Stay ConnectedThe Daily Gardener is a weekday podcast celebrating garden history, literature, and the small botanical stories that shape how we garden today.
Each episode follows an “on this day” format, uncovering the people, plants, books, and moments that have quietly influenced gardens across time.
New episodes are released Monday through Friday, and each show features a thoughtfully chosen garden book.
Copyright: Copyright ©2019-2020, Jennifer Ebeling|The Daily Gardener All rights reserved
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. 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:
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. 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:
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. 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:
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."
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. 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:
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 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. 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:
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 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. 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:
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. 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:
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 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. 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:
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. 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 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? Uprootedgives 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."
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