinely love flowers. They start the introduction to their book this way, which tells you that they are truly kindred spirits. They write,
A patch of unruly honeysuckle makes our hearts skip a beat.  The gnarled and thorny stems of garden roses call to us, despite the guaranteed hand scratches. We also have a great respect for the clean lines of Calla lilies and the simplicity of a single blooming succulent. 
Now, doesn't that make them sound like gardeners?  Yes, it does.
Well, I tell you what, this book is a gem for flower arranging.
It is so, so pretty. I think they have over 400 pictures in this book, along with step-by-step instructions.
So you really can't go wrong.
Jill and Alethea share the essential recipes for all of their arrangements, and just like with cooking, you can follow the recipe. Or you can add in a few substitutions; if you don't have everything, it's totally fine.  You can still end up with a beautiful arrangement.
Now Alethea and Jill are truly masters. In fact, the two work together, and they created their own San Francisco-based floral design studio.
And their work has been featured in Sunset magazine, Food and Wine and Veranda;  And it should, because it's absolutely gorgeous.
Over at the blog Design*Sponge, they left this review for the book.
A pitch-perfect combination of beautiful and functional. . . . Showcasing over 100 floral creations, The Flower Recipe Book breaks down flower arrangements as if they were recipes: including ingredients, how-to steps, and ideas for altering arrangements to suit your style.
 So super, super friendly, and hands-on.
This book is 272 pages of simple flower recipes that will help you become the floral arranger that you've always wanted to become deep down.
You can get a copy of The Flower Recipe Book by Alethea Harampolis and Jill Rizzo and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $6.
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 13, 1868
On this day, Sophia Thoreau inscribed this hickory leaf with a poem entitled "Fair Haven" by her older brother Henry. It is preserved in the Concord Museum.
The beautiful Fairhaven Hill, near Bear Garden Hill and the Boiling Spring, was one of Thoreau's favorite places on earth. He often went there to pick huckleberry. Today Fairhaven is only partially protected by the Concord Land Conservation Trust and The Walden Woods Project. The other part of Fairhaven has been sparsely developed for houses.
Here are the verses from Henry David Thoreau's Fair Haven poem that Sophia wrote on the Hickory leaf over 150 years ago:

When little hills like lambs did skip,
And Joshua ruled in heaven,
Unmindful rolled Musketuquid,
Nor budged an inch Fair Haven.
If there's a cliff in this wide world,
'S, a stepping stone to heaven,
A pleasant, craggy, short hand cut,
It sure must be Fair Haven.
If e'er my bark be tempest-tossed,
And every hope the wave in,
And this frail hulk shall spring a leak,
'll steer for thee, Fair Haven.
And when I take my last long rest,
And quiet sleep my grave in,
What kindlier covering for my breast,
Than thy warm turf Fair Haven.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a Dutch botanical illustrator, a writer from New Orleans, and a hymn writer - who wrote over 400 hymns.
We'll hear an excerpt from Terri Irwin - just fabulous - wife of the late great Steve Irwin.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about Living on the Land. A hot topic since 2020.
And then we'll wrap things up with a touching story about Beatrix Potter.
 
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Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
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The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
 
 
Curated News
TOP TREES FOR FALL COLOR | Garden Design | Mike MacCaskey
Fall Foliage Prediction Map
 
Important Events
October 12, 1817
Birth of Berthe Hoola van Nooten ("Bair-tah Hole-lah van NO-ten") Dutch botanical artist.
Berthe's life story is incredibly moving. She was born in Utrecht in the Netherlands. She married a judge named Dirk Hoola van Nooten who secured a position in the Dutch colony of Suriname SurahNAM in South America. The couple frequently traveled between Jakarta and Suriname. Along the way, Berthe collected and drew plant specimens which she would send back home to the botanical gardens in the Netherlands.
By the mid-1840's the couple moved to New Orleans to establish a Protestant school for girls on behalf of the Episcopal Church. But in the summer of 1847, New Orleans was ravaged by an epidemic of yellow fever that wiped out ten percent of the population. After the yellow fever claimed Dirk's life, Berthe was left to fend for herself and her five children at the age of thirty. She attempted to open another school in Galveston but was unable to pay her creditors.
Eventually, Berthe joined her brother on a trip to Java. There she opened another school, but she also had a patron in Sophie Mathilde, the wife of William II (Netherlands). The result was her masterpiece - a collection of forty plates of her botanical art - called Fleurs, Fruits et Feuillages Choisis de l'Ile de Java or Selected Flowers, Fruits and Foliage from the Island of Java (1863-64). Berthe's work was dramatic, featuring rich colors and bold illustrations. Most Europeans had never seen such magnificent plants.
In the introduction, aware of her station as a woman and penniless widow during the Victorian age, Berthe apologized for her daring attempt at creating such work, writing,
You may not, like myself, have tasted the bitterness of exile… you may not, like myself, have experienced, even in the springtime of life, the sorrowful separation from home and country – the absence of the friendly greeting, on a foreign shore… Death may not have snatched away from you, the arm which was your sole support… bereavement may not have entered your dwelling, like mine, as with one sudden stroke to tear away the veil of sweet illusions, which, as yet, had hidden from your eyes the stern realities of life – to place you, with a lacerated heart, a shrinking spirit, and a feeble and suffering body, before an unpitying necessity, which presents no other alternative than labour.
In 1892, Berthe died impoverished on the island of Jakarta. She was 77.
 
October 12, 1844
Birth of George Washington Cable, American writer, and critic. A son of New Orleans, he has been called the first modern southern writer. Despite being a German Protestant, instead of French Catholic, George understood Creole culture and is most remembered for his early fiction about his hometown, including Old Creole Days (1879), The Grandissimes "Gran-DE-seem" (1880), and Madame Delphine "Delphine" (1881).
Today the George Washington Cable House is open to visitors. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1962. Located at 1313 8th Street, in the Garden District of New Orleans, the home features gardens that George designed. In fact, The neighborhood is known for outstanding restaurants and beautiful gardens.
The beauty of New Orleans inspired George, and he was especially fond of nature and gardens.
In The Taxidermist, his story begins with these words,
One day a hummingbird got caught in a cobweb in our greenhouse. It had no real need to seek that damp, artificial heat. We were in the very heart of that Creole summertime when bird-notes are many as the sunbeams. The flowers were in such multitude they seemed to follow one about, offering their honeys and perfumes and begging to be gathered. Our little boy saw the embodied joy fall, a joy no longer, seized it and, clasping it too tightly, brought it to me dead.
He cried so over the loss that I promised to have the body stuffed. This is how I came to know Manouvrier “Man-vree-yay,” the Taxidermist in St. Peter Street.
In My Own Acre, he wrote,
A garden, we say, should never compel us to go back the way we came; but in truth, a garden should never compel us to do anything. Its don’ts should be laid solely on itself. 
“Private grounds, no crossing”–take that away, please, wherever you can, and plant your margins so that there can be no crossing. Wire nettings hidden by shrubberies from all but the shameless trespasser you will find far more effective, more promotive to beauty, and more courteous. “Don’t” make your garden a garden of don’ts.
For no garden is quite a garden until it is “Joyous Gard.” Let not yours or mine be a garden for display. Then our rhododendrons and like splendors will not be at the front gate, and our grounds be less and less worth seeing the farther into them we go. Nor let yours or mine be a garden of pride. 
And let us not have a garden of tiring care or a user up of precious time. 
Neither let us have an old-trousers, sun-bonnet, black fingernails garden–especially if you are a woman.
Finally, in The American Garden, he wrote,
One of the happiest things about gardening is that when it is bad, you can always–you and time–you and year after next–make it good. It is very easy to think of the plants, beds, and paths of a garden as things which, being once placed, must stay where they are; but it is shortsighted, and it is fatal to effective gardening. We should look upon the arrangement of things in our garden very much as a housekeeper looks on the arrangement of the furniture in her house. Except buildings, pavements, and great trees–and not always excepting the trees–we should regard nothing in it as permanent architecture but only as furnishment and decoration. At favorable moments you will make whatever rearrangement may seem to you good.
 
October 12, 1895   
Death of Cecil Frances Alexander, Anglo-Irish hymn writer, and poet. She wrote over 400 hymns. In addition to There Is a Green Hill Far Away and the Christmas carol Once in Royal David's City, she wrote All Things Bright and Beautiful. Here are the garden and nature-related verses, along with the refrain at the end.
Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.
The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one;
The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows for our play,
The rushes by the water,
To gather every day;
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
 
Unearthed Words
The name of the zoo was the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park. As I crossed the parking area, I prepared myself for disappointment. I am going to see a collection of snakes, lizards, and miserable creatures in jars, feel terribly sorry for them and leave.
It was October 1991. I was Terri Raines, a twenty-seven-year-old Oregon girl in Australia on an unlikely quest to find homes for rescued American cougars. A reptile park wasn't going to be interested in a big cat. I headed through the pleasant spring heat toward the park, thinking pessimistic thoughts. This is going to be a big waste of time. But the prospect of seeing new species of wildlife drew me in.
I walked through the modest entrance with some friends, only to be shocked at what I found on the other side: the most beautiful, immaculately kept gardens I had ever encountered. Peacocks strutted around, kangaroos and wallabies roamed freely, and palm trees lined all the walkways. It was like a little piece of Eden.
― Terri Irwin, Steve & Me
 
Grow That Garden Library
Carving Out a Living on the Land by Emmet Van Driesche ("DRY-sh")
This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is lessons in resourcefulness and craft from an unusual Christmas tree farm.
Well, I have to confess that I'm a huge fan of Emmett's YouTube channel. He does everything that he's talking about in this book - Even carving his own spoons.
But what I especially love about this book is learning about what it's like to be a Christmas tree farmer. I find this fascinating.  (And to me, this book is an excellent option for a Christmas gift. So keep that in mind as well.)
Now what Emmett is writing about is simplicity - living a life that's in tune with nature,   A life that is away from the hustle and bustle of the city and the daily grind. Emmett is busy,  but he has plenty of time to do the things that matter - Even pursuing his favorite pastime of spoon carving.
Now I have to confess that I discovered a very pleasant surprise when I started reading Emmett's book; he's an excellent writer.
And I wanted to give you a little taste for his writing, a little sample.  Just by reading what he wrote in the introduction to his book. He wrote,
The air is cold enough for my breath to show.  But I'm about to break a sweat.  I'm harvesting balsam branches, grabbing each with one hand and cutting them with the red clippers in the other. ...I work fast and don't stop until my arm is completely stacked with branches and sticking straight out, and I look like a kid with too many sweaters on under his jacket.  Pivoting on my heel.  I stride back to my central pile of balsam boughs and dump the armload on top, eyeballing it to gauge how much the pile weighs.  I decide I need more and head off in another direction into the grove.  
The balsam fir grows from big wild stumps and thickets that can stretch 20 feet around, the trees crowded so closely together, in no apparent order or pattern, that their branches interlock. Instead of single trees, each stump has up to three small trees of different ages growing off of it. They are pruned as Christmas trees, and I am a Christmas tree farmer.  
Isn't that fascinating?
Well, this book is 288 pages of self-reliance and the Christmas spirit.
You can get a copy of Carving Out a Living on the Land by Emmet Van Driesche and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $13.
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 12, 1907
On this day, a 41-year-old Beatrix Potter wrote to Millie Warne, the sister of her publisher, friend, and former fiance Norman Warne (who died two years earlier - a month after their engagement - at the age of 37). Beatrix wore Norman's ring on the ring finger of her right hand until she died three days before Christmas in 1943 at the age of 77.
My news is all gardening at present and supplies. I went to see an old lady at Windermere and impudently took a large basket and trowel with me. She had the most untidy garden I ever saw. I got nice things in handfuls without any shame, amongst others a bundle of lavender slips ...and another bunch of violet suckers.
Incidentally, twenty years earlier on this day, in 1887, that a 21-year-old Beatrix drew her first fungus, the Verdigris Toadstool "Vir-dah-greez" (Stropharia aeruginosa).
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a Philadelphia plant lover who we get to know only through his correspondence to other botanists, we’ll also learn about the German palm expert and the man who became a director at Kew - but not before becoming an expert in the graves of the fallen during WWI.
We'll hear an excerpt from the amateur gardener Helena Rutherford Ely.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book from one of my favorite modern garden experts Robert Kourik.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a Thay - the Buddhist monk, writer, and peace activist.  And I’ll also add naturalist to his list of titles because he draws so much insight from nature - as should we all.
 
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Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
14 Tips for Planting Your Favorite Bulbs | BHG | Editors
 
Important Events
October 11, 1818 
On this day, the Philadelphia botanist Zaccheus Collins to Jacob Bigelow in Boston. Zaccheus was a big-time plant collector and he had a large herbarium of most of the plants in the vicinity of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Zaccheus never published anything, but he corresponded with the botanists of his time, especially Henry Muhlenberg, Frederick Muhlenberg, Stephen Elliott, and Jacob Bigelow. In his letter to Jacob, written on this day, Zaccheus wrote,
The schooner Hero [with] Capt. Daggett... may be at Boston as soon as the present letter. On board [is] a little open box containing a growing plant of Aristolochia serpentaria (Virginia snakeroot), roots of Euphorbia ipecac (American ipecac), Spiraea trifoliata( Bowman's Root), & Convolvulus pandurata (wild sweet potato vine). 
These were put up under the direction of the worthy Mr. Bartram, my friend, still living at the old Bot. gardens, home of the father of Amer. Botany. 
You will only have to pay the freight.

October 11, 1825
Birth of Hermann Wendland, German botanist. He followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, both botanists, and served as director of the Royal Gardens of Herrenhausen in Hannover. Each generation of Wendlends had their specialty; the grandfather worked with ericas or heather, the father’s focus was phyllodineous acacias, and Hermann’s love was the palm family, the Arecaceae. Hermann’s monograph established the classification for palms. He’s remembered in the South American palm genus Wendlandiella.
During his life, Hermann turned Herrenhausen into the world’s leading garden for palm cultivation and research. Herrenhausen’s palm collection was unrivaled, and the focus on these stately and elegant trees resulted in Herrenhausen’s construction of the tallest glasshouse in all of Europe.
In addition to naming over 500 palm species, Hermann named the Arizona palm Washingtonia filifera in memory of George Washington. Hermann is also remembered for calling the genus Saintpaulia (African violet) after Baron Walter von Saint Paul.
In 1882, Baron Walter was the Governor of the Usambara (“Ooh-sahm-bar-ah”) District in German East Africa. During his time there, he explored the Usambara Mountains located in northeastern Tanzania. There, in the cloud forests, he collected seeds and specimens of a small herb, which he sent home to Herrenhausen. Hermann immediately cultivated the little plants, and he recognized that they were an entirely new species in an entirely new genus. And so, he named the plant Saintpaulia ionantha (“saint-paul-ee-ah ii-o-nan' thah”). Today we call the plant by its common name, the African violet. Hermann also called it the Usambara veilchen ('Usambara violet'). Today, African violets continue to be one of the most popular house plants. But, at home in their native Usambara Mountains, the plants face extinction.
 
October 11, 1875
Birth of Arthur William Hill, English botanist, and taxonomist. He served as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Before he became director of Kew, he worked on a project for the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries, the entity in charge of locating the graves of Britains service members who died during WWI.  In 1915, Arthur became part of this project and served as horticulture advisor. The job required visits throughout Europe and the middle east. Anywhere the war was fought, Arthur visited - from France to Turkey, Italy to Palestine. In 1916, during the month of March alone, Arthur visited thirty-seven cemeteries.
In 1917, Arthur visited the Somme Battlefields in France and wrote poignantly about the poppies and wildflowers that grew in the aftermath of the fighting that had occurred in the summer and fall of the previous year. Although the landscape was pockmarked from shells, Arthur wrote,
...One saw only a vast expanse of weeds of cultivation, which so completely covered the ground and dominated the landscape that all appeared to be a level surface. In July, poppies predominated, and the sheet of colour as far as the eye could see was superb; a blaze of scarlet unbroken by tree or hedgerow.
No more moving sight can be imagined than this great expanse of open country gorgeous in its display of colour, dotted over with half-hidden white crosses of the dead. In no British cemetery, large or small, however beautiful or impressive it may be, can the same sentiments be evoked or feelings so deeply stirred. Nowhere, I imagine, can the magnitude of the struggle be better appreciated than in this peaceful, poppy-covered battlefield hallowed by its many scattered crosses.
 
Unearthed Words
After five or six years, I dig up my Roses about October tenth, cut the tops down to about twelve inches, cut out some of the old wood, cut off the roots considerably, trench the ground anew, and replant. The following year the Roses may not bloom very profusely, but afterward, for four or five years, the yield will be great. My physician in the[128] country is a fine gardener and particularly successful with Roses. We have many delightful talks about gardening. When I told him of my surgical operations upon the Roses, he was horrified at such barbarity and seemed to listen with more or less incredulity. So I asked him if, as a surgeon as well as physician, he approved, on occasion, of lopping off a patient’s limbs to prolong his life, why he should not also sanction the same operation in the vegetable kingdom. He was silent.
― Helena Rutherford Ely, A Woman's Hardy Garden
 
Grow That Garden Library
Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally by Robert Kourik 
This book came out in 1986. And in 2005, it was back in print by popular demand.
Now, as per usual, Robert is ahead of the curve here. He's talking about incorporating edibles into the landscape and he was doing this way back in the eighties.
So props to Robert. Now, what I love about all of Robert Kirk's books.   Is how practical and experience-based is advisive.
And as with his other books, he puts tons of resources at the end of this book as well.  So make sure to check that out.
In this book, Robert mainly focuses on the edible plants you can put in your garden. That will help fertilize the soil and attract beneficial insects like pollinators and then provide additional benefits like helping your garden with issues like erosion or sheltering your home from cold heat and wind.
Robert also talks about how to incorporate edibles in trouble spots.  So think about areas where water is a problem or where you maybe don't get that much sun.
Well. Robert guides you through all of that and makes edible suggestions for those areas as well.
In this book, Robert also talks about making your soil better.
He walks you through a ton of tree pruning styles. And he even dishes up some gourmet recipes.
Because, of course, if you're growing edibles, You're going to want to eat them. That's the best part.
This book is 382 pages of edible landscaping from a master. Robert installed his very first edible landscape back in 1978.  And he brings all of that experience to bear in this fantastic resource.
You can get a copy of Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally by Robert Kourik and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $18.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 11, 1926
Birth of Thích Nhất Hạnh (“Tick Nyot Hahn”), Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk and peace activist. His students call him Thay (pronounced “Tay” or “Tie”), which is Vietnamese for “teacher.” In 1982 he cofounded The Plum Village, a Buddhist monastery in southern France.
Thay often uses nature to teach. In 2014, he wrote No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering. 
He once wrote,
Wilting flowers do not cause suffering. 
It is the unrealistic desire that flowers not wilt that causes suffering.
In Fidelity: How to Create a Loving Relationship That Lasts (2011), Thai wrote,
Every time you breathe in and know you are breathing, every time you breathe out and smile to your out-breath, you are yourself, you are your own master, and you are the gardener of your own garden.
In his 1992 book, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, Thay wrote,
I have lost my smile, but don't worry.
The dandelion has it.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an American civil servant and poet, an American art expert, and a Harlem artist and gardener.
We'll hear an excerpt from historical fiction by Deanna Raybourn.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a lyrical book by a peach farmer.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the story of a humorist who made a living writing about the sunny side of life.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Why it took nearly 50 years for scientists to name this mysterious tropical plant | CNN | Megan Marples
Lauritzen Gardens - Omaha Botanical Center 20th birthday!
 
Important Events
October 8, 1838 
Birth of John Hay, American politician, diplomat, and poet. He served three assassinated American leaders, including President Lincoln. Along with John Nicolay, he co-wrote a ten-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln that helped shape his legacy. Like Lincoln, John lost a son, and the loss profoundly affected him. Three years later, he wrote,
The death of our boy made my wife and me old at once and for the rest of our lives.
After the death of his father-in-law, John became enormously wealthy and took over the family business and investments. His family enjoyed regular trips to Europe, a grand mansion in Washington D.C., and a cottage in New Hampshire that John called the Fells. John had cobbled together 1,000 acres of land after quietly buying up abandoned farms. The etymology of The Fells name was Scottish and means rocky upland pastures. John especially enjoyed time at The Fells, which overlooked pastoral view. In the foreground, sheep grazed among prehistoric boulders that dotted the landscape, and in the distance were views of scenic Lake Sunapee. John’s wife, Clara, was a gardener, and she had a special love for roses and hydrangeas.
In 1890, John wrote,
I was greatly pleased with the air, the water, the scenery. I have nowhere found a more beautiful spot.
In terms of poetry, John was best known for a collection of post-Civil War poems compiled into a book called Pike County Ballads (1871). Here’s one of his poems called Words, in which he uses nature to show the power a simple word can have on our lives.
When violets were springing
And sunshine filled the day,
And happy birds were singing
The praises of the May,
A word came to me, blighting
The beauty of the scene,
And in my heart was winter,
Though all the trees were green.
Now down the blast go sailing
The dead leaves, brown and sere;
The forests are bewailing
The dying of the year;
A word comes to me, lighting
With rapture all the air,
And in my heart is summer,
Though all the trees are bare.
 
October 8, 1934 
Birth of J. Carter Brown, American art expert, intellectual, and visionary. He was the director of the U.S. National Gallery of Art from 1969 to 1992. Although he was born in a family of great wealth - the Browns of Newport, the Browns of Brown University - he was a champion of public access to art. He believed people needed to see art in person and used a garden analogy to drive that point home:
No one will understand a Japanese garden until you’ve walked through one, and you hear the crunch underfoot, and you smell it, and you experience it over time. Now there’s no photograph or any movie that can give you that experience.
 
October 8, 1930
Birth of Faith Ringgold, American painter, writer, mixed media sculptor, and performance artist.  Faith was born in Harlem into a family that embraced artistic creativity. She grew up after the Harlem Renaissance, and her neighborhood was home to the likes of Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes. One of her childhood friends was jazz musician Sonny Rollins. Growing up, Faith had chronic asthma, so she learned to pass the time indoors, creating visual art with the help of her mom. She became an expert seamstress and began experimenting with fabric as a medium for her art. Today Faith is known for her narrative quilts. One of her most beloved quilts is Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles, which depicts a group of African American women working on a sunflower quilt with Van Gogh off to the side, bringing them a vase of sunflowers.
In 1999, Faith had a garden installed at her Englewood, New Jersey home. She says,
[I love] to be able to look at the garden the first thing every morning, and I love to paint the green in as many ways as I can. 
For many years now, Faith has hosted a garden party in June to benefit the Anyone Can Fly Foundation. The mission of the Anyone Can Fly Foundation is to expand the art establishment's canon to include artists of the African Diaspora and to introduce the Great Masters of African American Art and their art traditions to children and adult audiences.
In 2019, there was an exhibition of Faith’s art at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens.
 
Unearthed Words
Something had shifted between us, faintly, but the change was almost palpable. Our friendship had sat lightly between us, an ephemeral thing, without weight or gravity. Once, in the Boboli Gardens, “Bo-bah-lee” under the shadow of a cypress tree on an achingly beautiful October afternoon, he had kissed me, a solemnly sweet and respectful kiss. But weeks had passed, and we had not spoken of it. I had attributed it to the sunlight, shimmering gold like Danaë's shower, “Dan ah ee” and had pressed it into the scrapbook of memory, to be taken out and admired now and then, but not to be dwelled upon too seriously. Perhaps I had been mistaken.
― Deanna Raybourn, Silent in the Sanctuary
 
Grow That Garden Library
Epitaph for a Peach by David M. Masumoto
This book came out in 1996, and the subtitle is Four Seasons on My Family Farm.
This memoir is a personal favorite. Mas’s lyrical writing is a pleasure to read. Here are a few gems from the book:
A new planting is like having another child, requiring patience and sacrifice and a resounding optimism for the future.
I try to rely less and less on controlling nature. Instead, I am learning to live with its chaos.
Good neighbors are worth more than an extra sixteen trees.
Mas is an organic peach farmer who shares his story with humor, grace, and incredible insight into the natural world.
The New York Times said,
[Masumoto is] a poet of farming and peaches.
This book is 256 pages of thoughts on growing from a peach farmer with the soul of a poet.
You can get a copy of Epitaph for a Peach by David M. Masumoto and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $2.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 8, 1915
Birth of William E. 'Bill' Vaughan (pen name Burton Hillis), American columnist and author. In addition to his magazine features, he wrote a syndicated column for the Kansas City Star for over three decades. His folksy sayings include,
Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.
Experience teaches that love of flowers and vegetables is not enough to make a man a good gardener.  He must also hate weeds.
The best of all gifts around any #Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
Bill Vaughan was beloved for his humor and his friendliness. He generally wrote thirteen paragraphs of humorous observations every single day for his column. He also was an artist. A 1970 profile of Bill in his beloved Kansas City Star stated,
[He] has always had what art lovers describe as unfortunate yearnings to be an artist. While testing his fledgling wings as a columnist in Springfield, Vaughan became adept at drawing deep one-column sketches that relieved him substantially of the responsibility of filling the space with words. The day Vaughan filled virtually an entire column with a drawing of a garden hose with very little at either end, the editor ordered a halt to this sort of thing.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a beloved Indiana poet, the Engelmann Botanical Club and their display of fall flowers over 120 years ago, and an Australian author who had asthma as a child.
We'll hear an excerpt from the New York Times bestselling author, Karen White.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a terrific book by a modern plantsman and nurseryman.
And then we'll wrap things up with a poignant poem from a writer and critic who said his goodbyes through his writing.
 
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Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there's no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Prairie Strips Prevent Soil Erosion, Help Pollinators | Farm Progress | Fran O'Leary
 
Important Events
October 7, 1849
Birth of James Whitcomb Riley, American writer, and poet. In Indiana, he was especially beloved and is remembered as the Hoosier poet. James wrote in dialect - in the voice of the common man - and the majority of his over 1,000 poems were often sentimental or humorous. He managed to have a successful writing career despite a lifelong struggle with alcohol. Today, in James' hometown of Greenfield, Indiana, the Riley Festival is touted as Indiana's largest four-day gathering. The event started in 1925 and took place the first or second weekend of October. The "Riley Days" festival traditionally ends with a flower parade, and children place flowers around 1918 Myra Reynolds Richards' statue of Riley on the county courthouse lawn.
James wrote several poems about flowers and gardens. One of his most famous poems is When the Frost is on the Punkin. Here's an excerpt from When The Green Gits Back In The Trees:
In Spring, when the green gits back in the trees,
And the sun comes out and stays,
And yer boots pulls on with a good tight squeeze,
And you think of yer bare-foot days;
When you ort to work and you want to not,
And you and yer wife agrees
It's time to spade up the garden-lot,
When the green gits back in the trees
When the whole tail-feathers o' Wintertime
Is all pulled out and gone!
And the sap it thaws and begins to climb,
And the swet it starts out on
A feller's forred, a-gittin' down
At the old spring on his knees—
When the green gits back in the trees —
 
October 7, 1900    
On this day, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri) shared articles about autumn-blooming flowers.
The wild flower exhibition held by the Engelmann Botanical Club in the Public Library Building gave the observer a striking idea of the beauty and profusion of the uncultivated flowers which can be found In the vicinity of St. Louis in the autumn. 
To many it was a revelation. 
Miss Ellen C. Clark, President of the Englemann Botanical Club, wrote,  
The table that attracted the children the most was that on which the fruits and seeds were collected. The pods of the milkweed and dogbane families, with their hairy seed, those of the trumpet creeper and others, showed them how seed could fly; the berries of the dogwood, buckthorn, the coralberry, the pokeberry had each its special attraction.
The Engelmann Botanical Club has had only a short existence. [It started] a little more than two years ago… When a name for the club was considered it seemed most fitting to honor Dr. Engelmann, the eminent St. Louis physician who made time in the midst of a large practice to do botanical work that distinguished him among the botanists of the world. 
J. H. Kellogg wrote,  
Besides the large exhibits of gentians, lobelias, asters, and goldenrods, there were others equally as attractive, although the Cardinal Lobelia is one of the most glaringly beautiful wildflowers to be found. 
Eupatorium ageratoides, or whitesnake root, growing in rich shady woods with white flowers, is a very pretty plant, blooming until late in the fall. 
Eupatorium coelestinum. or mistflower, with its delicate blue flowers, is very beautiful. It Is found growing in low grounds and blooming until cold weather. 
Bidens Bipinnata or Spanish Needle is one of our common fall flowers, sometimes covering low meadows with its bright yellow flowers and along roadside almost everywhere. 
Another group of plants that will attract your attention if you take a walk through the woods in almost any direction during the fall of the year is the Desmodiums or beggar’s ticks [or beggar lice]. Not on account of their showy flowers, but of their seeds, which will stick to you "closer than a brother," as anyone can testify who has taken a walk in the country at this season of the year.
 
October 7, 1935 
Birth of Thomas Keneally, Australian novelist. He is most widely known for his non-fiction novel Schindler's Ark, which was adapted into Steven Spielberg's 1993 Academy Award-winning film for Best Picture, Schindler's List.
As a child, Thomas had terrible asthma. He wrote,
I [was] frequently sick, particularly with asthma for which there was no proper treatment then.
In September of 2009, Thomas helped open the brand new Asthma and Allergy Friendly Garden in the Eden Display Gardens in Sydney. A first of its kind in Australia, the garden was developed by Eden by Design with guidance from the Asthma Foundation NSW to help people living with asthma and allergies enjoy the benefits of gardening. One of the keys for asthmatics and allergy sufferers is to select low-allergen plants and female trees. Some tree species are distinctly male or female. The male plant produces pollen, and the female plants are often less triggering for folks with allergies. Other tips include gardening in the morning when the grass is still wet with dew - that helps keep the pollen on the ground. Avoid gardening on windy days when pollen is in the air. And after being in the garden, make sure to shower and change your clothes to remove any allergens that are on your body and clothes.
 
Unearthed Words
I looked around the garden, the sun feeling warm on my back.
"So why are you here? I would think you'd want to be as far away from a hurricane as possible."
She looked at me as if I'd just suggested streaking down the beach. It took her a moment to answer.
"Because this is home."
She wanted to see if the words registered with me, but I just looked back at her, not understanding at all.
After a deep breath, she looked up at a tall oak tree beyond the garden, its leaves still green against the early October sky, the limbs now thick with foliage.
"Because the water recedes, and the sun comes out, and the trees grow back. Because" - she spread her hands, indicated the garden and the trees and, I imagined, the entire peninsula of Biloxi - "because we've learned that great tragedy gives us opportunities for great kindness. It's like a needed reminder that the human spirit is alive and well despite all evidence to the contrary."
She lowered her hands to her sides.
"I figured I wasn't dead, so I must not be done."
― Karen White, The Beach Trees
 
Grow That Garden Library
The New Shade Garden by Ken Druse
This book came out in 2015, and the subtitle is Creating a Lush Oasis in the Age of Climate Change.
In this book, Ken Druse does it again. He provides another comprehensive guide - but this time focuses on shade plants and our changing climate. Ken's conversational writing style makes his advice stickier and easier to implement. Today gardeners need to be planning for the conditions their garden may face long term to maximize their efforts and investment.

• What shade plants are best if you have deer?
• How can I have a shade garden and also water less?
• What are the best plants for color in the shade garden of the future?

These are the questions current and future generations of gardeners face. Beauty is still a garden goal, but today's gardener is looking for earth-friendly, climate-wise, and super functional plants.
This book is 256 pages of everything you need to know to create or upgrade a shade garden from a modern plant master.
You can get a copy of The New Shade Garden by Ken Druse and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $30.
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 7, 1939
Birth of Clive James, Australian-born British literary critic, poet, lyricist, novelist, and memoirist. In 1972, Clive gained notoriety as a television critic for The Observer. His voice was unique, and his writing reflected his wry and intelligent humor.
Then, eleven years ago, in 2010, Clive was diagnosed with both emphysema and leukemia. As one might expect, his deteriorating health impacted his work, and Clive began using his poetry to write his earthly goodbyes.
One day in 2014, his daughter gifted him with a tree, and he wrote a touching poem called Japanese Maple. Clive worried he wouldn't live to see the tree change color in the fall. Here are the words he wrote from that particular verse.
My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that.That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same.
Clive James enjoyed several autumns with that tree. He died in 2019.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a Kentucky botanist, a French priest and plant explorer, and a Texas doctor and botanist.
We'll hear an excerpt from Susan Hill's book, The Magic Apple Tree.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with another great book by Michael Dirr.
And then we'll wrap things up with a reminder from a modern gardener to stop and enjoy the leaves.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
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The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Garden Border Ideas | Country Living | Matt Rees-Warren
 
Important Events
October 6, 1794
Birth of Charles Wilkins Short, American botanist, and doctor. A Kentuckian, Charles wrote a flora of Kentucky in 1833. He had one of the largest, most valued private herbariums with 15,000 plant samples, and his massive garden covered several acres. Charles was honored in the naming of many plants, including the Oconee bell named the Shortia galacifolia.
Now in terms of botanical history, this plant has quite a story. Back in the 1800s, when Charles was still alive, the plant's location had become a mystery. People couldn't find it. And in 1863, after Charles Short died, botanists still did not know where to find this plant, or even if it still existed. In fact, many botanists were asked the question,
Have you found the Shortia yet? 
It was driving them crazy.
But finally, in May of 1877, a North Carolina teenager named George Hyams sent an unknown specimen to Asa Gray at Harvard. And when Asa laid eyes on this plant, he knew immediately that it was the Shortia, and he could be heard crying 'Eureka' when he saw it.
Two years later, Asa and his wife along with his dear friend, the botanist John Redfield, the director of the Arnold Arboretum Charles Sprague Sargent, and the botanist William Canby all stood around the little patch of earth where the Shortia grew in oblivion of all the hubbub it had caused. The long search to find the Shortia was over. It was growing right where George Hyams said it would be.
 
October 6, 1858
Birth of André Soulié, French Roman Catholic missionary, herbalist, healer, and botanist. Many of the first plant collectors were missionaries. André was one of a handful of the last missionary collectors. He collected thousands of dried plants and seeds and then sent them back to Paris.
André was so fluent in the different Chinese dialects that he could pass as a local.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, plant collecting in China was a dangerous business. Collectors not only contended with geographic challenges like terrain but also political upheaval. The Opium Wars and the ongoing dispute with Tibet increased distrust and hostility toward foreigners.
In 1905, in retaliation for an invasion of Tibet by a British explorer named Francis Younghusband, André was abducted by Tibetan monks. He was grabbed right in the middle of packing up his plant specimens. André was tortured for over two weeks before finally being shot dead by his captors.
André is remembered for his discovery of the Rosa soulieana and the butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii). He also has a Rhododendron, a Lily, and Primula named in his honor.
 
October 6, 1877 
On this day, a 46-year-old American doctor and botanist named Levi Jasper James Russell was whipped.
He was lured out of his home at midnight to treat a sick woman and instead met with a mob who stripped him naked and gave him 100 lashes for being an "infidel."
A leading member of the Freethinkers, Levi was agnostic and a pioneering doctor and herbalist. He served as chairman of the committee on medical botany of the Texas State Medical Association.
Before his life in Texas, Levi had gone west to California to dig for gold with his brothers after leaving their home state of Georgia. The three brothers were among the first to prospect for gold in Colorado and helped found the city of Denver.
Levi survived being shot with a bow and arrow by Native Americans in Montana and contracting smallpox during his imprisonment by Union soldiers during the Civil War.
But all that was behind him by the time he was whipped on this day, October 6th, 1877. Levi stayed in Texas, and he continued to serve his community as a doctor. He eventually died in Bell County, Texas, in 1908 at the age of 77.
 
Unearthed Words
In early October, the woods begin to come alive again, and that surprises many people, who think of them in autumn as places of decay and dying, falling leaves and animals hiding away for their long winter hibernation. But it is summer there that is the dead time. In summer, the air hangs heavy and close and still, nothing flowers, nothing sings, nothing stirs, and no light penetrates. But, now, there is a stirring, a sense of excitement.
― Susan Hill, The Magic Apple Tree: A Country Year
 
Grow That Garden Library
The Tree Book by Michael Dirr and Keith Warren
This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Superior Selections for Landscapes, Streetscapes, and Gardens. 
This book is co-authored by Michael Dir and tree breeder and nurseryman Keith Warren. Together, this dynamic duo of tree expertise put together the latest and greatest must-have tree book. The two men feature old favorites and exciting new selections. My favorite is when they recommend the hidden gems, the overlooked, and the underappreciated trees that deserve a second look.
I've been saying for the past two years that gardeners need to plant more trees. But gardeners often lack the expertise for trees that they cultivate for edibles or ornamentals. This is where The Tree Book can save the day.  
If you've wondered about the trees you should be considering, what tree is suitable for your space, why a tree is not working out, or how to put together a stunning tree portfolio for your property, this book is essential.
This book is 900 pages of nerding out on trees from two masters who share information gleaned from training and experience.
You can get a copy of The Tree Book by Michael A. Dirr and Keith S. Warren and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $32 - or 3 cents a page!
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 6, 2017
On this day, Chris Howell, the gardener at Birmingham Botanical Gardens, tweeted a beautiful fall photo of leaves. In a day and age where manicured lawns are still universally valued, leaves are often seen more as a nuisance to our busy lives, being quickly raked up, bagged up, or blown away.
But on this day in 2017, Chris was so struck by the simple beauty of fallen leaves on a path, he tweeted that photo along with this caption:
Some leaves just need to be left on the ground to admire for a while.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a Flemish Renaissance painter who painted the first landscapes, the American naturalist and artist who saved Prospect Park, and an American botanist who jotted down a little poem on one of the pages in his herbarium - a little known treasure.
We'll hear an October excerpt from Barbara Kingsolver from one of her best-selling books.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with the bible for trees and shrubs - it’s a must-have monster resource.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the story of the Enlightenment author who captured the work of gardeners and various trades at his own peril.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
House & Garden | Nicola Harding's tips for outdoor dining | Nicola Harding
 
Important Events
October 5, 1524
Birth of Joachim Patinir, Flemish Renaissance painter of history, religion, and landscape. He worked primarily in Antwerp, and he’s credited with creating landscape painting as an independent subject. Joachim’s scenes are imaginary. His world landscape offers a panoramic landscape with craggy rocks and boulders jutting out a cliff on one side and partially obscuring the view. Then he usually included small figures portraying religious events. His use of vibrant colors and little details set in the sweeping landscapes is mesmerizing.
 
October 5, 1850
Birth of William Hamilton Gibson, American illustrator, author, and naturalist. Born in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, William grew up with an immediate love of the natural world. When he was ten years old, his parents sent him to a boarding school called the Gunn school for advanced training. Frederick Gunn loved the natural world, and he incorporated the study of nature into the academic teachings of the school.  As a young teen, he wrote his mother,
I have just found an Imperial moth worm on a maple tree. Will you please look on one of the small apple trees in the orchard near the place where the arbor used to be… there is a tree on which I put a Cecropia worm for myself…  I think a great deal of it, or I wouldn’t write about it.  The boys are leaving from here very fast, and we all will leave in 13 days more....
P. S. That worm that I told you about on the apple tree, if very large, must be taken off and put into a box with fresh apple leaves every day; if small, do the same.
In another note to his mother, he ended with this offer,
In a garden up here, there is a kind of Columbine, very large, of two kinds, purple and white and very large. I am welcome to all the seed that I want. I don’t know whether you want any or not, but nevertheless, I’ll get you a lot.
I remain Your aff. son Willie.
At the Gunn school, William was able to study all aspects of the natural world - even botany  - and he benefited from being surrounded by the immersive nature of the school. He wrote,
There is often an almost inexhaustible field for botanic investigation even on a single fallen tree. My scientific friend ...recently informed me... that he had spent two days most delightfully and profitably in the study of ...a single dead tree, and [was surprised to learn that] a hundred distinct species of plants congregated upon it. Plumy dicentra clustered along its length, graceful sprays of the frost-flower with its little spire of snow crystals rose up here and there, scarlet berries of the Indian turnip glowed among the leaves, and, with the ….lycopodiums and mosses, ...ferns and lichens, and [a] host of fungous growths, it [was] easy… to extend the list of species into the second hundred. It is something worth remembering the next time we go into the woods.
As an adult, William lived in Brooklyn. He started out in a soul-crushing job selling insurance until the day he tried to sell insurance to a draftsman. He ended up spending the day watching him draw and immediately pivoted to pursue an art career. His first gig was drawing feathers for Harper Brothers magazine. His iconic peacock feather drawing sealed his fate as an illustrator. Once he began writing, he also became known as a nature writer. One of his favorite places to write was a wild corner of Prospect Park. There he enjoyed a rare oasis of flora and fauna unlike any other green space in the city. When the city sought to clean up the wild space by cutting trees and removing plants, William wrote articles for the newspaper and persuaded local leaders to see what the city stood to lose. After the city reversed course, William Hamilton Gibson became known as the man who saved Prospect Park.
 
October 5, 1873
Birth of Merritt Lyndon Fernald, American botanist. He wrote over 800 papers and coauthored Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America (1919-1920) with Alfred Kinsey, the American scientist, and sexologist.
On one of his herbarium sheets, he once wrote a quick poem about the Rhodora - the pink blooming azalea found in the Northeastern United States.
The gay Rhodora long the margin stands,
Forerunner of the summer’s fairer Rose;
Yet coming as she does to ope spring’s lands,
She brightens every mood wherein she blows.
 
Unearthed Words
Our gardening forebears meant watermelon to be the juicy, barefoot taste of a hot summer's end, just as a pumpkin is the trademark fruit of late October. Most of us accept the latter and limit our jack-o'-lantern activities to the proper botanical season. Waiting for a watermelon is harder. It's tempting to reach for melons, red peppers, tomatoes, and other late-summer delights before the summer even arrives. But it's actually possible to wait, celebrating each season when it comes, not fretting about its being absent at all other times because something else good is at hand.
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
 
Grow That Garden Library
Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs by Michael A. Dirr
This book came out in 2011, and it is a hefty gem of a resource.
This book has over 3500 photographs of over 3700 species and cultivars.
Michael covers thousands of plants in this very detailed book, from flowering shrubs to weeping trees. Photos show trees in winter and other seasons to make identification and selection 100% accurate.
This book is an excellent resource for gardeners, landscape architects, designers, and anyone who wants the bible for trees and shrubs.
This book is 952 pages of trees and shrubs by a respected plantsman who writes with passion, candor, and wit about every possible aspect of these plants - flower color, fall color, salt or shade tolerance, winter interest, and form, just to name a few.
You can get a copy of Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs by Michael Dirr and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $37.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 5, 1713
Birth of Denis Diderot, French philosopher, art critic, and writer.
Denis was an ordinary man. He was not part of the aristocracy like his contemporary, Voltaire. After he started work on the first encyclopedia in France, he was imprisoned - punished for claiming that knowledge came from our senses and not from God. In this way and many others, Denis Diderot challenged the church, but he learned to be a little more discreet with his criticisms over time.
Diderot’s concept for his encyclopedia was to gather together the brightest minds of his time and create a series of books that shared standard academic fair like philosophy and literature and everyday jobs in the crafts and trades. This type of information had never been captured, and by including it in his encyclopedia, he elevated the people’s work.
Some of the work he wrote about was horticultural and floral. For Instance, he featured the work of artificial flower makers and market gardeners. Today, the illustrated pages of these jobs have become popular as pieces of art.
Speaking of art, Diderot was a huge admirer of artisans and art. He was a tough critic. He once wrote,
First of all, move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder, outrage me!
Delight my eyes, afterwards, if you can... 
Whatever the art form, it is better to be extravagant than cold.
Denis Diderot’s 28-volume Encyclopédie (1751-1772) featured work from over 100 writers covering over 71,000 entries and 20 million words. Although it was banned by both King Louis XV of France and the Vatican, Diderot’s Encyclopédie was a huge success and led Diderot to devise his famous saying that, 
A book banned is a book read. 
Today the Encyclopédie is considered one of the great works of the European Enlightenment.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an English artist and clergyman, an old diary entry from the great Henry David Thoreau, and we’ll also learn about an American publishing tycoon and his family’s retreat called Bird Haven Farm.
We'll hear an excerpt on October from a Harry Potter book.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book from one of the great plantsmen of our time and his excellent resource on Viburnums.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a charming garden verse. I bet you’ve heard it before - but you may not be familiar with the woman who wrote it.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
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Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Improve Your Soil by Raking Less | Fine Gardening | Terry Ettinger
 
Important Events
October 4, 1761/1762 
Birth of William Gilpin, English artist, teacher, clergyman, and landscape designer. He coined the term picturesque. He had documented his visit to Ross-on-Wye, and the resulting book became England’s first tourist guide. William inspired others to enjoy the sights of the town, including the picturesque Wye river, and visitors came to the area in droves.
William spent a great deal of time outdoors painting landscapes. He observed,
Every distant horizon promises something new, and with this pleasing expectation, we follow nature through all her walks.
During his life, many looked to William as an arbiter of artistic taste. In addition to the picturesque landscape, he was especially fond of old ruins, mountains, and trees. William’s paintings were created on-site out in nature, and he wasn't opposed to using a little artistic license to make the scene even more compelling - adding more trees, a little bridge, or enhancing an old ruin. In 1786, William wrote,
A ruin is a sacred thing. Rooted for ages in the soil; assimilated to it; and become, as it were, a part of it ...
William was the first president of the Royal Watercolor Society, and he also authored several books related to his work as an artist. One of his more popular books was called Forest Scenery, which featured forty-five watercolors of trees and shrubs along with descriptions. He also included his tips and tricks for capturing a picturesque effect on canvas through the clumping of trees. Tree painting was a William Gilpin specialty. He adored trees. He once wrote,
It is no exaggerated praise to call a tree the grandest and most beautiful of all productions on earth!
 
October 4, 1853
On this day, Thoreau wrote in his journal:
The maples are reddening, and birches yellowing. The mouse-ear in the shade in the middle of the day, so hoary, looks as if the frost still lay on it. Well it wears the frost. Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus, and gnats are dancing in the air.
 
October 4, 1862
Birth of Edward Stratemeyer, American publisher, writer of children's fiction, and founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. He produced over 1,300 books and sold over 500 million copies. He’s remembered for series like The Bobbsey Twins and The Hardy Boys. The very day his new series, Nancy Drew, was released, he died. Regarding his legacy, Fortune wrote:
As oil had its Rockefeller, literature had its Stratemeyer.
After Edward died, his widow, Magdalene Van Camp, bought a Bird Haven farm for a weekend retreat. It was a place she enjoyed living on weekends and holidays for more than forty years. During those four decades, she wrote over half of the Nancy Drew books and developed plots for many other series. Edward and Magdalene’s daughter Harriet took over the family business and ran it for fifty years. She also spent the last half of her life at Bird Haven. In 1982, while watching The Wizard of Oz for the very first time, she had a heart attack and died.
Today the twenty-five acres known as Bird Haven Farm in Tewksbury Township is part of the Garden Conservancy Open Day. The barns, outbuildings, and the original nineteenth-century stone house are joined by a contemporary home built in the 1990s. In 2002, the garden was redesigned under the vision of Fernando Caruncho as a medieval village. The property boasts mature trees, an apple orchard, fruit trees, a vegetable and herb garden, hay meadows, and a perennial border designed by Lisa Stamm. Design elements include a woodland walk, cascading ponds, a charming pond hut, a maze garden for grandchildren, and an elf’s stump.
But there’s something else happening at Bird Haven Farm. The current owner, Janet Mavec, finds inspiration in flora and fauna on Bird Haven, and she created her own line of whimsical jewelry. One day, as she was working in the garden, she was thinking about jewelry and was suddenly struck with the idea of making jewelry inspired by her vegetables. In a video of Bird Haven Farm, Janet says,
I only make things that I either grow here myself - or they swim, or they fly in. 
Janet’s jewelry is made with brass and then dipped in 18 karat gold, sterling silver, or gunmetal. Janet hopes her jewelry clients feel a closeness to nature with her unique jewelry designs.
 
Unearthed Words
October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days on end; the lake rose, the flower beds turned into muddy streams, and Hagrid’s pumpkins swelled to the size of garden sheds.
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets
 
Grow That Garden Library
Viburnums by Michael A. Dirr 
This book came out in 2007, and the subtitle is Flowering Shrubs for Every Season.
In this book, Michael takes us on an in-depth tour of Viburnums - one of the most versatile, most utilized, and beloved shrubs for our gardens. As a woody expert, Michael was the perfect person to write a comprehensive guide on viburnums. He reveals their robustness and beauty in addition to sharing detailed information about every possible type of viburnum a gardener could ever desire. His honest and balanced review of every plant will make it easier for you to pick the perfect viburnum for your garden. Viburnums can satisfy any Landscape need: some are four-season, some are a true wow in the garden, some are well-behaved workhorses, others play a supporting role in the garden design. Whether you want gorgeous fall color, stunning blossoms, fragrance, or fruit, there’s a viburnum for every need. Michael likes to say that a garden without viburnums is like a life without the pleasures of music and art.
This book is 264 pages of viburnums in all their glory - spotlighting the diversity in this incredibly functional and beautiful genus. You’ll want to bring it along on your next trip to the garden center.
You can get a copy of Viburnums by Michael A. Dirr and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $14.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 4, 1858 
Birth of Dorothy Gurney, English hymn-writer and poet. She wrote the famous wedding hymn O Perfect Love for her sister’s wedding. Her sister loved the tune of O Strength And Stay but wanted different words so she could use the song during the ceremony. In a flash of divine inspiration, Dorothy jotted down new lyrics in just fifteen minutes, and the result was O Perfect Love.
But Dorothy also wrote one of the most charming garden verses ever created. The words she strung together still grace our gardens, sundials, memorials, and cemeteries. The four lines of simple verse are taken from her original poem God’s Garden.
The kiss of the sun for pardon, 
The song of the birds for mirth, 
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden 
Than anywhere else on earth.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an American botanist, professor, and writer, an American short-story writer, and her last novel, and the amateur botanist honored with the Australian Native Plants Award.
We'll hear an excerpt from Neil Gaiman's book, Season of Mists.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a master book on wreaths.
And then we'll wrap things up with a garden classic that came out on this day in 2013.
 
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To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to
“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there's no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
How your electric toothbrush can aid pollination | The Guardian | James Wong
 
Important Events
October 1, 1874
Birth of LeRoy Abrams, American botanist, professor, and writer. Born in Sheffield, Iowa, he moved west with his parents as a small boy. As a graduate student, he botanized around Los Angeles. A biographical sketch of LeRoy said,
[He] crisscrossed southern California in a wagon, on the back of a mule or burrow, and on foot to make field observations... and collected specimens from Santa Barbara to Yuma, from Needles to San Diego, and from the Salton Sink prior to its flooding to the summits of Old Baldy.
He published Flora of Los Angeles and Vicinity (1904), encompassing a fifty-mile radius around LA. In 1909, LeRoy married a fellow student at Stanford named Letitia Patterson. The couple handbuilt and enjoyed their mountain cabin on the west side of Fallen Leaf Lake. When their only daughter died a few short years after her college graduation, they shouldered their grief together. LeRoy served as the director of the Natural History Museum at Stanford, where he taught botany for thirty-four years. The final volume of his four-volume work An Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States was completed posthumously. LeRoy was a loving teacher. His students called him "Father." When, at 51, the great botanist Ynes Mexia decided to pursue a career in botany, her first course was on flowering plants, and her professor was LeRoy Abrams.
 
October 1, 1972
On this day, The Tampa Tribune profiled American short story writer Eudora Welty and shared some backstory on what would be her last book:
Miss Welty was writing "Losing Battles" at home with her [dying mother] and two nurses and laughing a great deal (the book is beyond grief and funny as owls in heaven), and the nurses did not approve of anything. And right in the middle of it, the nematodes did in the roses, which had been packed in that garden tight as a trunk, but nothing that could be tried availed at all. Ordinarily, an attack on her roses would have brought [the older] Mrs. Welty right out of the kitchen, as they say, but she was past those battles then. Her characters in her stories are like the roses: some make it, some don't.
 
October 1, 2019 
On this day, amateur botanist Glenn Leiper received the Australian Native Plants Award. He co-wrote a popular field guide of native plants in southeast Queensland called Mangroves to Mountains. While botanizing the area, he rediscovered the rainforest myrtle tree Gossia gonoclada a century after the plant was considered extinct. He also discovered a native violet colony. Once, he spied a fifteen-centimeter-tall from his car while driving. The unusual spotting resulted in the naming of the plant in his honor: Androcalva leiperi. Glenn acknowledges his most helpful skill for botany,
I've got good eyes.
 
Unearthed Words
October knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter, or of shutting a book did not end a tale. Having admitted that, he would also avow that happy endings were never difficult to find: "It is simply a matter," he explained to April, "of finding a sunny place in a garden, where the light is golden, and the grass is soft; somewhere to rest, to stop reading, and to be content.
― Neil Gaiman, Season of Mists
 
Grow That Garden Library
Wreaths by Terri Chandler
This book came out in 2018, and the subtitle is Fresh, Foraged, and Dried Floral Arrangements.
In this book, Terri shares her nature-inspired wreaths. Now, if you've ever tried to make your own wreath, you know it's more complicated than it looks. Terri breaks down the fine art of creative wreath-making - playing with color, texture, natural elements, and how to use them. If you thought wreaths were just for the front door - Terri will show you how to integrate them into your home to dress up unexpected areas like chairs, centerpieces, and even books.
This book is 144 pages of wreath goodness - good ideas, good uses, and excellent form.
You can get a copy of Wreaths by Terri Chandler and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $3
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
October 1, 2013
On this day, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer was released. The compelling subtitle is Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.
The book has brought her fame and opened the eyes of her readers who see the natural world in a new way - an ancient way. 
Robin introduces her book on her website with this excerpt:
I could hand you a braid of sweetgrass, as thick and shining as the plait that hung down my grandmother's back. But it is not mine to give, nor yours to take. 
So I offer, in its place, a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world.
Robin's prose is like poetry. Her Native American roots offered a distinct and more profound way to connect with plants and with the world. As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin approaches nature with a spirit of gratitude and humility.
In her book, Robin writes of gardens and gardening.
Gardens are simultaneously a material and a spiritual undertaking. That’s hard for scientists so fully brainwashed by Cartesian dualism to grasp.
“Well, how would you know it’s love and not just good soil?” she asks. “Where’s the evidence? What are the key elements for detecting loving behavior?”
That’s easy. No one would doubt that I love my children, and even a quantitative social psychologist would find no fault with my list of loving behaviors: nurturing health and well-being, protection from harm, encouraging individual growth and development, desire to be together, generous sharing of resources, working together for a common goal, celebration of shared values, interdependence, sacrifice by one for the other, creation of beauty.
If we observed these behaviors between humans, we would say, “She loves that person.”
You might also observe these actions between a person and a bit of carefully tended ground and say, “She loves that garden.” 
Why then, seeing this list, would you not make the leap to say that the garden loves her back?”
A good question. A question most of us would not even consider asking. 
Yet, as gardeners, the notion of finding love in our gardens may not be such a strange notion after all. Do we not find renewal and healing from the solitude offered in our gardens. Are there not moments where we find a deeper understanding of ourselves or a new wonderment about the world just from being in our gardens? And isn't renewal, healing, self-discovery, and wonder the benefits we receive from being loved? 
It's something nice to consider, isn't it?
It's something Robin's thought about. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she writes,
This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an old English poet, a Mexican botanist, and a British gardener and survivalist who was way ahead of his time.
We'll hear an excerpt from a beautiful Jack Gilbert poem
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a garden classic of our time from a contemporary garden expert.
And then we'll wrap things up with a fun movie that featured a botanist. It debuted six years ago today in England.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there's no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Is a coconut a fruit, nut, or seed? | Library of Congress
 
Important Events
September 30, 1669 
Death of Henry King, English poet. He served as Bishop of Chichester and was close friends with John Donne. He wrote,
Brave flowers - that I could gallant it like you, 
And be as little vain! 
You come abroad, and make a harmless show, 
And to your beds again. 
You are not proud: you know your birth: 
For your embroidered garments are from earth.
 
September 30, 1901
Birth of Helia Bravo Hollis, Mexican botanist. She was the first woman to graduate with a degree in biology in Mexico. By 29, she was curator of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico City) herbarium, where she studied cacti. Her work brought notoriety, and she became known as The Queen of the Cacti. She co-wrote her masterpiece, Las Cactaceas de México, with Hernando Sánchez-Mejorada. In 1951, she cofounded the Mexican Cactus Society, which planned to celebrate her 100th birthday in 2001, but she died four days shy of the century mark. In 1980, Monaco's Princess Grace Kelly, who was also fond of cacti, presented Helia with the second-ever Golden Cactus Award. Helia helped found the Botanical Gardens at UNAM, where she served as the director throughout the 1960s. Once, when a strike occurred at the gardens, she offset her workers' lost wages with her own savings. In 2018, Google commemorated Helia's 117th birthday with a Google Doodle. Online, there is a memorable image of  Helia dressed in a skirt and blazer - with a knife in her hand - and standing next to an enormous Echinocactus platyacanthus, aka the giant barrel cactus. In Mexico, where the cactus is a native, the hairs are harvested for weaving, and a traditional candy is made from boiling the pith. Today, the Helia Bravo Hollis Botanical Garden, with more than 80 species of Cactaceae, is found at the Biosphere Reserve of Tehuacán.
Helia once wrote,
My reason for living is biology and cacti.
 
September 30,  1910
Birth of Edward Solomon Hyams, British gardener, French scholar, historian, anarchist, and writer. He was a gardening correspondent for the Illustrated London News and The Spectator and various horticultural journals. After WWII, he lived a self-sufficient lifestyle at Nut Tree Cottages in Molash in Kent. He planted a small vineyard and later wrote The Grape Vine in England (1949). The following year, he wrote From the Waste Land (1950), which describes the transformation of three acres at Nut Tree Cottages into a market garden that generated food and income. In The Gardener's Bedside Book (1968), he wrote,
I have never been interested in and am incapable of writing about the great hybrid garden tulips. I do not mean to condemn them or anything foolish like that; but one cannot be interested in every kind of garden plant, and that particular kind has never made any real appeal to me whatsoever. But the botanical species tulips are quite another matter.
 
Unearthed Words
Love is like a garden in the heart, he said.
They asked him what he meant by garden.
He explained about gardens. "In the cities,"
he said, "there are places walled off where color
and decorum are magnified into a civilization.
Like a beautiful woman," he said. How like
a woman, they asked. He remembered their wives
and said garden was just a figure of speech,
then called for drinks all around. Two rounds
later he was crying. 
― Jack Gilbert, Ovid in Tears, The Dance Most of All: Poems
 
Grow That Garden Library
Windcliff by Daniel J. Hinkley
This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is A Story of People, Plants, and Gardens.
In this book, we learn about Windcliff - one of two magnificent gardens created by the plantsman, nurseryman, and plant hunter Dan Hinkley. (Dan also created Heronswood.)
“These iconic gardens, and the story of how one gave rise to the other, are celebrated in Hinkley’s deeply personal Windcliff. In a lively style that mingles audacious opinions on garden design with cautionary tales of planting missteps, Hinkley shares his infectious passion for plants.”
In these pages, you will fall in love with Windcliff thanks to the gorgeous photography and fall even deeper in love hearing about the careful way Dan created Windcliff, from the exceptional plants he selected to his pragmatic garden advice.
This book is 280 pages of creating a garden with a modern master who loves plants and is delighted to share his stunning garden with us.
You can get a copy of Windcliff by Daniel J. Hinkley and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $22.
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 30, 2015 
On this day, The Martian, featuring Matt Damon as botanist Mark Watney premiered in England. In the movie, Mark is accidentally left on Mars and is forced to grow potatoes to stay alive until he is rescued.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

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1791 On this day, Australia's first thriving grapevine was planted.

The First Fleet's Captain Arthur Phillip brought grape cuttings from South America and South Africa and produced a small vineyard at Farm Cove. Today, Farm Cove is the location of the Sydney Botanical Gardens. When the plants did not bear, they were transplanted to Parramatta. 

Arthur Philip served as the first Governor of New South Wales when his Crimson Grapes flourished in the warm Australian fertile soil. Today Crimson Grapes can also be found in Victoria and southeastern Queensland. Australian Crimson Grapes enjoy a long harvest period from November to May.

1869 Birth of Charlotte Mary Mew, English poet.

In her poem, In Nunhead Cemetary, she wrote,

There is something horrible about a flower;
This, broken in my hand, is one of those
He threw it in just now; it will not live another hour;
There are thousands more; you do not miss a rose.

And in The Sunlit House, she wrote,

The parched garden flowers
Their scarlet petals from the beds unswept
Like children unloved and ill-kept

But I, the stranger, knew that I must stay.
Pace up the weed-grown paths and down
Till one afternoon ...
From an upper window a bird flew out
And I went my way.

1887 Birth of Georgia O'Keeffe, American modernist artist.
During her incredible career as a painter, Georgia created over 900 works of art. She is remembered for her iconic paintings of skulls and flowers.

In 1938 Georgia's career stalled. Yet she was approached by an advertising agency about creating two paintings for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole Food Company) to use in their advertising. Georgia was 51 years old when she took the nine weeks, all-expense-paid trip. Georgia never did paint a pineapple.

And gardeners will enjoy this obscure fact: Of all the floral paintings that O'Keeffe created in Hawaii, exactly NONE were native to the island. Instead, Georgia loved the exotic tropicals imported from South America: Bougainvillea, Plumeria, Heliconia, Calliandra, and the White Bird of Paradise.

It was Georgia 0'Keeffe who said all of these quotes about flowers - a subject for which she held strong opinions.

Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time ...like to have a friend takes time.

I hate flowers. I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move!

If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.

I decided that if I could paint that flower on a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

1930 Birth of James Graham Ballard (pen name J.G. Ballard), English novelist.

James was part of the New Wave of science fiction in the 1960s. Yet, he is most remembered for his 1984 war novel, Empire of the Sun.

In The Unlimited Dream Company, James wrote,

"Miriam - I'll give you any flowers you want!'

Rhapsodising over the thousand scents of her body, I exclaimed:
"I'Il grow orchids from your hands, roses from your breasts. You can have magnolias in your hair... In your womb I'll set a fly-trap!"

And in The Garden of Time, James wrote,

"Axel," his wife asked with sudden seriousness. "Before the garden dies ...
may I pick the last flower?"

Understanding her request, he nodded slowly.

James once wrote,

I believe in madness, in the truth of the inexplicable, in the common sense of stones, in the lunacy of flowers.

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
This book came out in 2021, and the subtitle is How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures.

This book has won all kinds of recognition: The Wainwright Prize, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, and the Guild of Food Writers Award • Shortlisted for the British Book Award Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize.

The publisher writes,

In Entangled Life, the brilliant young biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view, providing an exhilarating change of perspective. Sheldrake's vivid exploration takes us from yeast to psychedelics, to the fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the "Wood Wide Web," to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision.

Entangled Life is a fascinating read. Merlin's passion for fungi (fun-ghee) knows no bounds. Fungi are often referred to as a neglected kingdom of life.
Compared to other kingdoms like plants and animals, we know very little about fungi, and only six percent has thus far been described. And Fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants.

Today most plant life depends on relationships with mycorrhizal fungi or fungi that live in their roots. These fungi help plants acquire water and nutrients. They also protect the plants from disease. 

But its not just plants that need fungi. All Life on earth depends on fungi.

Most fungi are mycelium - the branching fusing networks of tubular cells that feed and transport substances around themselves. Fungi have a unique way of organizing themselves. Mycelium cover the earth in a chaotic, sprawling way. Mycelium can be stretched out end to end up to ten kilometers from a single teaspoon of soil.

This book is 368 pages of the mysterious and miraculous world of fungi. 

You can get a copy of Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $9.

1909 On this day, the orange blossom was designated as the official state flower of Florida.

This gesture inspired the poet William Livingston Larned to write a poem called Florida's State Flower.

The last little bit goes like this:

Whenever you see the spotless bud,
You know tis Florida the fair.

And wafted to you comes the scent
Of all the blissful regions there.

The rose may have its followers,
The violet its standard, too;
The fleur-de-lis and lily fair
In tints of red and pink and blue;
But just a scent,
On pleasure bent,
Of orange sweet,
The nostrils greet,
And from our dreams, the castles rise,
Of groves and meadows 'neath calm skies.

And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an English novelist and travel writer who loved the pleasure gardens he created at a cemetery, an English writer and friend of Charlotte Bronte, and a beloved and humorous garden author.
We'll hear an excerpt from Ali Smith's Autumn. It's perfect for this time of year.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about a species among the most ancient of Earth's inhabitants.
And then we'll wrap things up with the birthday of an American garden writer.
 
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Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
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The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
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Curated News
Vegetable Garden Design: DIY Bean Trellis - Gardenista| Gardenista | Michelle Slatalla

Important Events
September 29, 1760
Birth of William Beckford, English novelist, travel writer, and architect. His family's enormous wealth stemmed from the enslavement of Jamaicans. Reclusive and eccentric, William is best known for his romance novel, The History of the Caliph Vathek (1782). William was fascinated with Italianate gardens. He especially enjoyed the landscape at Lansdown Cemetery after he installed a pleasure garden. He designed a large tower there and hoped to be buried in its shade near one of his favorite dogs. But it was not to be. The ground was considered unconsecrated, and the dog only made the situation even more untenable. And so, William's sarcophagus was moved to Abbey Cemetery in Bath. William once wrote,
Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul to.
 
September 29, 1810
Birth of Elizabeth Gaskell, English writer. She married a Unitarian minister named William Gaskell, and his work led them both to help and advocate for the poor. In 1850, she met Charlotte Brontë at the summer home of a mutual acquaintance, and the two became instant friends. Once when Charlotte visited her, her shyness got the best of her, and Charlotte hid behind some curtains rather than meeting other visitors who had stopped by the Gaskell's Manchester home. After Charlotte died in 1855, her father, Patrick, asked Elizabeth to write her biography, which resulted in The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857). Elizabeth's work included the novels Mary Barton (1848), Cranford (1851–53),  and North and South (1854–55). She once told her daughter, Marianne,
It is hard work writing a novel all morning, spudding up dandelions all afternoon, and writing again at night.
Elizabeth was a gardener, and she loved flowers - especially roses. Gardens, flowers, fragrances, and country life permeate her writing. In Ruth (1853), she wrote,
With a bound, the sun of a molten fiery red came above the horizon, and immediately thousands of little birds sang out for joy, and a soft chorus of mysterious, glad murmurs came forth from the earth...waking the flower-buds to the life of another day.
In Wives and Daughters (1865), she wrote,
I would far rather have two or three lilies of the valley gathered for me by a person I like than the most expensive bouquet that could be bought!
 
September 29, 1920 
Birth of Geoffry B. Charlesworth, garden author. Regarding the Devil's Claw or Tufted Horned Rampion (Physoplexis comosa), he wrote,
We like people not just because they are good, kind, and pretty but for some indefinable spark, usually called "chemistry," that draws us to them and begs not to be analyzed too closely. Just so with plants. In that case, my favorite has to be Physoplexis comosa. This is not merely because I am writing at the beginning of July when the plant approaches maximum attractiveness.
In A Gardener Obsessed (1994), he wrote,
A garden is a Gymnasium; an outlet for energy, a place where accidents occur, where muscles develop, and fat is shed.
—
Uneventful living takes up most of our time. Gardening is part of it, possibly a trivial part to the rest of the world, but by no means less important to the gardener than the big events.
In The Opinionated Gardener (1988), he wrote,
Every gardener knows this greed. I heard a man looking at a group of plants say, “I have all the plants I need.” Ridiculous. He said it because he was leaving for South America the next day, and he didn’t have his checkbook, and it was December, and he didn’t have a cold frame.
 
Unearthed Words
A minute ago, it was June. Now the weather is September. The crops are high, about to be cut, bright, golden,
November? Unimaginable. Just a month away.
The days are still warm, the air in the shadows sharper. The nights are sooner, chillier, the light a little less each time.
Dark at half-past seven. Dark at quarter past seven, dark at seven.
The greens of the trees have been duller since August since July really.
But the flowers are still coming. The hedgerows are still humming. The shed is already full of apples, and the tree's still covered in them.
The birds are on the powerlines.
The swifts left a week ago. They're hundreds of miles from here by now, somewhere over the ocean.
― Ali Smith, Autumn
 
Grow That Garden Library
Moths by David Lees and Alberto Zilli  
This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is A Complete Guide to Biology and Behavior.
In this book, David and Alberto give us an expert reference to the vital insect group of moths. In many cases, moths rely on their ability to camouflage to survive and reproduce. Gardeners are attracted to brightly covered butterflies, but the work of moths in the environment is equally important. Now, of course, you can't have a practical guide to moths without spectacular illustrations, and this book has that in spades. Readers come away with an incredible appreciation for the diversity of these winged insects and their miraculous lifecycle - from egg to larva to cocoon to airborne adult.
This book is 208 pages of the marvelous world of moths - and our world would be the lesser without them.
You can get a copy of Moths by David Lees and Alberto Zilli and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $20
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 29, 1902
Birth of Jean Hersey, American garden writer and magazine feature writer. She lived in Westport, Connecticut, with a meadow instead of a front lawn and woodland and stream for a back yard. She wrote over a dozen books. Her first book was called I Like Gardening (1941), which one reviewer said: "makes one fairly itch to start a garden (bugs and insects included)." Jean is probably best known for The Shape of a Year (1967), a year-long almanac of her garden life. In her chapter on September, she wrote,
September is a sweep of dusky, purple asters, a sumac branch swinging a fringe of scarlet leaves, and the bittersweet scent of wild grapes when I walk down the lane to the mailbox. September is a golden month of mellow sunlight and still, clear days. The ground grows cool to the touch, but the sun is still warm. 
A hint of crisp freshness lies in the early hours of these mornings. Small creatures in the grass, as if realizing their days are numbered, cram the night air with sound. Everywhere goldenrod is full out. 
One of the excitements of the month is the Organic Garden Club show. Bob and I were prowling around the night before, considering what I might enter and studying all our tomatoes. The large ones seemed pretty good, but all had the common scars on the top that don't make a bit of difference in the eating but aren't good for a show. There was a special charm to some smaller ones, volunteers, that grew out of the midst of the chard. Each one was perfect, not a blemish. These were larger than the cherry tomatoes.
"They're about the size of ping-pong balls,” Bob said. "They must be a cross between the ordinary large ones and the cherry ones. Say – why not enter them as Ping-pong Tomatoes?
So I did, selecting three perfect ones, and they won first prize overall tomatoes.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an Irish physician and botanist, an English poet and critic, and an African-American poet.
We'll hear an excerpt from Elin Hilderbrand.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that tells the story of 3,500 acres of land and its return to the wild.
And then we'll wrap things up with an Australian-English writer, gardener, and traveler.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
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The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
A Native Super-Edible on the Rise | gardencentermag.com  |  Jolene Hansen
 
Important Events
September 28, 1793
Birth of Thomas Coulter, Irish physician, botanist, and explorer. He founded the herbarium at Trinity College, Dublin. He spent a year and a half studying with the great Swiss botanist Augustin de Candolle before exploring Mexico and the American Southwest in the early 1900s. Today he is remembered in the names of several plants. The Romneya coulteri or the Coulter poppy is a white-blossomed flower native to southern California and Baja California. Also called the California tree poppy, the Coulter poppy has the largest flower of any poppy.
Another Southern California specimen, the Coulter pine, is known for creating the largest pine cones in the world. Called "widowmakers" by the locals, each pinecone can weigh up to ten pounds.
 
September 28, 1824
Birth of Francis Turner Palgrave, English poet and critic. He compiled The Golden Treasury (1861), which featured English Songs and Lyrics. The popular anthology is still published with new editions under Francis Palgrave's name. In Eutopia, Francis wrote,
There is a garden where lilies
And roses are side by side;
And all day between them in silence
The silken butterflies glide.
I may not enter the garden,
Though I know the road thereto;
And morn by morn to the gateway
I see the children go.
They bring back light on their faces;
But they cannot bring back to me
What the lilies say to the roses,
Or the songs of the butterflies be.
 
September 28, 1867
Birth of James Edwin Campbell, African-American dialectic poet. In his poem, A Night in June, he wrote,
"What so rare as a day in June?"
O poet, hast thou never known
A night in rose-voluptuous June?
And in When The Fruit Trees Bloom, James wrote,
When the fruit trees bloom,
Pink of peach and white of plum,
And the pear-trees’ cones of snow
In the old back orchard blow --
Planted fifty years ago!

And the cherries' long white row
Gives the sweetest prophecy
Of the banquet that will be,
When the suns and winds of June
Shall have kissed to fruit the bloom --
Then Falstaffian bumble-bees
Drain the blossoms to the lees.
When the fruit trees bloom.
 
Unearthed Words
The Herb Farm reminded Marguerite of the farms in France; it was like a farm in a child's picture book. There was a white wooden fence that penned in sheep and goats, a chicken coop where a dozen warm eggs cost a dollar, a red barn for the two bay horses, and a greenhouse. Half of the greenhouse did what greenhouses do, while the other half had been fashioned into very primitive retail space. The vegetables were sold from wooden crates, all of them grown organically before such a process even had a name- corn, tomatoes, lettuces, seventeen kinds of herbs, squash, zucchini, carrots with the bushy tops left on, spring onions, radishes, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries for two short weeks in June, pumpkins after the fifteenth of September. There was chèvre made on the premises from the milk of the goats; there was fresh butter. And when Marguerite showed up for the first time in the summer of 1975, there was a ten-year-old boy who had been given the undignified job of cutting zinnias, snapdragons, and bachelor buttons and gathering them into attractive-looking bunches.
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Love Season
 
Grow That Garden Library
Wilding by Isabella Tree 
This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is The Return of Nature to a British Farm.
In this book, Isabella (whose last name - Tree - is perfect for a book on nature) guides us through the result of a massive rewilding project in West Sussex known as the Knepp ("Nep") experiment because it took place on the Knepp Estate.
Isabelle and her husband Charlie bought the estate in the 1980s from Charlie's grandparents. After recognizing that intensive farming on heavy clay was economically unsustainable, they decided to step back and let nature take over. To mimic the large animals that roamed Britain in the wild, they introduced free-roaming cattle, ponies, pigs, and deer and let nature dictate the outcome on 3,500 acres. The animal activity turns out to be the key to kickstarting diversity in flora and fauna. They removed the infrastructure of traditional farming like drains and fencing. In a little over a decade, wildlife and plant diversity returned. Knepp became home to turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons, and lesser spotted woodpeckers. The beauty of a functioning ecosystem is that it sustains and encourages life all by itself.
This book is 384 pages of a personal memoir and a nature memoir - it's hopeful, inspirational, and above all, doable.
You can get a copy of Wilding by Isabella Tree and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $9
 
Today's Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 28, 1885 
Birth of Clara Coltman Rogers Vyvyan, Australian-English writer and gardener. She used the pen names C. C. Rogers and C. C. Vyvyan. After working in the slums of East London as a social worker and a nurse in WWI, Clara married the 10th Vyvyan baronet, who was 27-years her senior and lived on a 15th-century estate known as Trelowarren. The two were quite compatible and shared eleven happy years together. Both of them enjoyed nature. One of Clara's dearest friends was Daphne du Maurier, who used Clara's centuries-old home and gardens as the setting for her novels Frenchman's Creek and Rebecca. In Friends and Contemporaries, Clara's friend A L Rowse recognized the use of the Trelowarren landscape and wrote,
The colonnade of trees in Rebecca, by the way, is the avenue of over-arching ilexes there, like a cathedral aisle.
When Daphne visited Trelowarren for the first time, she fell in love with its rugged landscape and timeless quality. She described it as "the most beautiful place imaginable." After her visit, Daphne wrote in her diary,
I simply hated leaving Trelowarren. Few places have made such a profound impression on me.
Trelowarren similarly inspired Clara, and when her husband died, she started market gardening and writing to help financially maintain her West Cornwall estate. She wrote over twenty books during her life of adventure and beauty. When she was 67, she traveled to the Alaskan Klondyke and embarked on a 400-mile walk with the aid of two guides. The result was her book Down the Rhone on Foot. Most of her books were about her beloved Cornwall and, of course, her gardens. In her Letters from a Cornish Garden (1972), she shared a collection of delightful essays about gardening. Her friend Daphne du Maurier wrote the forward.
Clara wrote,
As one grows older, one should grow more expert at finding beauty in unexpected places, in deserts and even in towns, in ordinary human faces, and among wild weeds.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a Spanish botanist, a Swiss poet and diarist, and an American industrialist.
We’ll hear an excerpt from a best-selling book where the main character is a 12-year-old girl named September.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that offers a year of fantastic wild flower paintings and notes.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a lab girl - a scientist whose incredible book was released just five years ago.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It’s just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you’d like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you’re in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you’re on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I’d love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
New books: how designers see the world | Wallpaper.com | Jonathan Bell
 
Important Events
September 27, 1777
Birth of Simón de Rojas Clemente, Spanish botanist, intellectual, politician, and spy. He is regarded as the father of European ampelography (the identification and classification of grapevines). Today a statue of Simón overlooks the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid. In the early 1800s, Simón taught Arabic. One of his students, Domingo Badía Leblich, invited Simón on an extensive trip through Africa from the Atlas Mountains to the Nile. Anticipating resistance from locals, Domingo and Simón disguised themselves as Muslims and even changed their names. Simón became Mohamad Ben-Alí. And at some point after joining the expedition, Simón learned the true reason for the trip: spying on North Africa for Manuel Godoy, the First Secretary of State of Spain. Simón went on to explore Andalusia before returning to Madrid, where he served as the director of the Royal Botanical Garden library. In 1820, Simón planted a collection of grapevines at the Madrid Royal Botanic Garden. To this day, Simón’s grapes are among the wine and table grapes grown in the garden since the 18th century. Simón’s herbarium contained 186 specimens of grapes, which remain in excellent condition. They are especially prized because they are the oldest collection of grapevines and because Simón collected them before phylloxera arrived in Spain. Today Simón’s grapevine specimens have been genetically analyzed thanks to modern DNA testing.
 
September 27, 1821
Birth of Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss philosopher & poet. He is remembered for his Journal Intime, which he kept from 1847 until twenty-two days before he died in 1881.
On August 26, 1868, he wrote,
Say to yourself that you are entering upon the autumn of your life; that the graces of spring and the splendors of summer are irrevocably gone, but that autumn, too, has its beauties. The autumn weather is often darkened by rain, cloud, and mist, but the air is still soft, and the sun still delights the eyes, and touches the yellowing leaves caressingly: it is the time for fruit, for harvest, for the vintage, the moment for making provision for the winter.
My life has reached its month of September. May I recognize it in time, and suit thought and action to the fact!
He also wrote,
A modest garden contains, for those who know how to look and to wait, more instruction than a library.
 
September 27, 1877
Birth of James Drummond Dole, American industrialist. Known as the “Pineapple King,” he founded the pineapple industry in Hawaii. His Hawaiian Pineapple Company (HAPCO) later became the Dole Food Company. In 1899, James made his way to Hawaii after graduating from Harvard. After realizing that the native Kona pineapple could not be grown commercially, he started growing a Florida variety known as Smooth Cayenne on sixty acres. The local newspapers scoffed at his idea. James persisted and hired help to create a machine that could process one hundred pineapples every minute. He also aggressively marketed pineapple in mainland America. Within twenty years, Hawaiian pineapples dominated the market. In the first half of the 20th century, the popularity of the pineapple upside-down cake further helped the pineapple become mainstream. In terms of their makeup, pineapples contain an enzymatic protein called bromelain - a chemical that prevents gelatin from setting. Once a pineapple is heated for canning, the bromelain is destroyed, which is why canned pineapple can be used successfully with jello. Today, Hawaii produces only .13 of the world’s pineapple.
 
Unearthed Words
She liked anything orange: leaves; some moons; marigolds; chrysanthemums; cheese; pumpkin, both in pie and out; orange juice; marmalade. Orange is bright and demanding. You can’t ignore orange things. She once saw an orange parrot in the pet store and had never wanted anything so much in her life. She would have named it Halloween and fed it butterscotch. Her mother said butterscotch would make a bird sick and, besides, the dog would certainly eat it up. September never spoke to the dog again — on principle.
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
 
Grow That Garden Library
Wild Flowers of Britain by Margaret Erskine Wilson
This book came out in 2016, and the subtitle is Month by Month.
Here’s what the publisher wrote about this book:
Margaret Erskine Wilson, late President of Kendal Natural History Society, was a keen amateur botanist and watercolorist. In 1999, she donated to the Society 150 sheets of water-colour paintings representing a thousand British and Irish plants in flower and fruit, painted in situ over many years and in various places.
At the time she donated the paintings to Kendal Natural History Society, she wrote:
Begun in 1943/4 for a friend who said, 'I might learn the names of flowers if you drew them for me, in the months they're in flower'!
The result is this beautiful, previously unpublished book of all her accurate and informative illustrations, painted over a period of 45 years.
Over a thousand British and Irish flowers are represented in this book, and it still today serves Margaret Erskine Wilson's original purpose - it is an easy way to learn the names of our delicate and beautiful wild flowers.
This book is 176 pages of a year’s worth of Margaret Erskine Wilson’s extraordinary paintings, notes, the English common names, and the scientific names.
You can get a copy of Wild Flowers of Britain by Margaret Erskine Wilson and support the show using the Amazon Link in today’s Show Notes for around $12
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 27, 1969
Birth of Hope Jahren, American geochemist and geobiologist. In her work at the University of Oslo in Norway, she analyzes fossil forests dating to the Eocene. Her popular book Lab Girl (2016) is part memoir and part ode to nature. In Lab Girl, she wrote,
There are botany textbooks that contain pages and pages of growth curves, but it is always the lazy-S-shaped ones that confuse my students the most.
Why would a plant decrease in mass just when it is nearing its plateau of maximum productivity? I remind them that this shrinking has proved to be a signal of reproduction. As the green plants reach maturity, some of their nutrients are pulled back and repurposed toward flowers and seeds. Production of the new generation comes at a significant cost to the parent, and you can see it in a cornfield, even from a great distance.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
“For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.”

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a British Spy/American Farmer, a social reformer and poet, and an American writer.
We’ll hear an excerpt from a book written by the beloved Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about homestead life - from growing great produce to canning and preserving.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a look back at Minnie Hite Moody’s garden column from this day in 1980. She made a bouquet of weeds and then wrote about it.
 
Curated News
The Complete Fall Garden Checklist | Garden Therapy | Stephanie Rose
 
Important Events
September 24, 1789
Death of Metcalf Bowler, British-American merchant, and politician. As a young man, Metcalf came to America with his father. He successfully marketed a local apple known as the Rhode Island Greening Apple as part of his business. The apple later became the official state fruit of Rhode Island. A gentleman farmer, Metcalf himself was an avid horticulturist, and he was purported to have the most beautiful garden in the state. Metcalf was a successful merchant until the revolutionary war, which ruined him financially. In the 1920s, after stumbling on letters and examining handwriting, historians accidentally learned Metcalf had spied for the British. His love of nature may have inspired his code name: Rusticus. After the war, Metcalf wrote a book called A Treatise on Agriculture and Practical Husbandry(1786). Metcalf, the spy, sent a copy to George Washington, who wrote him back and tucked the copy away in his library.
 
September 24, 1825 
Birth of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, African-American suffragist, social reformer, abolitionist, writer, and poet. Her famous quote is, “we are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity.” Her writing was mostly dedicated to her work for justice, but occasionally she would write about nature. Here’s an excerpt from her poem The Crocuses:
Soon a host of lovely flowers 
From vales and woodland burst; 
But in all that fair procession 
The crocuses were first. 
 
September 24, 1913 
Birth of Wilson Rawls, American writer. His embarrassment caused him to burn his manuscripts so his fiancee, Sophie, wouldn’t see them. Later she implored him to re-write one of the five stories from memory, which resulted in Where the Red Fern Grows (1961). The red fern was not an actual plant, but it served as the centerpiece of the novel. In the book, Wilson wrote,
I had heard the old Indian legend about the red fern. How a little Indian boy and girl were lost in a blizzard and had frozen to death. In the spring, when they were found, a beautiful red fern had grown up between their two bodies. The story went on to say that only an angel could plant the seeds of a red fern and that they never died; where one grew, that spot was sacred.
 
Unearthed Words
There were several things concerning which Miss Cornelia wished to unburden her soul. The funeral had to be all talked over, of course. Susan and Miss Cornelia thrashed this out between them; Anne took no part or delight in such ghoulish conversations. She sat a little apart and watched the autumnal flame of dahlias in the garden and the dreaming, glamorous harbor of the September sunset. Mary Vance sat beside her, knitting meekly. Mary’s heart was down in the Rainbow Valley, whence came sweet, distance-softened sounds of children’s laughter, but her fingers were under Miss Cornelia’s eye. She had to knit so many rounds of her stocking before she might go to the valley. Mary knit and held her tongue but used her ears. “I never saw a nicer-looking corpse,” said Miss Cornelia judicially. “Myra Murray was always a pretty woman—she was a Corey.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Rainbow Valley
 
Grow That Garden Library
Welcome to the Farm by Shaye Elliott
This book came out in 2017, and the subtitle is How-to Wisdom from The Elliott Homestead.
Shaye lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest. She’s the founder of the blog, The Elliott Homestead. She is a beekeeper, gardener and enjoys preserving a variety of foods for the winter larder.
This book is truly a welcome to the Elliott Farm, and Shaye shares everything she’s gleaned about growing the good food right in her own backyard. Shaye teaches a ton in this book - how to harvest organic produce, plant an orchard, build a greenhouse, winter sowing and growing, make cider and wine, can jams and jellies, raise chickens and bees, and even milk a dairy cow (and make butter). ,
This book is 336 pages of jam-packed goodness from a mini-farm to help homesteaders and urban farmers alike.
You can get a copy of Welcome to the Farm by Shaye Elliott and support the show using the Amazon Link in today’s Show Notes for around $10.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 24, 1980
On this day, Minnie Hite Moody wrote in her garden column about her bouquet made of weeds:
Somehow or other I failed to get any flower seeds planted this past summer. June brought its plague of groundhogs, and what with replanting my beans and other necessities. July was here before I had caught up with myself, and then came the storms and rain. It was even too wet for me to go seeking Queen Anne's lace and daisies in the fringes of the golf course, though what with mechanical mowers and weed sprays, I would have had to search far and wide for the simple weed-blossoms once so familiar. So all through July and August I had to skrimish for enough blooms to enliven what in the Deep South is spoken of as the "eating table." I am used to flowers on the table, and while I receive more than my share of elegant hothouse flowers, they do not suit Grandma's plain white ash table with which she went to housekeeping in 1872. September, however, kindly improved my situation. Along my property frontage where the Ohio Electric railroad tracks predated the WPA sidewalk, the pale lavender blooms of soap-wort, commonly called Pretty Betty, began to peep out. Now soapwort, which the books call Saponaria, a genus of hardy annual and perennial Old-World herbs of the Pink Family, is regarded as just an old weed and not very special. Believe me, it was special in our great-grandmothers' day, for bar soap and detergents were far in the future, unless she made her own soap with grease and lye.l tried washing with soapwort myself one time, just to see how it worked, and was pleasantly sur prised. But I'm careful to call it Pretty Betty when I have it in a table bouquet. My friends seem to react to that name better than they do to soapwort. In some sections of the country, the name seems to be Bouncing Bet, which I mention as an alternate. The books say that soapwort (alias Pretty Betty or Bouncing Bet) comes in clusters of pink, white or red flowers. The only ones I ever have seen are pale lavender-blues, white, or pinkish. By themselves they don't make an especially stunning bouquet, so it is fortunate that ironweed blooms at the same time of year. Ironweed blossoms are purple, and I know Garden Club ladies who would swoon at the sight of the bouquet right now gracing my eating table, for it has purple ironweed, Pretty Betty of a questionable shade, maybe blue, maybe lavender, along with some bright yellow Rudbeckia blossoms and a spray or two of Eupatorim per-foliatum, which is acceptable by that name, but not as plain old good-for-nothing boneset. As a matter of fact, boneset used to ease aches and pains fully as well as some of the costly arthritis and rheumatism pills of the present. All the "old wife" of bygone days had to do was gather the herb when the bloom was brightest, tie it into a bunch and hang it from the ceiling beams. The late Euell Gibbons in his books claimed that he simply laid boneset for drying on newspapers placed on his attic floor. When the boneset is thoroughly dry. stalks and stems are discarded, and the dried leaves crumbled into airtight jars. If you don't need boneset tea for rheumatic ailments, it is said to be good for fevers, colds, catarrh, dropsy, general debility, dyspepsia, and "trouble arising from intemperance." In other words, hangover. Rudbeckia is that golden September bloom named in honor, of Swedish botanist Olaus Rud-beck (1830-1702).
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
“For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.”

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an English earl, an English poet, a forgotten garden, and a national floral emblem.
We hear a floral excerpt from a best-selling fiction book - it’s a little love story about an extraordinary woman who gave birth to a painter who became the Father of Impressionism.
We Grow That Garden Library™, with a book that came out in 2015 and seems to grow ever more relevant.
And then we’ll wrap things up with an American poet and some of his garden-inspired work.
 
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Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you’d like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you’re in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
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The next time you’re on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I’d love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Small Flowering Shrubs with Big Impact | Garden Gate Magazine | Susan Martin
 
Important Events
September 23, 1717 
Birth of Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, English writer, art historian, and Whig politician. His father served as the first British Prime Minister. As an adult, he designed a picturesque summer home for himself in southwest London, which he called Strawberry Hill. Horace’s little castle caused a sensation, and he opened his home to four lucky visitors each day. An 1842 admission ticket spelled out rules for tourists:
The House and Garden are never shown in an evening; 
and persons are desired not to bring children with them.
The Gothic Revival architecture complete with a round tower was a nod to his accomplished ancestry and is gorgeous inside and out. The stained glass and the library are two favorite aspects among visitors. Horace was a hardworking writer and a serious scholar. Horace coined the word serendipity after he finally located a painting he wanted for his home. He wrote the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), ten years later.
In addition to his other works, Horace wrote The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (1771). A fan of natural gardens, he famously observed that his garden hero William Kent was the first garden designer to “[leap] the fence, and [see] that all of nature was a garden.” 
Horace immensely enjoyed his five-acre romantic garden at Strawberry Hill, which he affectionately called his “enchanted little landscape” and his “land of beauties.” In addition to a grove of lime trees, the garden featured a sizeable Rococo shell seat with a back designed to look like an enormous shell. Today the one-of-a-kind bench has been recreated, and copies are available for gardeners to place in their own gardens. The oldest tree on the grounds is called the Walpole Oak, and a servant is said to have hung himself from the tree after stealing silver.  
In 2019, the first Strawberry Hill House Flower Festival offered local florists a chance to share their creations inside Horace’s Gothic masterpiece. The event is now an annual celebration of flowers. Today Strawberry Hill House hosts a community garden. Rose lovers can enjoy their own nod to Horace Walpole with the bubblegum-pink David Austin rose Strawberry Hill.
As for Horace, this industrious man often found inspiration in gardens, and he once wrote,
One's garden... is to be nothing but riant, and the gaiety of nature.
Horace was also a fan of greenhouses and, in particular, the control they afforded gardeners. In a letter to William Mason on July 6, 1777, he wrote,
Don't let this horrid weather put you out of humour with your garden, though I own it is a pity we should have brought it to perfection and [then] have too bad a climate to enjoy it. It is strictly true this year, as I have often said, that ours is the most beautiful country in the world, when [it is] framed and glazed...
Finally, it was Horace Walpole who wrote,
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
 
September 23, 1861 
Birth of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (pen name Anodos), English writer, polyglot, and poet. She was the great-grandniece of the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In her poem September, she wrote,
Now every day the bracken browner grows,
Even the purple stars
Of clematis, that shone about the bars,
Grow browner; and the little autumn rose
Dons, for her rosy gown,
Sad weeds of brown.
Now falls the eve; and ere the morning sun,
Many a flower her sweet life will have lost,
Slain by the bitter frost,
Who slays the butterflies also, one by one,
The tiny beasts
That go about their business and their feasts.
She also wrote an utterly charming little garden poem called Gibberish.
Many a flower have I seen blossom,
Many a bird for me will sing.
Never heard I so sweet a singer,
Never saw I so fair a thing.
She is a bird, a bird that blossoms,
She is a flower, a flower that sings;
And I a flower when I behold her,
And when I hear her, I have wings.
 
September 23, 1958  
On this day, the Dayton Daily News (Ohio) shared a little article about an old park that had been created to teach botany students.
Back in 1930, Brother William Beck, a member of the University of Dayton biology department, filled two purposes with one park. The campus green needed re-landscaping and botany classes needed nearby, well-stocked gardens to study.  [William] set to work on his project, with the aid of local nurseries, and collected over 200 varieties of plants and shrubs in the central campus park, labeling all of them with their Latin names and English derivatives. Since that time, the University of Dayton… tended such out-of-the-ordinary plants as a Logan elm (a transplanted sprout from the famous tree); a coffee tree; pyramidal oaks; black alders; and ginkgo trees, to name a few.  Brother Beck's well-worked-out plan seems to have been practically forgotten through the years. Botany classes no longer wind among the shrubbery...
 
September 23, 1986 
On this day, Congress selected the rose as the American national flower. The Journal News (White Plains, New York) reported that,
The House, brushing aside the claims of marigolds and dogwood blossoms, corn tassels and columbines, ended decades of indecision Tuesday and crowned the rose, that thorny beauty, America's national flower. The voice-vote decision... [ended] a debate over an appropriate "national floral emblem" for the United States that had flickered off and on since the late 19th century.
 
Unearthed Words
Even now, as the graves of these women went untended and their passings unmourned, the seeds they had scattered turned the hillsides red and orange from May to September. Some called the pirates’ bounty flame trees, but to us, they were known as flamboyant trees, for no one could ignore their glorious blooms, with flowers that were larger than a man’s open hand. Every time I saw them, I thought of these lost women. That was what happened if you waited for love.
― Alice Hoffman, The Marriage of Opposites
 
Grow That Garden Library
Will Bonsall’s Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening by Will Bonsall
This book came out in 2015, and the subtitle is Innovative Techniques for Growing Vegetables, Grains, and Perennial Food Crops with Minimal Fossil Fuel and Animal Inputs.
In this book, Maine farmer and homesteader Will Bonsall shares his expertise in self-reliance. In this aspect of living (along with energy), Will is a master.
As Will likes to say,
"My goal is not to feed the world, but to feed myself and let others feed themselves."
Will is open to experimentation, and he shares his hard-fought wisdom in a friendly and conversational way. Will’s an inventive pragmatist, and his flexibility and innovative thinking have allowed him to tackle seemingly impossible challenges in his down-to-earth way.
If you’re ready to become more self-reliant and less swayed by world supply chains, economic bubbles, and food scarcity, Will’s book is a reference you will want to have on your shelf.
This book is 400 pages of back to the land and garden prosperity with Will Bonsall as your personal guide.
You can get a copy of Will Bonsall’s Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening by Will Bonsall and support the show using the Amazon Link in today’s Show Notes for around $25.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 23, 1869 
Birth of Edgar Lee Masters, American attorney, poet, and writer. His most famous work was his collection of poems that narrate the epitaphs of a fictional town named Spoon River in The Spoon River Anthology (1915). Edgar grew up in Lewistown, Illinois, which is near an actual Spoon River. The book features an epitaph for a fictional nurseryman - a lover of trees and flowers - named Samuel Gardener, which ends with these words:
Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can see         
That the branches of a tree         
Spread no wider than its roots.         
And how shall the soul of a man
Be larger than the life he has lived?
Edgar once wrote a poem about love, which began,
Love is a madness, love is a fevered dream,
A white soul lost in a field of scarlet flowers.
His poem, Botanical Garden, is a conversation with God and ends with these words:
“If it be comforting I promise you
Another spring shall come."
"And after that?"
"Another spring - that's all I know myself,
There shall be springs and springs!"
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
“For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.”

Today in botanical history, we celebrate the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, an English botanist and a Patron Saint of gardeners.
We’ll hear an excerpt from a book by Tim Robbins featuring September in Louisiana.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that inspires us to make plants feel right at home in our homes.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a milestone moment in the history of Australia - the stunning loss of the Garden Palace that happened on this day 139 years ago today.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
2022 Garden Trends Report: From Crisis to Innovation | Garden Media Group 
 
Important Events
September 22, 1694 
Birth of Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, English statesman and writer. He’s remembered for his letters to his son and other notable people of his day. He once advised his son,
l recommend you to take care of the minutes, for hours will take care of themselves…
Yale University has Chesterfield’s note containing the words to On a Lady Stung By a Bee.  
To heal a wound a bee had made 
Upon my Chloe's face,
It’s honey to the part she laid,
And bade me kiss the place.
Pleased, I obeyed, and from the wound
Suck'd both the sweet and smart ;
The honey on my lips I found,
The sting within my heart.
 
September 22, 1800 
Birth of George Bentham, English botanist, writer, and teacher. He was going to be an attorney but pursued botany after living in the country. His thinking was preserved in a diary, which he kept for over fifty years. George once wrote,
I decided that my means were sufficient to enable me to devote myself to botany, a determination which I never…. [had] any reason to [regret].
George’s longest professional friendship was with the botanist John Stuart Mills who had lived with the Bentham family as a teenager. A pragmatist, George finished his Flora of the British Islands by writing every morning before breakfast. He purposely used simple language so that his book could reach a wider audience. George wanted everyone to see fundamental differences in plants. The useful way he classified plants laid the foundation for modern taxonomy. Later in his career, George co-authored the three-volume Genera Plantarum with Sir Joseph Hooker. The "Bentham & Hooker system" was widely used and made plant classification easier. George also worked with Ferdinand Mueller to create an impressive nineteen-volume flora of Australia. In 1830, George discovered Opal Basil (purple) which is prized for its flavor and color. But the plant George is most associated with is an Australian sister plant to tobacco, Nicotiana benthamiana. The plant was named in his honor and is used to create vaccines for the Ebola virus and the coronavirus. George died two weeks shy of his 84th birthday.
 
September 22nd  
Today is the Feast Day of Phocas the Gardener, a Turkish innkeeper and gardener who lived during the third century. A protector of persecuted Christians, Phocas grew crops in his garden to help feed the poor. His garden aided him in living his most-remembered virtues: hospitality and generosity.
When Roman soldiers arrived in his village, Phocas offered them lodging and a homemade meal using the bounty of his garden. As they talked, Phocas realized they had come for him. While the soldiers slept, Phocas went out to the garden to dig his own grave and pray for the soldiers. In the morning, Phocas revealed his identity to the soldiers who reluctantly killed him. Although gardening can be a solitary activity, Phocas illustrated how gardens create connection and community. Phocas is the Patron Saint of flower and ornamental gardens,  farmers, field hands, and market gardeners.
 
Unearthed Words
Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air--moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh--felt as if it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing. Honeysuckle, swamp flowers, magnolia, and the mystery smell of the river scented the atmosphere, amplifying the intrusion of organic sleaze. It was aphrodisiac and repressive, soft and violent at the same time. In New Orleans, in the French Quarter, miles from the barking lungs of alligators, the air maintained this quality of breath, although here it acquired a tinge of metallic halitosis, due to fumes expelled by tourist buses, trucks delivering Dixie beer, and, on Decatur Street, a mass-transit motor coach named Desire.
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume
 
Grow That Garden Library
Wild Interiors by Hilton Carter
This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is Beautiful plants in beautiful spaces.
And this book has one of my favorite covers ever! So hats off to the book designer who came up with that incredible cover.
Hilton is a plant stylist, a plant whisperer, and a plant coach, and all of that comes into play in this inspiring book of home interiors that are full of life, style, balance, health, and of course, plants. Carter is a master of greenery, and his approach to creating a welcoming room is making your plants feel right at home. Carter uses his book to take us on a tour of a dozen different homes that all feature their own unique ways of incorporating plants into their interiors and design. Each space is thoughtfully laid out, super comfortable, and beautiful.
This book is 224 pages of plants at home in the home - and what a welcome addition for each of us to make. Lots of plant styling inspo in this book!
You can get a copy of Wild Interiors by Hilton Carter and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $17
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 22, 1882 
On this day, at 5:40 am, the iconic Garden Palace in the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney was destroyed in a fire that consumed the entire fourteen-hectare structure in forty minutes. The flames could be seen for twenty miles. Modeled after the Crystal Palace but constructed primarily with timber, The Garden Palace was built at a record pace and completed in just over eight months for the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879. It dominated Sydney’s skyline for only three years. In its glory, a statue of the Queen stood beneath the palace dome made of thirty-six stained-glass windows. After the Exhibition closed, the Garden Palace was unfortunately used to store important records (including the 1881 census) and countless irreplaceable Indigenous artifacts. The cause of the fire has never been established. At the time of the fire, a French artist named Lucien Henry captured the fire on canvas. His assistant, George Hippolyte Aurousseau, recalled the moment in a 1912 edition of the Technical Gazette:
Mister Henry went out onto the balcony and watched until the Great Dome toppled in; it was then early morning; he went back to his studio procured a canvas, sat down, and painted the whole scene in a most realistic manner, showing the fig trees in the Domain, the flames rising through the towers, the dome falling in and the reflected light of the flames all around.
Today the Pioneer Memorial Garden rests on the site where the dome would have been. Built in 1938, the garden commemorated the 150th anniversary of European settlement in Australia.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an English writer, an American businessman and horticulturist, and an American writer and celebrity.
We hear an excerpt from a top-rated book that became a hit movie starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that features the true story of leaving a beloved garden and starting another.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the birthday for a prolific American writer, and I’ve pulled together some garden-inspired excerpts from his many books. So fun.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Curated News
Pruning Hydrangeas | Fine Gardening | Janet Carson
 
Important Events
September 21, 1866
Birth of H. G. Wells (Herbert George), English writer. Although his work spanned many genres, he is remembered as one of the fathers of science fiction, along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback. Growing up, H.G.’s father was a gardener, and flowers figured into many of his books. In The Flowering of the Strange Orchid (1894), an orchid collector eventually dies by orchid after cultivating an unknown predatory specimen found under the body of a dead plant explorer. In The History of Mr. Polly (1910), Uncle Penstemon was named after a flower. In The Time Machine (1895), he wrote,
And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers - shriveled now, and brown and flat and brittle - to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of men.
In The Secret Places of the Heart, he wrote,
All the English flowers came from Shakespeare. 
I don't know what we did before his time.
There is one final example of garden kismet for H.G. Wells: his gardener, Ethelind Fearon, was also a writer in her spare time. 
H.G. once wrote,
Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.
September 21, 1872
Birth of Robert Hiester Montgomery, American accountant, educator, and gardener. When he wasn’t busy co-founding the world's largest accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Robert worked with his favorite plants: conifers and tropical trees. In 1930, he set up a winter home in Florida and began buying every type of palm tree grown in the state. His impressive collection of over 700 trees inspired him to call his place the Coconut Grove Palmetum. In 1936, he founded the Fairchild Tropical Garden (Coconut Grove, Florida). Seven years later, Robert died after one of his daily walks with his wife, Nell, beneath his beloved palm trees. Today, the Palmetum property is known as the Montgomery Botanical Center.
 
September 21, 1944 
Birth of Fannie Flagg, American actress, comedian, and author. Best-known as a semi-regular panelist on the TV game show Match Game, she also wrote Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987), which was made into the movie Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). Her latest book, The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop (2020), is about the power of returning to your roots. A daughter of Alabama, Fannie writes among the flowers of her California garden. In The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion (2014), she wrote about the natural beauty of Fairhope, Alabama:
They had arrived on a warm, balmy evening, and the soft night air had been filled with the scent of honeysuckle and wisteria. She could still remember coming down the hill and seeing the lights of Mobile, sparkling and twinkling across the water, just like a jeweled necklace. It was as if they had just entered into a fairyland. The Spanish moss hanging from the trees had looked bright silver in the moonlight and made dancing shadows all along the road. And the shrimp boats out in the bay, with their little blinking green lights, had looked just like Christmas.
 
Unearthed Words
What’s the date? “September 8, 1998.” 
Where you from?” “Next July.” 
We sit down at the table. Kimy is doing the New York Times crossword puzzle.
What’s going on next July? 
“It’s been a very cool summer; your garden’s looking good. All the tech stocks are up. You should buy some Apple stock in January.”
She makes a note on a piece of brown paper bag.
“Okay. And you? How are you doing? How’s Clare? You guys got a baby yet?”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife
 
Grow That Garden Library
Uprooted by Page Dickey
This book came out in 2020 (I bought my copy in November), and the subtitle is A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again.
When Margaret Roach reviewed this book, she wrote,
An intimate, lesson-filled story of what happens when one of America’s best-known garden writers transplants herself, rooting into a deeper partnership with nature than ever before.
If you’ve ever moved away from a beloved garden, or there is a move in your future, you’ll find Page’s book to be especially appealing.
Uprooted is Page’s story about leaving her beloved iconic garden at Duck Hill - a landscape she molded and refined for thirty-four years. The new property covers seventeen acres of fields and woodland in northwestern Connecticut. The rolling land surrounds a Methodist Church, which inspired Page to call her new space Church House.
How does a seasoned gardener (at age 74) start again?
How does said gardener leave a beloved home and garden and stay open to new possibilities?
Uprooted gives us the chance to follow Page through all the major milestones as she discovers her new homeplace. We hear all about her home search, how she established her new garden spaces, and some of her revelations as she learns to evolve as a gardener.
If you’ve ever wondered how on earth you’ll ever leave your garden, Page will give you hope. And, if you’re thinking about revamping an old garden space or starting a new garden, you can learn from Page how to create a garden that will bring you joy.
As an accomplished garden writer, Page’s book is a fabulous read, and the photography is top-notch. And although the move from Duck Hill marked a horticultural turning point in her life, Page surprisingly found herself excited and reenergized by her brand new space at Church House.
This book is 244 pages of the evolution of a gardener as she transitions from Duck Hill to Church House - bringing with her lifelong love of nature, gardens, and landscape possibilities.
You can get a copy of Uprooted by Page Dickey and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $6
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
 
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 21, 1947
Birth of Stephen King, best-selling American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. In 1982, he stood for a photo by the famous gate to his property. Known as the spider gate, the custom-made gothic wrought iron masterpiece featured spiders and ravens.
I thought I’d end today’s show with some garden-related excerpts from Stephen’s work through the years. Each quote has that Stephen King edge:
 
From The Shining (1977)
His relationship with his father had been like the unfurling of some flower of beautiful potential, which, when wholly opened, turned out to be blighted inside.
 
From Night Shift (1978)
Having a breakdown was like breaking a vase and then gluing it back together. You could never trust yourself to handle that vase again with any surety. You couldn't put a flower in it because flowers need water, and water might dissolve the glue. Am I crazy, then?
 
From The Eyes of the Dragon (1984)
I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds.
 
From It (1986)
...you could only protect your child through watchfulness and love, that you must tend a child as you tended a garden, fertilizing, weeding, and yes, occasionally pruning and thinning, as much as that hurt.
 
From The Institute (2019),
“Might have done better to get rid of him,” Annie said matter-of-factly. 
“Plenty of room for a body at t’far end of the garden.”
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a German botanist, an American botanist, an explorer, and an English poet and novelist.
We hear an excerpt about the change in seasons.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that challenges us to see trees in a new way - with profound understanding, respect, and intelligence.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the birthday of a beloved American poet and his humorous poem about gardening.
 
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To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to
“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
History of Sydney's Spring Walk| The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney | Miguel Garcia
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events
September 20, 1552 
Lorenz Scholz von Rosenau, German botanist, polyglot, and physician. He translated Greek and Arabic medical references along with other European texts and created a master medical reference. The book helped educate people about the plaque and earned Lorenz a coat of arms and title. In an age when people were afraid of nightshade plants, Lorenz grew potatoes. His large seven-acre garden was divided into four main quadrants connected by paths. In the middle of the garden, a large dining hall and art gallery entertained guests.
 
September 20, 1872 
Birth of Mary Sophie Young, American botanist, and explorer. Born in Glendale, Ohio, she had seven older brothers who she credited for her toughness. After getting her Ph.D., she was put in charge of the Austin herbarium for Texas. She concealed her gender by signing correspondence "M.S. Young." During her career, she fell in love with botanizing in West Texas, and her work helped create a flora of Texas. On a 1914 trip, she wrote in her journal:
It’s about five o’clock now. The ‘lonely’ time is beginning. The air is very transparent and very still, and everything glistens. There is something of that uncanny feeling of the consciousness of inanimate things.
 
September 20, 1902 
Birth of Florence Margaret Smith (pen name Stevie Smith), English poet and novelist. She was awarded the Cholmondeley Award for Poets and won the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry. A play Stevie by Hugh Whitemore, based on her life, was adapted into a film starring Glenda Jackson.
She wrote,
Nothing is more wistful than the scent of lilac, nor more robust than its woody stalk, for we must remember that it is a tree as well as a flower; we must try not to forget this.
 
Unearthed Words
July let me go with the sea
She stood there handing me over to the future
I seemed farther than ever before
July she watched me die under the arms of August
September lived in harmony
She took me by the hand
And gave me one more chance
October and a century of life.”
― Patricia Rezai, Submerged in a Garden of Lust
 
Grow That Garden Library
To Speak for the Trees by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest.
A Canadian botanist, biochemist, and visionary, Diana won the 2019 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award for this book, which shares her family’s Celtic ancestry along with a deeper perspective on trees and their communities - what we call forests.
Diana shares why trees matter, the role they play in solving our climate change crisis, and a path toward a greater appreciation for these quiet giants of our planet.
This book is 304 pages of a tree celebration and cautionary plea to recognize and safeguard their value to us all.
You can get a copy of To Speak for the Trees by Diana Beresford-Kroeger and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $16.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 20, 1881 
Birth of Edgar Albert Guest, British-American writer, columnist, and poet. Thanks to his happy, hopeful poetry, he was beloved and became known as the “People’s Poet” during the first half of the 20th century. Here’s an excerpt from his poem called To Plant a Garden:
 
If your purse no longer bulges
and you’ve lost your golden treasure,
If at times you think you’re lonely
and have hungry grown for pleasure,
Don’t sit by your hearth and grumble,
don’t let mind and spirit harden.
If it’s thrills of joy you wish for
get to work and plant a garden!
If it’s drama that you sigh for,
plant a garden and you’ll get it
You will know the thrill of battle
fighting foes that will beset it
If you long for entertainment and
for pageantry most glowing,
Plant a garden and this summer spend
your time with green things growing.
If it’s comradeship you sight for,
learn the fellowship of daisies.
You will come to know your neighbor
by the blossoms that he raises;
If you’d get away from boredom
and find new delights to look for,
Learn the joy of budding pansies
which you’ve kept a special nook for.
If you ever think of dying
and you fear to wake tomorrow
Plant a garden! It will cure you
of your melancholy sorrow
Once you’ve learned to know peonies,
petunias, and roses,
You will find every morning
some new happiness discloses.
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a Swedish botanist and professor, a Scottish minister, and naturalist, and a British botanist.
We hear an excerpt about September’s changing colors.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about the language of plants - what they are saying to us if we only knew how to listen.
And then we’ll wrap things up with an American writer and her description of the end of summer.
 
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And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
E Is For Evergreen | Boyles & Wyer | John Wyer
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events
September 17, 1702 
Death of Olaus Rudbeck, Swedish botanist. Four months before he died, a fire destroyed much of Upsala. At 72, he helped lead the effort to save the building where he taught even after learning that the fire had destroyed his home along with his personal collections and writings. Thanks to Olaus, the university library was saved. After the fire, he drew up plans to rebuild the city. (The plans were carried out without him.) Twenty-nine years after his death, Carl Linnaeus named the Rudbeckia, or Black-Eyed Susan, after him. Linnaeus wrote,
So long as the earth shall survive and as each spring shall see it covered with flowers, the Rudbeckia will preserve your glorious name.
 
September 17, 1833 
Birth of Hugh Macmillan, Scottish minister, and naturalist. In The Ministry of Nature, (1871), he wrote,
Nature looks dead in winter because her life is gathered into her heart. She withers the plant down to the root [so] that she may grow it up again, fairer and stronger. She calls her family together within her inmost home to prepare them for being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.
 
September 17, 1910 
Birth of Patrick Millington Synge, British botanist, writer, and plant hunter. He served as chief editor for the Royal Horticultural Society. In 1934, he joined the British Museums expedition to the Ruwenzori range in Kenya and Uganda, which inspired his book The Mountains of the Moon - a nod to Herodotus’s name for the area. The equatorial mountain lakes were home to six-foot-tall impatiens, 30-foot-tall lobelia, and thick, tree-like heather. The experience was otherworldly and his writing is romantic and lyrical. He wrote,
Slowly we glide out through a long lane of water cut through the papyrus thicket into Lake Kyoga, where blue water lilies cover the surface with a far-stretching shimmer of blue and green...
Vita Sackville-West loved his book, writing,
Readers of Mr. Patrick Synge's enthralling book... will remember his photographs of this alarming plant (groundsel). 
Patrick is remembered in the daffodil Narcissus hispanicus ex 'Patrick Synge' and in the exotic-flowering favorite Abutilon 'Patrick Synge'.
 
Unearthed Words
And finally, it seemed autumn had realized it was September. The last lingering days of summer had been pushed off stage and in the hidden garden long shadows stretched towards winter. The ground was littered with spent leaves, orange, and pale green, and chestnuts on spiky coats sat proudly on the fingertips of cold branches.”
― Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden
 
Grow That Garden Library
Thus Spoke the Plant by Monica Gagliano 
This book came out in 2018, and the subtitle is A Remarkable Journey of Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries and Personal Encounters with Plants.
In this book, research scientist Monica Gagliano explores plant communication - a subject that influenced her research and ultimately changed her life.
Monica has studied plant communication and cognition for a good amount of her academic career. She shares firsthand accounts from people all over the world and then shares the scientific revelations.
This book is 176 pages of plant stories - strange, beautiful, and unforgettable.
You can get a copy of Thus Spoke the Plant by Monica Gagliano and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $20
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 17, 1907 
Birth of Elizabeth Enright, American writer, illustrator, and creative writing teacher. She won the Newbery Medal for Thimble Summer (1938). In book three of her popular Melendy family series called Then There Were Five (1944), she wrote,
The mullein had finished blooming and stood up out of the pastures like dusty candelabra. The flowers of Queen Anne's lace had curled up into birds' nests, and the bee balm was covered with little crown-shaped pods. In another month -- no, two, maybe -- would come the season of the skeletons, when all that was left of the weeds was their brittle architecture. But the time was not yet. The air was warm and bright, the grass was green, and the leaves and the lazy monarch butterflies were everywhere.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a German naturalist and two American female landscape architects.
We hear an excerpt about September from a modern Southern writer whose stories are set in the North Carolina/Tennessee mountains.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about Walled Gardens.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the birthday of an American plantsman and ecologist. His work continues to inspire the botanists who follow in his footsteps.
 
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To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to
“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
Plan for Growth and Happiness | SAFnow.org | Molly Olson
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events
September 16, 1651 
Birth of Engelbert Kaempfer, German naturalist, physician, explorer, and writer. He is remembered for his ten-year exploration through Russia, Persia, India, and Asia between 1683 and 1693. He was the first European to bring botanical specimens back from Japan. His book, Amoenitatum Exoticarum (1712), was an invaluable medical resource and offered the first flora of Japan, featuring nearly 500 plants from the island. He was the first Western botanist to describe the Ginkgo.
 
September 16, 1876 
Birth of Marian Cruger Coffin, American landscape architect. She was one of two women in her 1904 landscape architecture class at MIT. Since most architecture firms didn’t hire women, Marian started her own practice in New York City and became one of America's first working female landscape architects. She started out with small projects in the suburbs of Rhode Island and ended up as the most in-demand landscape architect for the East Coast elite. Her client list included the Fricks, the Vanderbilts, Marjorie Merriweather Post, the Huttons, and the du Ponts. Her legacy includes many of her Delaware commissions: Gibraltar (Wilmington, Delaware), the University of Delaware campus, Mt. Cuba, and Winterthur. In 1995, author Nancy Fleming expanded her Radcliffe thesis and wrote Money, Manure & Maintenance - a book about Marian Coffin’s gardens. The title was a reference to the three ingredients Marion thought necessary for a successful garden. Marion once observed,
The shears in the hands of the average jobbing gardener are, indeed, a dangerous implement. As much devastation can be done in a few moments as it will take an equal number of years to repair. This I have observed to my sorrow...
 
September 16, 1887 
Birth of Annette Hoyt Flanders, American landscape architect, and writer. A daughter of Milwaukee, she worked on all types of gardens in the Midwest and out East. For her design of the French Gardens at the McCann Estate, she received the Architectural League of New York’s Medal of Honor in Landscape Architecture (1932). In a 1942 article in The Record (New Jersey), she advised,
Hold on to every bit of beauty you've got. Don't tear up your gardens. We're going to need gardens more than ever, and what's more, we can't afford to create an economic crisis by throwing out of work hundreds of people who are dependent for their livelihood on things we need for our gardens. 
She once said,
Real beauty is not a matter of size — a tiny, inexpensive garden can be just as beautiful as a big one.
 
Unearthed Words
There is a time in late September when the leaves are still green, and the days are still warm, but somehow you know that it is all about to end as if summer was holding its breath, and when it let it out again, it would be autumn.
― Sharyn McCrumb, King's Mountain
 
Grow That Garden Library
Walled Gardens by Jules Hudson
This book came out in 2018, and it is from the National Trust.
In this book, Jules Hudson of the BBC shares some of the most spectacular walled gardens throughout England and Wales. In centuries gone by, these gardens were vital to sustaining family life - not only for food - but also for medicine and beauty.
In the late 18th century, these gardens became synonymous with wealth as the elite sought to grow exotic fruits right in their own backyard. Over time, these kitchen gardens were enhanced with glasshouses and heated walls. The level of creativity, commitment, and charm reflected in these gardens are evident still today.
This book is 240 pages of walled kitchen gardens in all their glory.
You can get a copy of Walled Gardens by Jules Hudson and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $12
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 16, 1874 
Birth of Frederic Edward Clements, American plant ecologist. In 1916, he introduced the concept of a biome to the field of ecology. He also helped pioneer the study of vegetation succession. He believed his botanist wife, Edith, would have been a world-renown ecologist if she hadn’t devoted so much time to help him. Together the “Doctors Clements” traveled across America researching and teaching the next generation of ecologists. For fieldwork, Frederic devised a technique known as the quadrat method: pound four stakes into the ground, wrap a string around the stakes, and tally the number and kinds of plants in the square. MIT’s John Vucetich marveled at the power and scale of Frederic’s work, writing,
To draw a string around that many sets of stakes, to sit down before a small patch of the Earth that many times, to get down on the level with plants, to take a quick look, gain a gestalt, and then engage in the deliberative task of touching every single plant, recognizing its species name and writing it down, pressing pencil to paper, once for each individual—to do that not for a weekend, not a few dozen times, but to perform that meditation thousands of times over a lifetime—there is no more intimate, more mesmerizing way to connect with nature. 
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

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Historical Events
1771 Birth of Xavier Bichat ("bee'shah"), French anatomist and pathologist.
Remembered as the father of modern histology, or the study of tissues. In his work, Xavier did not use a microscope and still discovered 21 distinct types of tissues in the human body. His work accelerated and transformed the way doctors understood disease.
Sadly, Xavier died accidentally in his early thirties in 1802 after falling down the steps of his hospital. Today, Xavier Bichat's name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.
A lover of nature, Xavier's work was grounded in observations from the natural world. Charles Darwin quoted Xavier in his book The Descent of Man.
The great botanist Bichat long ago said, if everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. 
If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de' Medici, we should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety; and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain characteristics in our women a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common standard.
 
The beauty of nature and the secret to that beauty is in nature's diversity and the ephemeral nature of all things - the seasons, flowers, the weather, etc.,
Xavier also wrote,
Life is the sum of forces resisting death.
 
1776 Birth of Henri Dutrochet, French physician, botanist, and physiologist.
After studying the movement of sap in plants in his home laboratory, Henri discovered and named osmosis. Henri shared his discovery with the Paris Academy of Sciences on October 30th, 1826.
Like the cells in our human bodies, plants don't drink water; they absorb it through osmosis.
Henri also figured out that a plant's green pigment, chlorophyll, is essential to how plants take up carbon dioxide. Hence, photosynthesis could not happen without chlorophyll. It turns out chlorophyll helps plants gather energy from light. And if you've ever asked yourself why plants are green, the answer is chlorophyll. Since it reflects green light, chlorophyll makes the plant appear green.
As for Henri, he was a true pioneer in plant research. He was the first to examine plant respiration, light sensitivity, and geotropism (How the plant responds to gravity, i.e., roots grow down to the ground.)
Geotropism can be confusing at first, but I think of it this way: The upward growth of plants - fighting against gravity - is called negative geotropism, and the downward growth of roots, growing with gravity, is called positive geotropism.
And there's a tiny part of the plant at the very end of the root that responds to positive geotropism, and it's called the root cap. So, what makes the roots grow downward? The small but mighty root cap - responds to positive geotropism.
 
1907 Birth of Astrid Lindgren, Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays.
Astrid is remembered for several children's book series, including Pippi Longstocking. She wrote more than 30 books for children and has sold 165 million copies.
In January 2017, Astrid's prolific work made her the fourth most translated children's author trailing Enid Blyton, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm.
Astrid was a flower lover.
In her book, Mio, My Son, Astrid wrote,
He turned to the Master Rose Gardener and said something even more peculiar, "I enjoy the birds singing. I enjoy the music of the silver poplars."
In her book, Most Beloved Sister, Astrid wrote,
Then the flowers stopped singing and the trees stopped playing, and I could no longer hear the brook's melody. 
"Most Beloved Sister," said YlvaLi. "When Salikon's roses wither, then I will be dead.'
 
And in Astrid's story Bullarbyn, the maid Agda tells a group of girls that if on Midsummer night, they climb over nine fences and pick nine different flowers in complete silence, without speaking a single word, and then return home to put the flowers under their pillow, they will dream of their future husband.
On Social Media, there's a marvelous photograph of Astrid climbing a pine tree. In the photo, Astrid is 67 years old. She apparently climbed the tree in her front yard after being dared by her 80-year-old friend Elsa. Astrid later quipped,
There's nothing in the Ten Commandments forbidding old ladies to climb trees, is there?
 
Astrid once wrote,
In our unknown past we might have been creatures swinging from branch to branch, living in trees. 
Perhaps in the deepest depths of our wandering souls we long to return there... 
perhaps it is pure homesickness that makes us write poems and songs of the trees...
 
1908 Birth of Harrison Salisbury, American journalist.
After World War II, Harrison became the first regular New York Times correspondent in Moscow. He went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his work.  
Harrison once wrote,
My favorite word is 'pumpkin.' You are a pumpkin. Or you are not. I am.
 
Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation
The Heirloom Gardener by John Forti
This book came out in 2021, and the subtitle is Traditional Plants and Skills for the Modern World.
"Part essay collection, part gardening guide, The Heirloom Gardener encourages readers to embrace heirloom seeds and traditions, serving as a well-needed reminder to slow down and reconnect with nature." 
- Modern Farmer
 
The publisher writes:
In The Heirloom Gardener, John Forti celebrates gardening as a craft and shares the lore and traditional practices that link us with our environment and with each other. Charmingly illustrated and brimming with wisdom, this guide will inspire you to slow down, recharge, and reconnect.
 
In the preface, John shares how he came to be a gardener. Of his early experience, he wrote:
Work at a garden center in my teens further ignited my interest in horticulture; it also helped me save up enough money to travel to Japan as an exchange student, far from my river and deep pine woods. There I saw the Japanese veneration of the land made manifest in regional artisanal foods, historic preservation, and the Zen-like devotion to the craft of gardening, the art of placing a single stone in a garden wall or a budding branch in an ikebana arrangement. I witnessed firsthand how much we are all shaped by place.
When I returned, I explored garden history and ethnobotany with deep interest.
 
John introduces the art and practice of heirloom gardening this way:
Things like an old rhubarb patch, the remnants of an orchard, or a lichen-covered stone wall are talismans that help us read the landscapes we inherited. Through them, we catch a glimpse of how someone applied craftsmanship and the environmental arts to live in accord with nature. As heirloom gardeners in our shared backyard, we remember the work our hands were born to do, intuitively, like a bird follows its migratory path or a newly hatched turtle scrambles to the sea.
I may be a romantic, but I do not romanticize the past. In my work as a garden historian and herbalist, I am not blind to the shortcomings, biases, and errors of earlier times, but I also see families connected to seeds and soil, people connected to place, and a deep value for living in concert with our environment.
This book is an alphabetical collection of brief essays and artisanal images, each a seed, a way in to a different element of an heirloom gardening lifestyle; I see each entry as a point of connectivity-hand to hand, ancestor to descendant, seed to table. It's a love poem to the earth... a guidepost for gardeners... who want to cultivate common ground and craft new possibilities from local landscapes.
 
Here is a sample entry regarding Angelica; John writes,
A majestic herb is Angelica archangelica, cultivated through the ages for its flavor, fragrance, and stately beauty. 
In the garden, the hollow and resinous stems of this regal herb, covered in broad leaves, can easily tower three to five feet, and the enormous flower umbels rise up to seven feet toward the heavens - perhaps one of the reasons that the plant was dedicated to the archangels in Medieval times. 
Early each spring in centuries past, Europeans and Colonial Americans would harvest the tender stalks and simmer them in a simple syrup; eventually the stalks would become the translucent light green of sea glass, and the syrup would take on the color and herbaceous balsam flavor so unique to angelica. 
As lovers of spring have done long since, I repeat the process and candy the stalks until they become tender; I then either slice the stems lengthwise, into short segments, or braid the long strands together before rolling them in finely ground sugar...They are excellent served like membrillo or marmalade with cheese and dessert platters... Like an herbal equivalent to candied ginger, candied angelica was often served as digestive at the end of feasts.
Throughout the growing season, but especially in spring and summer, I enjoy serving gin and tonics and other cocktails with straws made from thinner angelica stems. I also save the syrup that results from the candying process; it's an amazing herbal elixir to add into cocktails or serve atop vanilla ice cream.
 
John's book is 264 pages of marvelous garden essays and beautiful botanical art about traditional plants and skills for the modern gardener.
You can get a copy of The Heirloom Gardener by John Forti and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $8.
 
Botanic Spark
1805 Birth of Robert Buist (botanist) is born.
Robert Buist came to America from Edinburgh "Edinburgh," where his dad was a professional gardener. He had trained at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and immigrated to Philadelphia when he was 23.
One of his first jobs was working for a wealthy Philadelphia businessman named Henry Pratt, who had a tremendous summer estate named Lemon Hill. At the time, Lemon Hill was regarded as having one of the most beautiful gardens in the United States.
Eventually, Buist bought the history Bernard McMahon nursery - one of the oldest nurseries in the country and the nursery that supplied plants to President Thomas Jefferson.
Today, on the spot where the nursery used to be, is a large old Sophora tree known as the Buist Sophora. The tree was brought to the United States from France, and its origin can be traced to China.
In addition to the nursery, Buist grew his company to include a seed division and a greenhouse.
In 1825, the plant explorer Joel Poinsett sent some specimens of a plant he discovered in Mexico home to Charleston. Buist heard about the plant, bought himself one, and began growing it. Buist named it Euphorbia poinsettia since the plant had a milky white sap like other Euphorbias. The red bracts of the plant were so unusual and surprising to Robert that he wrote that the Poinsettia was "truly the most magnificent of all the tropical plants we have ever seen."
Of course, Robert gave his friend and fellow Scot, the botanist James McNab a poinsettia when he visited in 1834. McNab brought the plant back to Scotland and gave it to the head of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Robert Graham. Graham promptly changed the botanical name of the plant to Poinsettia pulcherrima - a move that greatly upset Robert Buist for the rest of his life.
And here's a fun little side note about Robert Buist; his gardening books were very popular.
When Stonewall Jackson discovered gardening in middle age, he relied heavily on Robert Buist's book The Family Kitchen Gardener: Containing Plain and Accurate Descriptions of All the Different Species and Varieties of Culinary Vegetables, which became Jackson's gardening bible, and he wrote little notes in the margins as he worked his way through the guide. Like most gardeners still do today, he'd write, "Plant this" or "Try this" in the margins next to the plants he wanted to try the following year.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener
And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

Today in botanical history, we celebrate an American doctor, a Viscountess, and a Canadian fiction writer.
We hear a little excerpt about September - such a milestone month for so many people.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about one of America’s greatest explorers.
And then we’ll wrap things up with tomato tips from garden writer Stuart Robinson who shares how to get the last of your harvest to ripen faster. A question on many gardener’s minds...
 
Subscribe
Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart
To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to
“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
Torture Orchard | The Counter | Julie Cart
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events
September 15, 1795 
Birth of James Gates Percival, American poet, surgeon, and geologist. In The Language of Flowers, he wrote,
In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares:
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic language bears.
In The Flight of Time, he wrote,
Roses bloom, and then they wither;
Cheeks are bright, then fade and die;
Shapes of light are wafted hither,
Then, like visions, hurry by.
 
September 15, 1872 
Birth of Frances Garnet Wolseley, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley, English gardening author, and teacher. Her Glynde College for Lady Gardeners in East Sussex was patronized by Gertrude Jekyll, Ellen Willmott, and William Robinson.  She wrote,
It is with real sorrow that we see so many [survivors] of an era of not particularly good taste in the shape of iron benches. It is their undoubted durability which has preserved them, and we who try to rest upon them are the sufferers, not only for their unpleasing appearance but from the ill-chosen formation of the back…
 
September 15, 1937 
Birth of Marjorie Harris, Canadian non-fiction writer, garden expert, and garden author. She was the host of The Urban Gardener radio show for CBS. In addition to countless articles and columns for various publications, she wrote more than a dozen books on gardening.  She wrote,
The longer you garden, the better the eye gets, the more tuned to how colors vibrate in different ways and what they can do to each other. You become a scientist as well as an artist, with the lines between increasingly blurred.
 
Unearthed Words
The windows are open, admitting the September breeze: a month that smells like notepaper and pencil shavings, autumn leaves, and car oil. A month that smells like progress, like moving on.
― Lauren Oliver, Vanishing Girls
 
Grow That Garden Library
The World was My Garden by David Fairchild
This book came out in 1938, and the subtitle is Travels of a Plant Explorer.
In this book, you learn directly from the fabulous Plant Explorer David Fairchild about what it was like to travel the globe searching for new plant species to bring home to the United States.
In this first-hand account, David shares his extensive botanical expertise in addition to detailed stories about his time with primitive cultures in the far reaches of our planet. In addition to his outstanding botanical work, David was a great photographer, and he provided all of the photos for this remarkable book.
This book is 634 pages of botanical exploration with David Fairchild as your guide.
You can get a used copy of this rare, out-of-print book, The World was My Garden by David Fairchild, and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $50.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 15, 2004
On this day, in The Gazette (Montreal), garden writer Stuart Robinson shared tips for getting tomatoes to ripen faster. He wrote:
The first trick is to trim some of the leaves covering the green fruit so that they're more exposed to the sun. This helps them warm up during the daytime. But the very best way of making sure that all the fruit on a vine turns ripe is to cut down on their competition. Step one is to pinch off all the side shoots... Be ruthless and remove them all, even if they seem to be producing a small set of flower buds… Step two is… trim the growing tips from all the remaining stems to stop the plant from getting any bigger. One gardener I know swears that severe pinching threatens the plant so much that it hurries to set its fruit (and seeds) much quicker. 
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a poet, an English garden designer, and a garden historian.
We’ll hear a fun excerpt about calculating cold weather from a Pulitzer-prize-winning play by David Auburn.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a bible on winter growing and harvesting - so year-round gardening - from the master himself: Eliot Coleman.
And then we’ll wrap things up with some thoughts on transplanting - the toll it takes on plants… and us.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
Florist Nikki Tibbles on How to Arrange Hydrangeas | House & Garden
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events
September 14, 1613
Death of Sir Thomas Overbury, English poet, and writer. 
He died after being poisoned when he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. He once wrote,
The man who has nothing to boast of but his ancestors is like a potato - the only good belonging to him is underground.
 
September 14, 1699 
Baptism of Batty Langley, English garden designer, writer, architect, and artist. His elaborate garden designs often featured mazes. If you see one online, you’ll find them mesmerizing. A jack of all trades, he offered his wealthy clients a myriad of garden features to choose from, including grottos, baths, fountains, cascades, garden seats, structures, and sundials. Batty sought to soften Baroque gardens featuring formality and geometric shapes with natural landscapes. George Washington was a fan of his work and ordered his New Principles of Gardening (1728) for his library at Mount Vernon. Batty wrote,
There is nothing more agreeable in the garden than good shade, and without it a garden is nothing.
 
September 14, 1931 
Birth of Susan Campbell (artistic name: Susan Benson), English illustrator, food writer, and garden historian. She eventually became an expert on the history of walled kitchen gardens after visiting Thomas Pakenham at Tullynally Castle. For over four decades, she researched and wrote about over 700 walled kitchen gardens in the UK and worldwide. In 2001, she established the Walled Kitchen Garden Network with fellow garden historian Fiona Grant. Recently, she studied the garden belonging to Charles Darwin’s father, Robert Darwin. In a 1984 interview, Suan commented,
Oh, painting was agony. Agony. 
And writing is a doddle compared [to] illustrating… 
[But kitchen gardens] seemed as secret as anything with their big walls… and I longed to see what they were like.
 
Unearthed Words
Let X equal the quantity of all quantities of X. 
Let X equal the cold. It is cold in December. The months of cold equal November through February. 
There are four months of cold, and four of heat, leaving four months of indeterminate temperature. 
In February, it snows. In March, the lake is a lake of ice. In September, the students come back, and the bookstores are full. 
Let X equal the month of full bookstores. 
The number of books approaches infinity as the number of months of cold approaches four. 
I will never be as cold now as I will in the future. 
The future of cold is infinite. The future of heat is the future of cold. The bookstores are infinite and so are never full except in September...”
― David Auburn, Proof
 
Grow That Garden Library
The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman
This book came out in 2009, and the subtitle is Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses.
In this book, Renaissance man Eliot Coleman shares his ingenuity and time-tested experience with growing and harvesting food year-round. If you’re considering extending your growing season, Eliot’s book is regarded as the bible of successful winter sowing, growing, and harvesting.  With The Winter Harvest Handbook, gardeners can remain active and productive even in the coldest winters using unheated or minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses.
Eliot shares how to make and maintain your greenhouse, along with growing and marketing tips for over 30 different crops.
This book is 264 pages of a proven model for enjoying fresh, locally-grown produce all through the winter.
You can get a copy of The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $15.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 14, 1938
On this day, the Canadian naturalist Charles Joseph Sauriol wrote in his diary,
I stood out on the lawn at 12.30 A.M. The Valley silvered in moonlight could have been back in July…  Moving is transplanting, and transplanting causes most plants to droop momentarily. We always feel a trifle sad about pulling up stakes...
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a German landscape gardener who introduced English gardens to Germany.
We'll also learn about an American painter and printmaker best known for her incredible painting Love Locked Out (1890)... but she was also a gardener and painted beautiful landscapes.
We’ll also look back at a cautionary story about a botanist who protected his peach crop at a tremendous cost and using terrible judgment.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that will help you learn how to cook with all those garden veggies. If you’re running out of ideas - this book is perfect for you.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a bit of glimpse into a magnificent garden property in Baden, Germany, back on this day in 1835. It’s quite the story.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
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The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
Butternut squash and caramelized onion galette | House & Garden | Deb Perelman (Smitten Kitten)
 
PLUS! Brand New Book Release tomorrow:
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events
September 13, 1750 
Birth of Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, German landscape gardener. He is regarded as the man who introduced English gardens to Germany, and his planting style is still prevalent in German landscapes today. One of Friedrich’s most significant commissions was at Nymphenburg Palace, where he transformed formal baroque gardens into English landscape gardens for King Max I. The transformation was a compelling blend of old and new, with some established gardens along the central axis left untouched. In 1816, he built the historic Geranium House (glasshouse) at Nymphenburg. Today the building houses a permanent exhibit featuring Friedrich’s work at the palace park. Friedrich recognized the importance of natural borders along woodlands, open space between trees and shrubs, and removing trees for the sake of the landscape. He valued certain trees - like oaks and lindens - over more common species like maple and ash.
 
September 13, 1844 
Birth of Anna Massey Lea Merritt, American painter, and printmaker. Born in Philadelphia, she spent most of her life in England. She is best known for Love Locked Out (1890), which she painted to honor her husband, who died three months after their wedding. In addition to her portraiture and religious work, she painted landscapes. She wrote,
The nastiest of all weeds is that sycophant - Dock - also called Herb Patience. When you grasp the strong-seeming stalk, it has no fiber, it melts away in a soft squash, leaving its root in the ground; even Nettles are pleasanter to touch.
 
September 13, 1916 
On this day, the Hartford Courant (Connecticut) reported:
Dr. Henry Hurd Rusby, a noted botanist and dean of the medical faculty of Columbia University, shot and wounded Alfred Fasano, aged 13, here today when Fasano and three other boys... were pilfering peaches from his orchard. A double-barreled shotgun was the weapon used. He told the police that he had been annoyed by boys stealing his fruit and… that he intended only to frighten the boys.
 
Unearthed Words
He was the first to admit that he had been singularly ill-qualified for all his previous jobs. Just a few months earlier, he had accepted the editorship of Gardening Magazine. 
“Nobody could know less about gardening than me,” he said. 
But it didn't stop him dispensing advice for his readers. 
“I would solemnly give them my views on whether it was better to plant globe artichokes in September or March.”
Now, at last, he had fallen into a job for which he was extremely well qualified, one in which the only seeds to be planted were those of wholescale destruction.
― Giles Milton, Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat
 
Grow That Garden Library
Vegan 100 by Gaz Oakley
This book came out in 2018, and the subtitle is Over 100 Incredible Recipes from Avant-Garde Vegan.
In this book, Gaz celebrates the versatility and adventure you can find when you dedicate time to creating new dishes with vegetables.
Gaz is a famous chef - thanks to Social Media and his fantastic channels on Instagramram and YouTube - where he shares many of his recipes with his avid fanbase. Personally, Gaz decided to change his diet and go vegan - and ever since, he’s found new ways to make exciting and tasty meals to make again and again. Gaz is known for creating innovative and straightforward food that helps people - even gardeners - see new possibilities for plant-based dishes.
This book is 224 pages of vibrant vegetables in many full-page photographs that steal the show and define modern vegan cooking.
You can get a copy of Vegan 100 by Gaz Oakley and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $8.
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
 
September 13,  1835 
On this day, British artist and writer James Forbes stopped at the castle in Baden during his horticultural tour through Germany, Belgium, and France. In his journal, he wrote of Baden:
...the tremendous precipices of rock, and plantations, render this spot the most picturesque… on my tour through Germany. [There is an] excellent promenade, called the English garden, with neatly kept walks and pieces of lawn, [and] a magnificent building called the "Conversation House," with numerous orange trees arranged in front of it. In the interior, I was much surprised to see in a very spacious room, splendidly furnished, [and] a large concourse of ladies and gentlemen, during Sunday, very busy at the gambling tables; in fact, the ladies appeared to be fully as expert gamblers as the gentlemen.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a botanist remembered for his work collecting cinchona trees in South America. We’ll remember the French royal painter known as the "the Raffaele of flowers."
We'll also learn about the German architect who thought he’d discovered the Hanging Gardens of Babylon over a hundred years ago.
We’ll recognize the work of the British Botanist who is remembered in the name of a bamboo, an English writer who was often inspired by nature, and we’ll also take a look back at a discovery by South African botanists.
We hear an excerpt from a fun fiction book - "A compelling and human cast of characters, full of humor, heart, heartbreak, and the language of flowers make this perfect for fans of Marian Keyes."—Booklist
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that came out during the pandemic - The Well-Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith
And then we’ll wrap things up with a little letter from botanist David Hosack written on this day in 1806.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
Pumpkin Pie Cereal Treats | Better Homes & Gardens
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events

September 10, 1817 
Birth of Richard Spruce, English botanist and bryologist. A fearless explorer, he spent fifteen years botanizing along the Amazon river. Toward the end of his journey, he managed to smuggle out cinchona saplings, which were a promising treatment for malaria. He was most fascinated by small plants - unassuming mosses and liverworts. He wrote,
I like to look on plants as sentient beings... which beautify the earth during life, and after death may adorn my herbarium…

September 10, 1825 
On this day, French King Charles X honored the Belgian painter, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, with the Legion of Honor. To test his skills, Queen Marie Antoinette once summoned Redouté in the middle of the night and ordered him to paint a cactus. He did. Redouté was also a favorite of Josephine Bonaparte and her flowers at Malmaison are the subjects of his most beautiful work. A master painter of lilies and roses, Redouté was known as "the Raffaele of flowers."

September 10, 1855 
Birth of Robert Koldewey, German archaeologist. He supposedly discovered the location of one of the Seven Wonders of the World - the ancient Hanging Gardens of Babylon in southern Iraq. He also found the famous Ishtar Gate (1902), which he cut into pieces and smuggled to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin where it remains to this day.
Despite working for over two decades, the Hanging Gardens site was only half-excavated when he was forced to leave the country in 1917. His discovery of the gardens has since been refuted.

September 10, 1870 
Birth of Lilian Gibbs, British botanist. When she wasn’t working at the British Museum in London, she was going on expeditions. She was the first woman and botanist to ascend Mount Kinabalu (Borneo) in February 1910. She discovered many new plants and is remembered by many plant names including Racemobambos gibbsiae ”rass-ih-MOE-bam-bos Gibbs-ee-ay" (Miss Gibbs' Bamboo).

September 10, 1903 
Birth of Cyril Connolly, English literary critic and writer. In The Unquiet Grave, he wrote:
Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.

September 10, 1981 
On this day, the Lancaster New Era (Pennsylvania) featured a story about the impact of hormones on plant growth:
South African botanists discovered that a birth control pill pushed into the soil next to a plant stem can produce dramatic effects on growth and improve foliage. Research has shown that hormones in the pill accelerate fertilization and development of plants.
 
Unearthed Words
Agapanthus and peonies in June. Scented stock and sweet peas in July. Sunflowers and sweet William in August. By the time September's oriental lilies and ornamental cabbages appeared, she wasn't hiding upstairs in the workroom anymore. She was spending more time in the shop, answering the phone, dealing with the customers. One Sunday she spent the afternoon at an allotment belonging to a friend of Ciara's, picking lamb's ear and dusty miller and veronica for a wedding, and didn't think about Michael once, but she kept remembering a Patrick Kavanagh poem she'd learned at school, the one about how every old man he saw reminded him of his father.
― Ella Griffin, The Flower Arrangement
 
Grow That Garden Library
The Well-Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith
This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is The Restorative Power of Nature.
Before this book came out in 2020, I don't think Sue had any idea just how timely this book was going to be.
I remember when Sue's book was finally released, I heard an interview with her and also an urban gardener in California. The two of them together talked about the importance of gardening and for so many people who were really suffering at home during the pandemic, gardening became a way of coping - along with pets. A lot of people got pets during the pandemic. This is why it was so hard to adopt a pet on Petfinder - or source plants and seeds. In fact, we're still struggling with the repercussions of that particular year because growers not only sold their plant inventory for  2020, they often borrowed against some of the plant material that they were saving for 2021.
Of course, many of us know the healing power of gardens. But what I loved about Sue Stewart Smith is her unique take on all of this. Sue approaches gardens from her area of expertise, which is psychology. And it’s helpful that Sue is also a passionate gardener herself.
Now I love this aspect of gardening - their power to heal and help us - and I could do a deep dive on this all day. I love talking about it. I love reading about it. What I really like about Sue's book is that she offers endless examples of the power of gardening and its impact on our brains, on our thinking, on our ability to be happier, to continue to process and learn and grow, etc. It's so, so powerful.
Now it's been over a year since this book has been out. So if you're looking for used copies, there are definitely some available on Amazon.
This book is 352 pages of garden power - the power to heal, restore, and save us.
You can get a copy of The Well-Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith  and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $10
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart

September 10, 1806 
On this day, the botanist David Hosack wrote to Thomas Jefferson at Monticello about Lewis and Clark. He was hoping to gain access to any potential plant discoveries on the expedition:
If, sir, the gentlemen who are at present on their travels to Missouri discover any new or useful plants I should be very happy in obtaining a small quantity of the seeds.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate an old account of Tripoli gardens.
We’ll remember a botanist, naturalist, and author who believed in the power of walking.
We hear an excerpt from a book by author Susan Wiggs.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a wonderful book about small garden design.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a novelist who found his own garden paradise in the Cotswolds.
 
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“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
Jay’s Garden in the Mountains | Fine Gardening
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events  
June 21, 1535
Today is the birthday of the German physician, botanist, and traveler Leonhard Rauwolf.
For two years, between 1573 and 1575, he made a trip through the Near east to search for new herbal medicines. When he returned, he published a book with new botanical descriptions for his herbarium, and he later wrote a travel book about his adventures.
Here is an excerpt from Rauwolff's description of Tripoli in Lebanon:
“The town of Tripoli is pretty large, full of people, and of good account, because of the great deposition of merchandises that are brought thither daily both by sea and land. It is situated in a pleasant country, near the promontory of the high mountain Libanus, in a great plain toward the sea-shore, where you may see an abundance of vineyards, and very fine gardens, enclosed with hedges for the most part, the hedges consisting chiefly of Rhamnus, Paliurus, Oxyacantha, Phillyrea, Lycium, Balaustium, Rubus, and little Palm-trees, that are low, and so sprout and spread themselves. In these gardens, as we came in, we found all sorts of salads and kitchen-herbs, such as Endive, Lettuce, Ruckoli, Asparagus, Celery,... Tarragon..., Cabbages, Cauliflowers, Turnips, Horseradishes, Carrots, of the greater sort of Fennel, Onions, Garlic, etc. And also fruit, as Water-melons, Melons, Gourds, Citruls, Melongena, Sesamum (by the natives called samsaim, the seeds whereof are very much used to strew upon their bread) and many more; but especially the Colocasia, which is very common there, and sold all the year long.... In great plenty there are citrons, lemons and oranges.... At Tripoli they have no want of water, for several rivers flow down from the mountains, and run partly through the town, and partly through the gardens, so that they want no water neither in the gardens nor in their houses.”
 
June 21, 1898 
Today is the birthday of American botanist, naturalist, and author, Donald Culross Peattie.
During his lifetime, Donald was regarded as the most read nature writer in America. He wrote about plants and nature. His book, Flowering Earth, was written for the layperson - explaining concepts like chlorophyll and protoplasm and specimens like algae and seaweeds. The Hartford Times said this about Peattie's Flowering Earth:
"Peattie makes the story of botany and its pursuit as fascinating to the reader as it is to him, and the reading of it a delight."
Over time, Peattie began to focus on trees. His popular books on North American trees include Trees You Want to Know (1934), The Road of a Naturalist (1941), American Heartwood (1949), A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America (1950), and A Natural History of Western Trees (1953).
From his book American Heartwood, Donald wrote,
“Wood, if you stop to think of it, has been man’s best friend in the world. It held him in his cradle, went to war as the gunstock in his hand, was the frame of the bed he came to rejoicing, the log upon his hearth when he was cold, and will make him his last long home. It was the murmuring bough above his childhood play, and the roof over the first house he called his own. It is the page he is reading at this moment; it is the forest where he seeks sanctuary from a stony world.”
Peattie's writing voice is friendly and lyrical. He wrote,
"I have often started off on a walk in the state called mad-mad in the sense of sore-headed, or mad with tedium or confusion; I have set forth dull, null and even thoroughly discouraged. But I never came back in such a frame of mind, and I never met a human being whose humor was not the better for a walk."
And he wrote,
"All the great naturalists have been habitual walkers, for no laboratory, no book, car, train or plane takes the place of honest footwork for this calling, be it amateur's or professional's."
 
Unearthed Words
She pulled up to the curb in front of number 115, a boxy house with a garden so neat that people sometimes slowed down to admire it. A pruned hedge guarded the profusion of roses that bloomed from spring to winter. Each of the roses had a name. Not the proper name of its variety, but Salvatore, Roberto, Rosina- each one planted in honor of their first communion. There were also roses that honored relatives in Italy whom Rosa had never met, and a few for people she didn't know - La Donna, a scarlet beauty, and a coral floribunda whose name she couldn't remember.
The sturdy bush by the front step, covered in creamy-white blooms, was the Celesta, of course. A few feet away was the one Rosa, a six-year-old with a passion for Pepto-Bismol pink, had chosen for herself. Mamma had been so proud of her that day, beaming down like an angel from heaven. It was one of those memories Rosa cherished because it was so clear in her heart and mind.
― Susan Wiggs, American author of historical and contemporary romance novels, Summer by the Sea

Grow That Garden Library
Small Garden Design by Paul Bangay 
This book came out in 2019.
In this book, the Australian designer Paul Bangay known for large, elegant gardens, is now sharing his top tips for designing gardens in small spaces - for people who want beautiful gardens on balconies, courtyards, lightwells, or rooftops.
As with large gardens, garden design fundamentals like — incorporating structure and smart plant selection. Small Garden Design focuses on tips for working with various spaces and is gorgeously illustrated with photos by Simon Griffiths.
This book is 272 pages of small garden design loaded with practical tips on plant choices, paving, irrigation, soil, outdoor dining, lighting, and ideas for making small spaces appear larger.
You can get a copy of Small Garden Design by Paul Bangay and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $43

Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
June 21, 1948
Today is the birthday of the Scottish novelist Ian McEwan (“Muh-Cue-in”).
Ian has written short stories and novels for adults and a children's novel called The Daydreamer, which Anthony Browne illustrated.
In 2012, he and his wife, the writer Annalena McAfee, bought a beautiful nine-acre dream property in the Cotswolds. One of their gardens features foxgloves and iris, lady’s mantle, allium, and meadow rue.
Ian’s best-selling 2001 novel Atonement was made into a movie starring James McAvoy and Keira Knightley in 2007.
A passage from the book reads,
“It made no sense, she knew, arranging flowers before the water was in — but there it was; she couldn't resist moving them around, and not everything people did could be in a correct, logical order, especially when they were alone.”
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate an English novelist and poet who started out as an architecture student, and one of his first jobs was moving a graveyard.
We'll also learn about a writer of charming garden verses.
And we’ll hear an excerpt about lilacs.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a look at some of the most exclusive private gardens in Paris.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the birthday of a New York architect and children's book writer who wrote about a spelling bee - a bee that would come in handy when it comes to writing Botanical Latin.
 
Subscribe
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To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to
“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
How to bring more nature into your day and take part in 30 Days Wild | CountryFile
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events  
June 2, 1840 
Today is the birthday of the English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy.
A Victorian realist like George Eliot, Thomas Hardy was a product of provincial England. A fan of John Milton, the Romanticism of William Wordsworth influenced his writing. He’s most remembered for his novels set in rural Wessex, Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) and Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891).
In Shaun Bythell’s book, The Diary of a Bookseller, he shares a common mispronunciation of Thomas’s first literary success,
“A customer at 11.15 a.m. asked for a copy of Far from the Maddening Crowd. In spite of several attempts to explain that the book's title is actually Far from the Madding Crowd, he resolutely refused to accept that this was the case, even when the overwhelming evidence of a copy of it was placed on the counter under this nose: 'Well, the printers have got that wrong.' Despite the infuriating nature of this exchange, I ought to be grateful: he has given me an idea for the title of my autobiography should I ever be fortunate enough to retire.”
In Tess the D’Urbervilles, Thomas gives us a charming description of summer. He wrote,
“The season developed and matured. Another year's instalment of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephemeral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and inorganic particles. Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings.”
And here’s an excerpt where Tess compares the stars to apples.
“Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"
"Yes."
"All like ours?"
"I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted."
"Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?"
"A blighted one.”
Today, the National Trust takes care of Thomas Hardy’s charming thatch cottage and garden near Dorchester. Thomas’s great-grandfather built the cottage.
In 1891, workers were digging on Thomas Hardy’s property called Max Gate. They were installing a drain in the driveway when they discovered a large druid stone that thrilled Thomas, and he set it in his garden.
Nearly a century later, it was discovered that Hardy's house was situated on top of a large Neolithic enclosure - an ancient stone circle - and burial site.
Here’s an excerpt poem by Thomas Hardy, which began writing in 1913, called “The Shadow on the Stone.” It took him three years to complete the poem, and the shadow of the gardener that he sees is that of his wife Emma, who had passed away.
I went by the Druid stone
That broods in the garden white and lone,  
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows  
That at some moments fall thereon
From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,  
And they shaped in my imagining
To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders  
Threw there when she was gardening.
During the 1860s, as a young man - before he became known as a poet and writer - Thomas Hardy took a job as a trainee architect while he was going to school in London for architecture. One of his first jobs was to move remains and grave markers at St Pancras to make way for the Midland Railway line. Charles Dickens referred to the St Pancras churchyard in his Tale of Two Cities as the place where Jerry Cruncher used to fish - meaning he robbed graves.
Despite his unhappy task, Thomas had a burst of inspiration, and he decided to place hundreds of the headstones on their sides and nestle them around an ash tree. The effect was that of a sunburst radiating out from the trunk. Over time, the Ash tree became known as the Hardy Tree at St Pancras Old Churchyard in London. As the tree’s roots intertwined with the headstones, the Hardy Tree developed a bit of a reputation and fascinated generations of future writers. Today, the Hardy Tree, still surrounded by grave markers, is an obscure stop for tourists.
 
June 2, 1865
Today is the birthday of the artist, costume designer, poet, and writer Minnie Aumônier ("o·mo·nyé").
Over the years, Minnie’s life story has passed into obscurity, although we know she was born into an artistic family. In 1876, her father, William, founded an architectural sculpture firm in London known as Aumonier Studios. Her Uncle James was a painter.
Minnie wrote some beautiful verses about the garden. One of her verses says,
“There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.”
Minnie was romantic and sentimental. Her poetry is sugar sweet and winsome - the kind of verse that ends up on garden art - like this verse:
“When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden.”
 
Unearthed Words
Caroline wiped her cheek with the back of her gardening glove, leaving a dark smudge below one eye, then pulled off her gloves.
'But it's fitting in a way - Father loved the fact that a lilac only blossoms after a harsh winter.'
Caroline reached over and smoothed the hair back from my brow with a light touch. How many times had my mother done that? 'It's a miracle all of this beauty emerges after such hardship, don't you think?
― Martha Hall Kelly, author, and native New Englander, Lilac Girls (New York Times bestseller)
 
Grow That Garden Library
Secret Gardens of Paris by Alexandra D'Arnoux and Bruno De Laubadere 
This book came out in 2000.
In this book, Alexandra and Bruno offer us a sneak peek into some of Paris's most exclusive private gardens; most are unavailable for tours or visitors. Many of these hidden gems have been maintained for centuries as secret gardens and retreats that have been passed down through families and owners who relish their private slice of heaven on earth. These gardens range from formal to eclectic. There are Japanese-inspired gardens, tropical or exotic hideaways, topiary gardens, and urban retreats, just to name a few.
This book is 176 pages of privileged access to 50 private Parisian gardens
You can get a copy of Secret Gardens of Paris by Alexandra D'Arnoux and Bruno De Laubadere and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $3
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
June 2, 1929
Today is the birthday of the New York architect and children's book writer Norton Juster.
In 1961, Norton wrote his most famous book, The Phantom Tollbooth, which tells of a little boy named Milo who receives a make-believe Tollbooth with the power to take him to the Lands Beyond.
In this imaginary world, Milo meets many extraordinary characters, including a Bee obsessed with spelling. Here’s a cute little excerpt:
“Then just as time ran out he spelled as fast as he could - “v-e-g-e-t-a-b-l-e”. 
“Can you spell everything?" asked Milo admiringly.
"Just about," replied the bee with a hint of pride in his voice. "You see, years ago I was just an ordinary bee minding my own business, smelling flowers all day, and occasionally picking up part-time work in people's bonnets. Then one day I realized that I'd never amount to anything without an education and, being naturally adept at spelling, I decided that—”
At that moment, another far-fetched character enters the story.
Now the etymology of the curious blend “spelling bee” has never been fully established - although it is a distinctly American term. When the pioneers were settling this country, they held all kinds of bees to help each other accomplish arduous tasks more quickly. For instance, there were sewing bees and quilting bees, husking bees, logging bees, spinning bees, and apple bees. There were also fire brigades and barn-raisings - both clearly missed opportunities for fire bees and barn bees. Perhaps that’s how we got the term “spelling bee.” Maybe people just added the word bee to any novel social gathering, and somehow, spell bee just seemed to be perfect - a friendly term - describing a high-pressure competition intended to motivate kids to learn to spell. The term first appeared in print in the 1870s.
Recently, word experts have suggested that the word bee was rooted in a Middle English word for favor or prayer -  “bene,” which is the root of the word beneficial. Over time, bene became the English word “been” (or “bean”),  which Websters defines as "voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task." So the new theory is that the word evolved over time from bene to been to bee.
Over on his blog, Scientist Sees Squirrel, Stephen Heard shared a post called Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Latin Names in which he included the very hard to spell:
Weberbauerocereus cephalomacrostibas (“Weberbauer-uh-SEER-ee-us sef-ah-LO-mah-cros-tuh-bus”), which is a cactus and Cryptodidymosphaerites princetonensis (“krip-toe-did-uh-mus-fuh-rye-tees princeton-EN-sis"), which is a fungus.
Stephen writes,
“These names mostly have one thing in common: they try to do way, way too much.  They try to mention a place, and the name of a related taxon, and a descriptive trait, and another descriptive trait, and then modify that … and then they keep on going.”
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a gardener who transformed and developed the Cambridge Botanic Garden.
We'll also learn about a writer and gardener who won a Pulitzer for her writing and praise for her work in garden design.
We hear an excerpt about the first day of June.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about houseplants featuring projects, profiles, and guidance.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the story of a world-famous writer and her personal paradise on an Australian island.
 
Subscribe
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To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to
“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
Our Enchanted Botanic Garden Experience | FamilyFunCanada | Kristi McGowan
 
Why Was June Made? by Annette Wynne
Why was June made?—Can you guess?
June was made for happiness!
Even the trees
Know this, and the breeze
That loves to play
Outside all day,
And never is too bold or rough,
Like March's wind, but just a tiny blow's enough;
And all the fields know
This is so—
June was not made for wind and stress,
June was made for happiness;
Little happy daisy faces
Show it in the meadow places,
And they call out when I pass,
"Stay and play here in the grass."
June was made for happy things,
Boats and flowers, stars and wings,
Not for wind and stress,
June was made for happiness!
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events
June 1, 1850
Today is the birthday of the gardener and author Richard Irwin Lynch.
Richard learned to garden from his father, who was classically trained at Kew. By the time he was seventeen, Richard had followed in his father’s footsteps and worked at Kew - starting with herbaceous perennials before moving into tropicals.
Enthusiastic and driven, Richard became the curator of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden when he was 30. During his four decades in the position, Richard transformed and elevated the garden by expanding and diversifying the garden’s collections through swaps and hybridizing.
In 1904, Irwin published his masterpiece The Book of the Iris - a book dedicated to the culture and identification of irises.
The iris is the birth flower for the month of February and the state flower of Tennessee.
The iris has been a symbol of royalty and power, and the “Fleur de Lis” represents the iris.
And here's a heads up to gardeners: if you're growing them without success, remember that Irises need full sun to bloom their best, and if they don’t get enough sun, they won’t bloom.
The Iris fragrance is found in the roots, and it is used for perfume. Historically, Iris root extract has been applied to the face to remove freckles.
 
June 1, 1837
On this day, the American writer and gardener Edith Wharton had a heart attack while staying at the country estate of her friend and co-author of The Decoration of Houses, the architect Ogden Codman. This event was the first of three heart attacks for Edith. She died on August 11th of that year and was buried at Versailles.
Edith wrote many popular admonitions. My favorite is this one. She wrote,
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
 She also wrote:
“Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all the deadly sins.” 
And she also wrote:
“If only we’d stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.” 
Edith’s childhood in Europe afforded her a chance to see the great gardens of Italy and France. As an adult, she became a fan of the famous garden designer Gertrude Jekyll.
In 1904, in a departure from her standard storytelling, Edith published a major gardening book, Italian Villas and Their Gardens, with pictures by Maxfield Parrish. Edith thought gardens should be a series of outdoor rooms, and she wrote,
“…In the blending of different elements, the subtle transition from the fixed and formal lines of art to the shifting and irregular lines of nature, and lastly, in the essential convenience and livableness of the garden, lies the fundamental secret of the old garden-magic…”
Recognizing the grandness of Italian Villa’s, Edith wrote,
"The Italian garden does not exist for its flowers; its flowers exist for it." 
Edith had her own wonderful estate for a period of time. It was called the Mount. It was built in 1920, and Edith used it as her summer country estate. Tucked in Lennox, Massachusetts, the Mount. Edith was built on a high ledge and from the terrace. Edith could look down over her property and see her flower gardens, which she herself designed.
There’s a large French flower garden, a sunken Italian or Walled Garden, a Lime Walk with 48 Linden trees, and grass steps.
During her time at The Mount, Edith wrote The House of Mirth. In the story, Edith wrote about having fresh flowers, and Her character, which is about to face financial ruin, says to her mother,
“I really think,... we might afford a few fresh flowers for luncheon. Just some jonquils or lilies-of-the-valley----"
In terms of her talent, Edith felt she was much better in the garden than she was as a writer. Speaking of garden design, Edith’s niece was the garden designer Beatrix Jones Farrand.
Edith once wrote a friend,  
“I’m a better Landscape gardener than a novelist, and this place (The Mount), every line of which is my own work, far surpasses The House of Mirth.”
Sadly, Edith’s time at The Mount was short-lived as her marriage ended nine years later, and she was forced to sell the place.
In her story called The Line of Least Resistance, Edith wrote from the perspective of a husband who had financed elaborate gardens:
“The lawn looked as expensive as a velvet carpet woven in one piece; the flower borders contained only exotics…

A marble nymph smiled at him from the terrace, but he knew how much nymphs cost and was not sure that they were worth the price. Beyond the shrubberies, he caught a glimpse of domed glass. 
His greenhouses were the finest in Newport, but since he neither ate fruit nor wore orchids, they yielded, at best, an indirect satisfaction.”
In 1920, toward the end of her career, Edith wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece: The Age of Innocence - becoming the first female to win the award in her category. In 1993, Edith’s book was the basis for the movie with the same title, The Age of Innocence, featuring a young Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis.
In the book, Edith described a neglected garden,
“The patch of lawn before it had relapsed into a hayfield; but to the left an overgrown box-garden full of dahlias and rusty rose-bushes encircled a ghostly summer-house of trellis-work that had once been white, surmounted by a wooden Cupid who had lost his bow and arrow but continued to take ineffectual aim.”
In terms of her personal preferences, Edith loved reliable bloomers like lilies, hydrangeas, delphinium, cleome, and dahlias. Regarding peonies, she once described them as having “jolly round-faced’ blooms.
 
Unearthed Words
The last rain had come at the beginning of April, and now, at the first of June, all but the hardiest mosquitoes had left their papery skins in the grass. It was already seven o'clock in the morning, long past time to close windows and doors, trap what was left of the night air slightly cooler only by virtue of the dark. The dust on the gravel had just enough energy to drift a short distance and then collapse on the flower beds. The sun had a white cast, as if shade and shadow, any flicker of nuance, had been burned out by its own fierce center. There would be no late afternoon gold, no pale early morning yellow, no flaming orange at sunset. If the plants had vocal cords, they would sing their holy dirges like slaves.
― Jane Hamilton, American novelist, the author of The Book of Ruth, and winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction, A Map of the World(a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1999)
 
Grow That Garden Library
Practical Houseplant Book by Zia Allaway and Fran Bailey
This book came out in 2018, and the subtitle is Choose Well, Display Creatively, Nurture & Maintain, 175 Plant Profiles.
In this book, Zia and Fran share a dozen inspiring projects, over two hundred in-depth plant profiles, along with expert guidance to help you cultivate and care for your houseplants.
The twelve inspiring plant projects featured in this book include a desertscape, an air plant stand, a macrame hanger, an open bottle terrarium, a willow climbing frame, a succulent wreath, a kokedama fern, a moth picture frame, a drive terrarium, a wood-mounted orchid, a living space divider, and a propagation shelf.
This book is 224 pages of houseplant projects, profiles, and guidance.
You can get a copy of Practical Houseplant Book by Zia Allaway and Fran Bailey and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $3
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
June 1, 1937
Today is the birthday of the Australian novelist and gardener Colleen McCullough (“muh-CULL-ick”).
Her friends called her Col.
Colleen was exceptionally bright. Born and raised in Australia, she worked at Yale as a neurophysiologist for $10,000 a year. During her spare time, she wrote her first breakthrough novel, Tim - a story about a middle-aged widow who has a relationship with her young, handsome, and developmentally disabled gardener. Tim became a movie starring Mel Gibson.
But it was her next novel that would end up changing Colleen’s life: The Thornbirds - the Australian love story between a Catholic priest and a young woman named Meggie Cleary. In The Thornbirds, Colleen wrote,
“There's a story... a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree... and never rests until it's found one. And then it sings... more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles.”
The Thorn Birds sold 30 million copies, became a blockbusting TV miniseries, and allowed Colleen the chance to follow her heart and desire for privacy. By 1979, Colleen moved to a ten-hectare property on Norfolk Island - a small island outpost of Australia between New Zealand and New Caledonia - and a place that she would call home for the rest of her life.
A daughter of Australia, Colleen’s home country, loved her back and declared her a national treasure in 1997. Colleen died in 2015, but today her garden and home, complete with a fern room, is now open for tours.
The gardener and garden broadcast personality, Graham Ross, wrote about meeting Colleen and shared his comments on Facebook,
“When we first met Colleen McCullough in her garden, ‘Out Yenna’ (‘Out Yonder in Norf’k) on Norfolk Island a decade or more ago, it was like meeting an old friend.
It’s a long drive through the Kentia palm plantation... to find the beautiful two-story weatherboard home. There was no greeting party of minders, no official anything, just a hearty “G’day,” then “would you like a cup of tea”’ followed by “let’s look at the garden such as it is”...
The garden was entirely the domain and responsibility of her Persian cat, Shady, who would roll in Sweet Alice (Alyssum), gather seeds in her long fur, and then roll around elsewhere in the dirt distributing the seeds. It was the largest planting of Sweet Alice we’d ever seen.
In the center of the garden was a magnificent glass screen by a woman artist... who also had a copy of the work, according to Colleen, “hanging in Canberra’s Parliament House.” 
But it was her finale, her coup de grace, that remains with us after the long chat and yarning. We had recently published our first major text, “Our World of Gardening,” with Simon and Schuster and took a copy for her as a sign of appreciation for her time. What happened next remains with us as the true essence of Colleen McCullough. She was enormously grateful for our book. At first, we thought ‘overly so’ but left the room after telling us of her gratitude.
Ten minutes later, she returned with a copy of every book she’d ever written from ‘Tim’ to the ‘Roman Series.’ She then proceeded to autograph and included a personal message of every publication. It was a hugely generous gesture and followed with the amazing statement, “You are the first authors to ever offer me a copy of their book.”
A few photographs for the record were taken, and strong handshake and we left with over a dozen books under our arms and a fond memory that remains fresh today.”
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a beloved English novelist and poet.
We'll also learn about an intrepid plant explorer remembered most for the little yellow fruit he brought back from China. However, his most significant impact is likely in the soybean specimens that became a valuable economic crop for America.
We hear a fun excerpt about a pressed flower book - you’re really going to enjoy it.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about Plants that Kill - and there are more deadly plants in the garden and your home than people realize.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a bit of garden advice from a distinguished and excellent gardener and writer who wrote about using silver foliage in the garden on this day back in 1967.
 
Subscribe
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To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to
“Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.”
And she will. It's just that easy.
 
The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring:

• A personal update from me
• Garden-related items for your calendar
• The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week
• Gardener gift ideas
• Garden-inspired recipes
• Exclusive updates regarding the show

Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
20 Best Perennials That Bloom Year After Year |Family Handyman | Susan Martin
 
Facebook Group
If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.
So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links.
The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join.
I'd love to meet you in the group.
 
Important Events
May 28, 1849 
Today is the anniversary of the death of English novelist and poet Anne Brontë.
Today we remember the Brontë sisters for their writing, but their lives were one of hardship. Their mother, Maria, died a year and a half after giving birth to Anne - the youngest Brontë children. By then, the family had already lost two older siblings - girls named Maria and Elizabeth.
When Anne was older, she wrote a little verse on the subject of losing a loved one, saying,
Farewell to thee! but not farewell 
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart, they still shall dwell; 
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
The result of these early losses in the family was a tight-knit connection between the four surviving Brontë children: Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and their brother Branwell.
Growing up, Anne and her older sister Emily were very close. They two peas in a pod.
In Anne’s poem about the Bluebell, she writes about her moments of childhood happiness - at finding pretty wildflowers and enjoying a carefree existence. Of the bluebell, Anne wrote,
O, that lone flower recalled to me
My happy childhood’s hours
When bluebells seemed like fairy gifts
A prize among the flowers,
Those sunny days of merriment
When heart and soul were free,
And when I dwelt with kindred hearts
That loved and cared for me.
The author Emma Emmerson wrote a piece called the Brontë Garden. In it, she revealed:
“The Brontës were not ardent gardeners, although… Emily and Anne treasured their currant bushes as ‘their own bit of fruit garden.’"
In her book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne wrote about the resilience of the rose.
“This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it... It is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.”
The year 1848 proved to be a brutal year of tuberculosis for the Brontë children. Branwell died of tuberculosis at age 31 in September. Emily would also die from tuberculosis in December. She was 30 and had just released her book Wuthering Heights. Losing Emily was too much for Anne, and her grief negatively impacted her health.
By the time Anne died from tuberculosis on this day at 29, her remaining older sister Charlotte had lost all of her siblings in just under ten months. Anne had wanted to go to Scarborough, thinking that the sea air would help her. Charlotte worried the trip would be too much for her. But when the family doctor agreed Anne could travel, Charlotte and her friend Ellen Nussey accompanied her. Along the way, Anne wanted to see York Minster. When the little trio reached Scarborough, Anne had two days left to live. Knowing the end was near, Anne asked to stay in Scarborough instead of heading back home.
When the end came, Charlotte decided to bury Anne in Scarborough - instead of at their Hawthorne Parish alongside their mother and siblings. Charlotte wrote of her decision, saying she would "lay the flower where it had fallen.” And so that is how Anne came to be buried in Scarborough.
 
May 28, 1918
On this day, the intrepid Dutch-American botanist and USDA Plant Explorer, Frank Nicholas Meyer, boarded a steamer and sailed down the Yangtze River - starting his long return journey to America.
Sadly, after Frank boarded that steamer ship on this day back in 1918, he died. His body was found days later floating in the Yangtze. To this day, his death remains a mystery.
His final letters home expressed loneliness, sadness, and exhaustion. He wrote that his responsibilities seemed “heavier and heavier.”
Early on in his career, Frank was known as a rambler and a bit of a loner. He was more enthusiastic about plants than humans - even going so far as to name and talk to them. Frank once confessed in an October 11, 1901 letter to a friend,
"I am pessimistic by nature and have not found a road which leads to relaxation. I withdraw from humanity and try to find relaxation with plants." 
Frank worked in several nurseries and took a few plant hunting assignments before connecting with the great David Fairchild, who saw in Frank tremendous potential. Frank was also David’s backfill. David had just gotten married and was ready to settle down.
Once in China, Frank was overwhelmed by the vastness and rich plant life. A believer in reincarnation, Frank wrote to David Fairchild, in May 1907:
“[One] short life will never be long enough to find out all about this mighty land. When I think about all these unexplored areas, I get fairly dazzled… I will have to roam around in my next life.”
While the potential of China was dazzling, the risks and realities of exploration were hazardous. Edward B Clark spoke of Frank’s difficulties in his work as a plant explorer in Technical World in July 1911. He said,
“Frank has frozen and melted alternately as the altitudes have changed. He has encountered wild beasts and men nearly as wild. He has scaled glaciers and crossed chasms of dizzying depths. He has been the subject of the always-alert suspicions of government officials and strange people's - jealous of intrusions into their land, but he has found what he was sent for.” 
Frank improved the diversity and quality of American crops with his exceptional ability to source plants that would grow in the various growing regions of the United States.
Frank was known for his incredible stamina. Unlike many of his peers carried in sedan chairs, Frank walked on his own accord for tens of miles every day. His ability to walk for long distances allowed him to access many of the most treacherous and inaccessible parts of interior Asia - including China, Korea, Manchuria, and Russia.
In all, Frank sent over 2,000 seeds or cuttings of fruits, grains, plants, and trees to the United States - and many now grace our backyards and tables. For instance, Frank collected the beautiful Korean Lilac, soybeans, asparagus, Chinese horse chestnut, water chestnut, oats, wild pears, Ginkgo biloba, and persimmons, just to name a few.
Today, Frank is most remembered for a bit of fruit he found near Peking in the doorway to a family home - the Meyer Lemon, which is suspected to be a hybrid of standard lemons and mandarin oranges.
 
Unearthed Words
“Janie ran to my side, where she tugged at the book eagerly as though she'd seen it before. "Flower book," she said, pointing to the cover.
"Where did you find Mummy's book?" Katherine asked, hovering near me.
Cautiously, I revealed the book as I sat on the sofa. "Would you like to look at it with me?" I said, avoiding the question.
Katherine nodded, and the boys gathered around as I cracked the spine and thumbed through page after page of beautiful camellias, pressed and glued onto each page, with handwritten notes next to each.
On the page that featured the 'Camellia reticulata,' a large, salmon-colored flower, she had written:
'Edward had this one brought in from China. It's fragile. I've given it the garden's best shade.'
On the next page, near the 'Camellia sasanqua,' she wrote:
'A Christmas gift from Edward and the children. This one will need extra love. It hardly survived the passage from Japan. I will spend the spring nursing it back to health.'
On each page, there were meticulous notes about the care and feeding of the camellias - when she planted them, how often they were watered, fertilized, and pruned. In the right-hand corner of some pages, I noticed an unusual series of numbers.
"What does that mean?" I asked the children.
Nicholas shrugged. "This one was Mummy's favorite," he said, flipping to the last page in the book. I marveled at the pink-tipped white blossoms as my heart began to beat faster. The Middlebury Pink.
― Sarah Jio (“Gee-oh”), New York Times bestselling author, The Last Camellia
 
Grow That Garden Library
Plants That Kill by Elizabeth Dauncey
This book came out in 2016, and the subtitle is A Natural History of the World's Most Poisonous Plants.
In this gorgeously illustrated book, Elizabeth introduces us to the most poisonous plants on the planet - from hemlock to the deadly nightshades to poppy and tobacco. Elizabeth also helps us understand how many of these plants have been used medicinally and culturally across the globe. Toxicity has been used for good and evil, with some plant compounds used in murders and chemical warfare.
In terms of evolution, some plants turned more toxic to deter getting eaten or harmed by wildlife. Concerning humans, plant toxins can profoundly affect parts of the body - from the heart and lungs to our biggest organ, the skin.
This book is 224 pages of a fascinating and authoritative look at the natural history of highly toxic plants, including their evolution, survival strategies, physiology, and biochemistry.
You can get a copy of Plants That Kill by Elizabeth Dauncey and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $15
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
May 28, 1967
On this day, The Observer published a garden column called Putting Your Garden On The Silver Standard by the distinguished gardener and writer Frances Perry.
Frances fell in love with gardening as a young girl after her mother, Isabella, took a ten-year-old Francie to see the Chelsea flower show. She married a local nurseryman’s son named Amos Perry, Jr. In 1945, the Perry’s oldest son, Marcus Perry, was killed by a lorry when he was just 13. He’s remembered by the oriental poppy named the Marcus Perry. France’s father-in-law, Amos Perry Sr., bred the poppy.
Regarding her column about plants with silver foliage from this day in 1967, Frances wrote,
“A touch of silver (or gold) brings light to dark corners, highlights other plants, and makes a particularly delightful foil for anything with pink or blue flowers. 
Many silver-leaved plants are of Mediterranean origin, and the majority are sun-lovers, accustomed to well-drained soils; they stand up well to extremes of weather provided they are not waterlogged…
There are a number of silver-leaved plants suitable for small gardens. 
Artemisias bring a whisper of the past into the gardens… several were well-loved plants in our great grandparents' time. 
A. abrotanum is the Southernwood, sometimes quaintly named Old Man or Lad's Love... because the ashes were once used to encourage hair growth (on bald heads and young faces). It is pleasantly aromatic ... I like to dry the leaves for potpourri and herb pillows; they also ward off moths. 
For a key position before dark foliage, grow Verbascum bombyciferum (Giant Silver Mullein)… a really stately plant. Reaching 4-5 ft tall from a flat, leafy rosette, its stout stem is entirely covered, as are the leaves, with cotton wool-like tufts of hair, through which the soft yellow flowers gleam like watery suns. Although biennial, the plant reproduces freely from seed; the seedlings can be transplanted when they are about the size of a penny. 
The late Constance Spry used to under carpet crimson roses with Stachys byzantina (syn. S. lanata), the plush-leaved Lamb's Ear. [She complained] about the need to remove the flower heads because they spoilt the effect. She would have loved the new variety [of Lamb’s Ear known as] Silver Carpet, which is flowerless.”
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate an old account of Linnaeus’s floral clock.
We'll also learn about the garden life of an American actor who was best known for his brilliant performances in horror films.
We hear an excerpt about the color yellow in the garden - it has the power to lift our spirits. Yellow flowers are little day-brighteners.
We Grow That Garden Library™, with a book about 250 years of plant history in England.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the story of a tradition involving Black-Eyed Susans, or maybe they aren’t Black-Eyed Susans...
 
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Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.
 
Gardener Greetings
Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org
 
Curated News
Grasses: A Sensory Experience | chrishowellgardens.com | Chris Howell
 
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Important Events
May 27, 1873
On this day, out of Pratt’s Junction, Massachusetts, there was a detailed post about how to make a floral clock.
“Please tell the girls if they think country life dull... they can pass many happy hours… studying the plants about them. 
I saw it stated that Linnaeus had what he termed a floral clock, and a few of the flowers forming it were given with their time of blossoming: Yellow Goat's Beard, 3 a.m. 
Chicory, 4 a.m.
Sow Thistle, 5 a.m.
Dandelion, 6 a.m. ; 
Lettuce and White Water Lily, 7 a.m. 
Pimpernel, 8 a.m. 
Field Marigold, 9 a.m. 
 
May 27, 1911
Today is the birthday of the American actor Vincent Price.
Known for his performances in horror films, Vincent also enjoyed gardening. He especially loved cymbidium orchids, and he had hundreds of them growing on the shady side of his California home.
He also grew wildflowers, cactus, poinsettia, and geraniums in his multi-level garden. And when he walked home in the evenings after his performances, he would keep his eyes peeled for discarded plants and trees. After bringing them back to his garden, he would nurse them back to health.
Vincent had many ponds, including an old bathtub that he had repurposed as a pond. He loved the bathtub pond so much that he placed it in the center of his garden.
But there was another unique aspect of Vincent’s garden: a totem pole. Vincent had bought the totem pole from the estate of John Barrymore.
Barrymore stole the 40-foot tall totem pole from an abandoned Alaska village. Barrymore had his crew saw the totem pole into three pieces before loading it onto Barrymore's yacht.
Once he arrived at his home in California, Barrymore removed the remains of a man that were still inside the totem. Then he reassembled it and displayed it in his garden.
After buying the totem from the Barrymore estate, Vincent put the totem in his garden. The carved images of a killer whale, a raven, an eagle, and a wolf watched over his garden until he donated the totem pole to the Honolulu Museum of Art in 1981.
The totem pole remained safe in a climate-controlled basement for generations until a University of Alaska professor named Steve Langdon tracked it down in Hawaii sometime after the year 2000. Steve learned about the totem pole after stumbling on an old photo of Vincent Price. He was standing next to the totem pole in his garden. Langdon had an immediate reaction to the photo. He recalled,
"It was totally out of place. Here's this recognizable Hollywood figure in a backyard estate with a totem pole ... that was surrounded by cactus." 
By 2015, Steve was finally able to return the totem pole back to its ancestral tribe in Alaska.
When Vincent Price died from Parkinson's disease and lung cancer in 1993, his family honored his wishes and scattered his ashes in the ocean along with petals from red roses. Vincent had cautioned his family not to scatter his ashes in Santa Monica Bay. He said it was too polluted.
Instead, his family found a spot off of Point Dume. At the last minute, they had decided to include Vincent’s favorite gardening hat in the service. The hat was made of straw and had a heavy wooden African necklace around the brim, and so Vincent’s ashes were scattered on the water accompanied by red rose petals and his old straw hat.
 
Unearthed Words
“I nodded, appreciating the wisdom of her words.‘Yellow is the colour of early spring,’ she said, ‘just look at your garden!’ She gestured towards the borders, which were full of primulas, crocuses, and daffodils. ‘The most cheerful of colours,’ she continued, ‘almost reflective in its nature, and it is, of course, the colour of the mind.’
‘That’s why we surround ourselves with it!’ laughed Phyllis, ‘in the hope that its properties will rub off.’‘Nonsense dear,’ said Mrs. Darley dismissively, ‘Yellow light simply encourages us to think more positively. It lifts our spirits and raises our self-esteem in time for summer.’I immediately made a mental note to surround myself with the colour of the season and, like Phyllis, hoped that some of its properties would rub off on me.
― Carole Carlton, English Author of the Mrs. Darley series of Pagan books and owner of Mrs. Darley's Herbal, Mrs. Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality, and Traditions of the Year
 
Grow That Garden Library
Plants by Kathy Willis 
This book came out in 2015, and the subtitle is From Roots to Riches.
In this book, Kathy Willis, the director of science at Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, writes about 250 years of England’s love affair with plants.
Kathy explores the fascinating history that accompanied some of the most important plant discoveries. Using a Q&A format, Kathy reveals the impact of 100 Objects, with each chapter telling a separate story - an important aspect of remarkable science, botany. This book shares some never-before-seen photos from Kew's amazing archives, and the stories underscore just how important plants really are to our existence and advancement as a species.
This book is 368 pages of the important history and future of plants.
You can get a copy of Plants by Kathy Willis and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $4
 
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
May 27, 1873
On this day, the First Preakness Stakes ran at the Pimlico (“PIM-luh-co”) Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. The Preakness Stakes is named for the colt who won the first Dinner Party Stakes at Pimlico. Held on the third Saturday in May each year, the race takes place two weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks before the Belmont Stakes.
The race is also the second jewel of the Triple Crown, and it’s nicknamed "The Run for the Black-Eyed Susans" in reference to the blanket of flowers placed over the winner. Black-Eyed Susans are the state flower of Maryland.
Although the Preakness is sometimes referred to as "the race for the black-eyed Susans," no Black-Eyed Susan is ever used. When race organizers realized that the race's timing didn’t coincide with the late summer to early fall bloom of Black-Eyed Susan, they found some yellow daisies and hand-painted the centers of the blossoms with a little dash of black lacquer to make them look like Black-Eyed Susans.
The Black-Eyed Susan was designated the state flower of Maryland in 1918. The Black-Eyed Susan or Rudbeckia Hirta's history begins in North America. After the flower was brought to Europe in the 1700s, Carl Linnaeus named them to honor his old teacher and mentor Olaus Rudbeck.
On July 29, 1731, Linnaeus wrote with admiration about his old professor, Rudbeck, saying:
"So long as the earth shall survive and as each spring shall see it covered with flowers, the Rudbeckia will preserve your glorious name."
Black-Eyed Susans are a favorite of gardeners. They bloom continuously from about mid-July until the first frost. The Black-Eyed Susan is a great pollinator plant. As a member of the daisy family, they offer that daisy shape and give the garden a warm yellow color that is perfect for ushering in autumn. All that Black-Eyed Susans require is the sun. All gardeners need to do is enjoy them and remember to cut a few to bring indoors; they are a fantastic cut flower. Black-Eyed Susans play nice in bouquets, and they also look great as a solo flower in a vase.
There have been new varieties of Black-Eyed Susans introduced over the past couple of decades. In honor of the 150th anniversary of the city of Denver, the Denver Daisy was introduced in 2008. It is a cross between the Rudbeckia hirta species and the Rudbeckia prairie sun.
One of my personal favorites is the Rudbeckia hirta 'Cherry brandy.' Imagine a red Black-Eyed Susan, and that's basically Cherry brandy. Simply gorgeous.
Black-Eyed Susans are important to wildlife. They offer food and shelter for birds and animals; rabbits, deer, and even slugs like to eat this plant. As most of us know that the monarch and the milkweed co-evolved together, the Silvery Checkerspot butterfly and the Black-Eyed Susan did the same. The Silvery Checkerspot lays her eggs on Black-Eyed Susans, which are the food source for the little baby caterpillars after they hatch.
In floriography, Black-Eyed Susans symbolize encouragement and motivation.
 
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."