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 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 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 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."
Full show notes at the publisherToday 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... 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 Curated News Grasses: A Sensory Experience | chrishowellgardens.com | Chris Howell 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 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."
Today we celebrate a French botanist who broke the news to the scientific community in Paris: plants have sex. We'll also learn about a German botanist who settled in Kodiak, Alaska, and created a fascinating look at Alaskan plants through the eyes of the Native People of Alaska. We hear an excerpt about Lily of the Valley from one of my favorite modern writers. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about houseplants and how to incorporate them into your home, your life, and your happiness. And then we'll wrap things up with the birthday of a poet who wrote some beautiful verses inspired by nature. 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 Curated News Career Changers: How To Become A Garden Designer | The English Garden | Phoebe Jayes 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 26, 1669 Today is the birthday of the French botanist Sébastien Vaillant. Appointed to the King's garden in Paris, Sebastien loved organizing and cataloging plants. Biographical accounts say Sebastian showed a passion for plants from the age of five. His masterpiece, forty years in the making, Botanicon Parisienne, was a book about the flora of Paris. It wasn't published until five years after his death. Today, Sebastian Vaillant is credited for acknowledging the importance of the sexual anatomy of plants. Sebastian's work on plant sexuality inspired generations of botanists and set the stage for Linneaus to develop his sexual system of plant classification. Linnaeus used the male stamens to determine the class and the female pistils to determine the order. And like Sebastion, Linnaeus often compared plant sexuality to that of humans. Linnaeus wrote, "Love even seizes... plants... both [males and females], even the hermaphrodites, hold their nuptials, which is what I now intend to discuss." Sebastian caused a sensation when he presented his work on plant sexuality at the Royal Garden in Paris on June 10, 1717. He began by reinforcing the idea that the flower is the most important part of a plant - essential to reproduction - and then he began to lead his scientific colleagues down a path they had never thought to follow. His lecture was titled, Lecture on the Structure of the Flowers: Their Differences and the Use of Their Parts. Today, we can imagine the reaction of his 600 person audience as he began using fairly explicit language and the lens of human sexuality to describe the sex lives of plants - at six in the morning, no less. Before Sebastian's lecture, the topic of sex in the plant world had only been touched on lightly, allowing flowers and blossoms to maintain their reputation as pure, sweet, and innocent. Sebastian was no fool. He knew his lecture would cause a stir. In a 2002 translation of his speech presented in A Journal of Botanical History known as Huntia, Sebastian began his lecture by acknowledging that he was going to talk about plant sexuality very explicitly, saying, "Perhaps the language I am going to use for this purpose will seem a little novel for botany, but since it will be filled with terminology that is perfectly proper for the use of the parts that I intend to expose, I believe it will be more comprehensible than the old fashioned terminology, which — being crammed with incorrect and ambiguous terms better suited for confusing the subject than for shedding light on it — leads into error those whose imaginations are still obscured, and who have a poor understanding of the true functions of most of these structures." It wasn't all salacious. Sebastian's discussion of plant embryos was rather poetic. The shapes he references are the shapes of the pollen grains. Sebastian remarked, "Who can imagine that a prism with four faces becomes a Pansy; a narrow roll, the Borage; a kidney, the Daffodil; that a cross can metamorphose into a maple; two crystal balls intimately glued to each other, [Comfrey], etc.? These are nevertheless the shapes favored, in these diverse plants, by their lowly little embryos." Sebastian Valliant is especially remembered for his work with the male and female pistachio tree to demonstrate pollination and the sexuality of plants. At the time of Sebastian's work, the pistachio was growing in the King's garden and had managed to survive the harsh winters of Paris. The slow-growing pistachio tree is deciduous and dioecious. This means that a pistachio tree can have only male flowers or female flowers. Only female trees produce fruits, and female trees are wind-pollinated by pollen from the male tree. In a perfect world, there would be one male pistachio tree centrally located near nine female pistachio trees. As for telling the trees apart, male pistachio trees are taller, hold on to their leaves longer in the fall, and generally more robust than female pistachio trees. In terms of fruiting, pistachios grow in clusters, like grapes. Trees need seven years of growing before reliably producing a good yield. But, once they get started, pistachios can produce fruit for over a hundred years. May 26, 1830 Today is the birthday of the German-American naturalist, marine biologist, and Smithsonian collector William J. Fisher. By the time he was in his fifties, William had made his way to Kodiak, Alaska. Ten years later, he married a native Alutiiq ("al-yoot-eek") woman, and they raised their family in Kodiak. William's biography at Find-a-Grave was provided by the Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository in Kodiak. It says, "Fisher collected hundreds of Native artifacts for the Smithsonian during a time when the Native culture was being impacted by Western culture. His assemblage and documentation provides us information today about Alutiiq history at that time." In terms of his botanical legacy, digital copies of William's 1899 field book are now available online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library. William's field book is a modern treasure because he documented by hand almost fifty different plants that the Alutiiq people had used. Using the Russian and Native American names for the plants, William wrote about these plants' edible and medicinal aspects. For example, with impeccable penmanship, William described the cranberry or Brussnika in Russian or Knich-tat in Alutiiq. "Mixed with seal or whale oil and salmon spawn for winter's preserves. Very plentiful." The cover page of William's field book indicates that he collected the specimens with a visiting botanist from the USDA named Thomas Henry Kearney. William also shared for posterity that he and William had a bit of fun while they botanized. He wrote, "Notes accompanying collection of useful plants made by W.J. Fisher at Kodiak, in 1899. Dried plants with Mr. Kearney, alcoholics in seed collection." Unearthed Words Sita closed her eyes and breathed into her cupped hands. Before she left, she had remembered to perfume her wrist with Muguet ("moo-gay" or Lily of the valley) The faint odor of that flower, so pure and close to the earth, was comforting. She had planted real lilies of the valley because she liked them so much as a perfume. Just last fall, before the hard freeze, when she was feeling back to normal, the pips had arrived in a little white box. Her order from a nursery company. She'd put on her deerskin gloves and, on her knees, using a hand trowel, dug a shallow trench along the border of her blue Dwarf iris. Then one by one, she'd planted the pips. They looked like shelled acorns, only tinier. "To be planted points upward," said a leaflet in the directions. They came up early in the spring. The tiny spears of their leaves would be showing soon. Lying there, sleepless, she imaged their white venous roots, a mass of them fastening together, forming new shoots below the earth, unfurling their stiff leaves. She saw herself touching their tiny bells, waxed white, fluted, and breathing the ravishing fragrance, they gave off because Louis had absently walked through her border again, dragging his shovel, crushing them with his big, careless feet. It seemed as though hours of imaginary gardening passed before Mrs. Waldvogel tiptoed in without turning on the light. ― Louise Erdrich, American author, writer of novels, poetry, and children's books, The Beet Queen Grow That Garden Library Plantopia by Camille Soulayrol This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Cultivate / Create / Soothe / Nourish. Camille helps us embrace houseplants in this book - from their care and growing tips to botanical styling and heath and beauty products. An editor at Elle Décor Camille takes us on a tour of her favorite houseplants, hardy succulents and cacti, and flowering perennials. Promoting plants as a good source of well-being and enhancing our homes, Camille's DIY projects are sure to inspire you to up your houseplant game. Camille shows how to create ideal growing environments with terrariums and aquatic plant habitats with her detailed instructions and photography. She also brings plants into the home with wreaths or geometric frames that feature vines. She even stages the dining room table with natural elements like leaves and dried herbs. This book is 160 pages of Nature Crafts, Houseplants, Indoor Gardening, and Home Decor — all designed to foster a sense of calm, harmony, and healing. You can get a copy of Plantopia by Camille Soulayrol 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 May 26, 1847 Today is the birthday of the little-remembered American poet Edgar Fawcett. Edgar wrote some popular garden verses. He wrote, "[A]ll life budding like a rose and sparkling like its dew." And Come rambling awhile through this exquisite weather Of days that are fleet to pass, When the stem of the willow shoots out a green feather, And buttercups burn in the grass! My favorite Edgar Fawcett verses feature trees. Here's one about lovers speaking to each other using the language of birds: Hark, love, while...we walk, Beneath melodious trees… You'd speak to me in Redbreast; I would answer you in Wren! And finally, this verse is such a great reminder of the value of all green living things. We say of the oak "How grand of girth!" Of the willow we say, "How slender!" And yet to the soft grass clothing the earth How slight is the praise we render. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
Today we celebrate a man who changed his personal beliefs and life philosophy after studying nature. We'll also learn about a woman who writes about her lifelong relationship with the garden. We hear an excerpt about the spring garden with a bit of empathy for what it is like to be a weed. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a fabulous reference for plant identification. And then we'll wrap things up with the son of a gardener who grew to love plants and nature and became one of America's best-loved poets. 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 DIY Strawberry Rocks | Washington Gardener | Kathy Jentz 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 25, 1803 Today is the birthday of the American transcendentalist, essayist, philosopher, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a son of Boston. By the time he finished his schooling at Harvard, he had decided to go by his middle name, Waldo. He was his class poet, and he wrote an original poem for his graduation. Six years later, on Christmas Day, he would meet his first wife, Ellen. Two years later, he lost her to tuberculosis. Her death eventually made him a wealthy man — although he had to sue his inlaws to acquire the inheritance. Deeply grieved after losing Ellen, Waldo eventually traveled to Europe, where he visited the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris. The experience was a revelation to him. At the Paris Garden, Waldo sees plants organized according to Jussieu's system of classification. Suddenly he can see connections between different species. The American historian and biographer. Robert D. Richardson wrote, "Emerson's moment of insight into the interconnectedness of things in the Jardin des Plantes was a moment of almost visionary intensity that pointed him away from theology and toward science". Upon his return to the states, Waldo befriended other forward thinkers and writers of his time: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle. In 1835, Waldo married his second wife, Lydia Jackson. Waldo changed her name from Lydia to Lidian, and he calls her by other names like Queenie and Asia. She always calls him "Mr. Emerson." Around this time, Waldo began to think differently about the world and his perspective on life. Waldo was also the son of a minister, which makes his move away from religion and societal beliefs all the more impressive. By 1836, Waldo published his philosophy of transcendentalism in an essay he titled "Nature." He wrote: "Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language, not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book that is written in that tongue." The next year, Waldo gave a speech called "The American Scholar." It so moved Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. that he called Waldo's oration text America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence." After his Nature essay, Waldo befriended Henry David Thoreau. In late September of 1838, the Salem Massachusetts Unitarian minister and American botanist John Lewis Russell visited Waldo, and they spent some time botanizing together. Waldo wrote about the visit in his journal: "A good woodland day or two with John Lewis Russell who came here, & showed me mushrooms, lichens, & mosses. A man in whose mind things stand in the order of cause & effect & not in the order of a shop or even of a cabinet." In 1855, when Walt Whitman published his Leaves of Grass, he sent a copy to Emerson. Waldo sent Whitman a five-page letter of praise. With Emerson's support, Whitman issues a second edition that, unbeknownst to Waldo, quoted a passage from his letter that was printed in gold leaf on the cover, "I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career." Waldo was displeased by this; he had wanted the letter to remain private. In the twilight of his life, the man who once advised, "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience," Ralph Waldo Emerson was invited to join a group of nine intellectuals on a camping trip in the Adirondacks. The goal was simple: to connect with nature. The experience included Harvard's naturalist Louis Agassiz, the great botanist James Russell Lowell, and the American naturalist Jeffries Wyman. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote, "The landscape belongs to the person who looks at it." "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." And "The Earth laughs in flowers." Finally, here's a little prayer Waldo wrote - giving thanks for the gifts of nature. "For flowers that bloom about our feet; For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet; For song of bird, and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear or see, Father in heaven, we thank Thee!" May 25, 1949 Today is the birthday of the Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer Jamaica Kincaid born Elaine Potter Richardson. Jamaica Kincaid is a gardener and popular garden writer. Her book Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya offers many wonderful excerpts. And here, she discusses the dreams of gardeners - and how they form from our desire and curiosity. She writes, "Something that never escapes me as I putter about the garden, physically and mentally: desire and curiosity inform the inevitable boundaries of the garden, and boundaries, especially when they are an outgrowth of something as profound as the garden with all its holy restrictions and admonitions, must be violated." Jamaica's book My Garden offers an intimate look at her relationship with her garden. She writes, "I shall never have the garden I have in my mind, but that for me is the joy of it; certain things can never be realized and so all the more reason to attempt them." Here she talks about time and the destruction of a garden: "In a way, a garden is the most useless of creations, the most slippery of creations: it is not like a painting or a piece of sculpture—it won't accrue value as time goes on. Time is its enemy' time passing is merely the countdown for the parting between garden and gardener." "The garden has taught me to live, to appreciate the times when things are fallow and when they're not." She also wrote, "I love planting. I love digging holes, putting plants in, tapping them in. And I love weeding, but I don't like tidying up the garden afterwards." During the pandemic in August of 2020, Jamaica wrote an essay for the New Yorker called, The Disturbances of the Garden. She wrote about learning to garden from her mother: "My mother was a gardener, and in her garden it was as if Vertumnus and Pomona had become one: she would find something growing in the wilds of her native island (Dominica) or the island on which she lived and gave birth to me (Antigua), and if it pleased her, or if it was in fruit and the taste of the fruit delighted her, she took a cutting of it (really she just broke off a shoot with her bare hands) or the seed (separating it from its pulpy substance and collecting it in her beautiful pink mouth) and brought it into her own garden and tended to it in a careless, everyday way, as if it were in the wild forest, or in the garden of a regal palace. The woods: The garden. For her, the wild and the cultivated were equal and yet separate, together and apart." Later she writes about her own relationship with the garden. "But where is the garden and where am I in it? This memory of growing things, anything, outside not inside, remained in my memory… in New York City in particular, I planted: marigolds, portulaca, herbs for cooking, petunias, and other things that were familiar to me, all reminding me of my mother, the place I came from. Those first plants were in pots and lived on the roof of a diner that served only breakfast and lunch, in a dilapidated building at 284 Hudson Street, whose ownership was uncertain, which is the fate of us all. Ownership of ourselves and of the ground on which we walk, ...and ownership of the vegetable kingdom are all uncertain, too. Nevertheless, in the garden, we perform the act of possessing. To name is to possess…" "I began to refer to plants by their Latin names, and this so irritated my editor at this magazine (Veronica Geng) that she made me promise that I would never learn the Latin name of another plant. I loved her very much, and so I promised that I would never do such a thing, but I did continue to learn the Latin names of plants and never told her. Betrayal, another feature of any garden." Unearthed Words After Nicholas hung up the phone, he watched his mother carry buckets and garden tools across the couch grass toward a bed that would, come spring, be brightly ablaze as tropical coral with colorful arctotis, impatiens, and petunias. Katherine dug with hard chopping strokes, pulling out wandering jew and oxalis, tossing the uprooted weeds into a black pot beside her. The garden will be beautiful, he thought. But how do the weeds feel about it? Sacrifices must be made. ― Stephen M. Irwin, Australian screenwriter, producer, and novelist, The Dead Path Grow That Garden Library Plant Identification Terminology by James G. Harrison This book came out in 2001, and the subtitle is An Illustrated Glossary. Well, to me, this book is an oldie, but goodie; I first bought my copy of this book back in 2013. This book aims to help you understand the terms used in plant identification, keys, and descriptions - and it also provides definitions for almost 3,000 words. Now, if you're looking to improve your grasp of plant identification terminology, this book will be an invaluable reference. And just as a heads up. there are around 30 used copies that are reasonably priced on Amazon. But of course, they're not going to last forever, so if you're interested in this book, don't wait to get a copy. (After those used copies are gone, then the next lowest price is around $200.) This book is 216 pages of exactly what it says it is: plant identification, terminology - and I should mention that there are also helpful illustrations. You can get a copy of Plant Identification Terminology by James G. Harrison 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 May 25, 1908 Today is the birthday of the Michigan-born poet, gardener, and the 1954 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, Theodore Roethke ("RETH-key"). Ted wrote about nature and the American Northwest. He enjoyed focusing on "the little things in life." His father was a gardener, a greenhouse grower, a rose-lover, and a drinker. As a result, many of Ted's pieces are about new life springing from rot and decay. His best poem is often considered to be "The Rose." The poem reminded him of his father, and he could barely speak the poem without crying. Today, garden signs and social media posts quote Ted's verse, "Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light." Ted battled bipolar depression most of his life, and his darkness can be seen in his poem called The Geranium. When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail, She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle, Or a wizened aster in late September, I brought her back in again For a new routine - Vitamins, water, and whatever Sustenance seemed sensible At the time: she'd lived So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer, Her shriveled petals falling On the faded carpet, the stale Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves. (Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.) The things she endured!- The dumb dames shrieking half the night Or the two of us, alone, both seedy, Me breathing booze at her, She leaning out of her pot toward the window. Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me- And that was scary- So when that snuffling cretin of a maid Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,I said nothing. But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week, I was that lonely. A sunnier and more tender poem was called Transplanting. Ted wrote the poem from the perspective of "a very small child: all interior drama; no comment; no interpretation." Watching hands transplanting, Turning and tamping, Lifting the young plants with two fingers, Sifting in a palm-full of fresh loam,-- One swift movement,-- Then plumping in the bunched roots, A single twist of the thumbs, a tamping, and turning, All in one, Quick on the wooden bench, A shaking down, while the stem stays straight, Once, twice, and a faint third thump,-- Into the flat-box, it goes, Ready for the long days under the sloped glass: The sun warming the fine loam, The young horns winding and unwinding, Creaking their thin spines, The underleaves, the smallest buds Breaking into nakedness, The blossoms extending Out into the sweet air, The whole flower extending outward, Stretching and reaching. Theodore Roethke died in 1963. He was visiting friends on Bainbridge Island. One afternoon he was fixing mint juleps by the pool. The friends went to the main house to get something. When they returned, three perfect mint juleps sat on a table by the edge of the pool, and Ted was floating face down in the water. He'd suffered a brain aneurysm. After his death, the family honored their friend by filling in the pool. They installed a beautiful zen garden in the pool's footprint that is framed by conifers and features raked sand and a handful of moss-covered stones. There is no plaque. Today, we'll end the podcast with Theodore's ode to spring - called Vernal Sentiment. Though the crocuses poke up their heads in the usual places, The frog scum appear on the pond with the same froth of green, And boys moon at girls with last year's fatuous faces, I never am bored, however familiar the scene. When from under the barn the cat brings a similar litter,— Two yellow and black, and one that looks in between,— Though it all happened before, I cannot grow bitter: I rejoice in the spring, as though no spring ever had been. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
Full show notes at the publisherToday we celebrate an American woman who loved plants, wrote memorable verses that have stood the test of time, and became the Godmother of Thanksgiving. We'll also learn about a modern writer and Pulitzer Prize winner who writes in a garden shed. We hear a memorable excerpt about killing slugs. We Grow That Garden Library™ with an inspiring book about marvelous plant combinations. And then we'll wrap things up with a fun story about a gardener remembered in a rock and roll hit from 1968. 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 Curated News Best Mosquito Repellent Mason Jar Hack With Essential Oils | Our Crafty Mom | Michelle 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 24, 1830 On this day, Mary Had A Little Lamb by Sarah Josepha Hale is published by the Boston firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon. Born in New Hampshire in 1788, Sarah was homeschooled, and she attributed all of her learning and success to her mother. She wrote, "I owe my early predilection for literary pursuits to the teaching and example of my mother. She had enjoyed uncommon advantages of education for a female of her times – possessed a mind clear as rock-water, and a most happy talent of communicating knowledge." In 1848, Sarah married David Hale. He encouraged Sarah's intellectual endeavors, and together, they enjoyed reading and study. Their idyllic life together was cut short when David died of a stroke after nine short years of marriage. Sarah gave birth to their fifth child two weeks after David died. Sarah began writing to support herself and her five children, all under the age of seven. In 1835, Sarah wrote Spring flowers, or the Poetical Bouquet: Easy, Pleasing and Moral Rhymes and Pieces of Poetry for Children. In the book, Sarah wrote of Mary and her little pet bird, Dicky. "In that gilded cage, hung with Chickweed and May, Like a beautiful palace and garden so gay. Perhaps you're not happy, perhaps you're not well: I wish you could speak, that your griefs you might tell; It vexes me quite thus to see you in sorrow; Good bye; and I hope you'll be better tomorrow." In 1856, Sarah wrote another book that focused on flowers, and it was called Flora's Interpreter or "The American Book of Flowers and Sentiments."This gift book featured poetry and flowers to raise American national sentiment. She opened the book with this epigraph: "A flower I love! Not for itself, but that its name is linked With names I love. – A talisman of hope and memory." By this point in her career, Sarah had established herself as a writer and editor and the Godmother of Thanksgiving. For twenty years, between 1847 and 1867, Sarah fought to make Thanksgiving a National Holiday, and she wanted a certain day for the celebration, writing, "The last Thursday in November has these advantages -- harvests of all kinds are gathered in -- summer travelers have returned to their homes -- the diseases that, during summer and early autumn, often afflict some portions of our country, have ceased, and all are prepared to enjoy a day of Thanksgiving." But Sarah's fight would not end until 62 years after her death when Franklin Delano Roosevelt made Thanksgiving Day official in 1941. In the year before her death at the age of 91, Sarah poignantly wrote about her death in her last column: Growing old! growing old! Do they say it of me? Do they hint my fine fancies are faded and fled? That my garden of life, like the winter-swept tree, Is frozen and dying, or fallen and dead? Is the heart growing old, when each beautiful thing, Like a landscape at eve, looks more tenderly bright, And love sweeter seems, as the bird's wandering wing Draws nearer her nest at the coming of night? May 24, 1963 Today is the birthday of the American novelist and short-story writer Michael Chabon ("SHAY-bon"). In 2000, Michael wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. Michael is married to the writer, Ayelet ("eye-YEll-it'") Waldman, and together they have four children. They also have a writing studio - a little shingled shed in the garden in their backyard - a place that writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Roald Dahl, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf all used and enjoyed. Michelle Slatella wrote about Chabon's writing shed for Gardenista back in 2014. She wrote, "After it was renovated by Berkeley design-build firm Friedman Brueggemeyer, the studio became Chabon's exclusive retreat and the subject of his 2001 essay "A Fortress of One's Own" in This Old House magazine. [Ayelet said,] "We moved to that house when I had just started writing, and I hadn't sold anything yet, so I didn't think I deserved an office." [Michael countered] "Then I had terrible repetitive stress injuries, and arthritis in my pinky finger, so I got an office out of the house, but that was super lonesome."So Michael said [to his wife],"Let's share." "The studio has two separate but open work bays — [Ayelet's] desk sits beneath a bulletin board she covered with color-coded notecards while… [Michael] writes in an Eames Lounge and Ottoman (he rocks when he works). "First, he had a desk, but then he moved over to the Eames chair, and that invalid swing arm laptop table he has now," says [Ayelet]. "It's exactly like a dentist's setup. He battles carpel tunnel syndrome, and this setup works for now." In his book Summerland, Michael wrote, "Can you imagine an infinite tree? ...A tree whose roots snake down all the way to the bottomest bottom of everything? ...if you've ever looked at a tree you've seen how its trunk divides into boughs, which divide yet again to branches, which divide into twigs, which divide again into twiglings. The whole mess splaying out in all directions, jutting and twisting and zigzagging. At the tips of the tips you might have a million tiny green shoots, scattered like the sparks of an exploding skyrocket." Unearthed Words Hear him now as he toils. He has a long garden implement in his hand, and he is sending up the death rate in slug circles with a devastating rapidity. "Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay.... Ta-ra-ra BOOM—" And the boom is a death-knell. As it rings softly out on the pleasant spring air, another stout slug has made the Great Change. ― P.G. Wodehouse, an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century, A Damsel in Distress Grow That Garden Library Plant Combinations for an Abundant Garden by David Squire, Alan Bridgewater, and Gill Bridgewater This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Design and Grow a Fabulous Flower and Vegetable Garden (Creative Homeowner) Practical Advice, Step-by-Step Instructions, and a Comprehensive Plant Directory. This book features over 300 photographs, illustrations, and it's super easy to use. It shows how to create a productive garden by offering step-by-step instructions and pragmatic expert advice. This book covers everything from starting a plot and selecting plants to maximizing space and building raised, and the plant directory is comprehensive. It provides information on summer flowering, annuals, herbaceous perennials, small trees and shrubs, climbers, water plants, and then your edibles, your herbs, fruits. Then, in addition to the fantastic directory, there are also great instructions about modern-day topics, like how to build up layers of soil with mushroom compost, how to fight weeds by covering them with mulch, and how to protect your plants with nets. This book is 240 pages of a gardening master class that's packed with tips and tools for all gardeners - whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro. It offers way more than just the suggested combinations for flowers. You can get a copy of Plant Combinations for an Abundant Garden by David Squire, Alan Bridgewater, and Gill Bridgewater 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 May 24, 1968 It was on this day that the Rolling Stones released their new song Jumpin Jack Flash. Keith Richards said that he and Mick Jagger wrote it after staying at his house. One morning they were awakened by Keith's gardener, Jack Dyer. Jagger asked, "What's that noise?" And Richards replied, "That's jumpin' Jack." Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
Today we celebrate an English writer who loved gardens and created a one-of-a-kind grotto as a clever way to connect his home and garden. We'll also learn about a writer who created a space he called Tao House Garden. We hear an excerpt about the haves and have nots - when it comes to gardens. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about philosophy inspired by the garden. And then we'll wrap things up with the story of a writer who loved yellow roses but was not complimentary when it came to the poinsettia. 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 Curated News Little Garden Retreats | Houzz | Sarah Alcroft 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 21, 1688 Today is the birthday of the British poet, critic, gardener, and satirist Alexander Pope. Known for his poetry and writing, Alexander Pope is less remembered for his love of gardens. Yet Alexander was a trailblazer in terms of garden design and originality. He designed the impressive Palladian Bridge in Bath, and, along with the great Capability Brown, he created the Prior Park Landscape Garden. Alexander once famously said, All gardening is landscape painting. Inspired by the gardens of ancient Rome, Alexander's garden featured both a vineyard and a kitchen garden. But the most memorable feature of Alexander's property was his grotto. The grotto came about because a road separated Alexander's home and garden. To connect the two, Alexander cleverly dug a tunnel under the road. The tunnel created private access to the garden and inadvertently became a special place all its own: Alexander's grotto - a masterpiece of mirrors, candles, shells, minerals, and fossils. Alexander described the thrill of finishing the grotto in a letter to his friend Edward Blount in 1725: "I have… happily [finished] the subterraneous Way and Grotto: I then found a spring of the clearest water, which falls in a perpetual Rill, that echoes thru the Cavern day and night. ...When you shut the Doors of this Grotto, it becomes… a camera obscura, on the walls [are] all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats… forming a moving picture... And when you… light it up; it affords you a very different scene: it is finished with shells interspersed with pieces of looking-glass in angular forms... when a lamp ...is hung in the middle, a thousand pointed rays glitter and are reflected over the place." Over time, Alexander's home and grotto became a tourist destination. Visitors were stunned by the marvelous grotto that connected the villa and the garden. They had never seen anything like it. Alexander himself knew the place was special, and he once wrote, "Were it to have nymphs as well – it would be complete in everything." After Alexander died, the new owners of his property were so annoyed by the attention that they destroyed both the garden and the villa. Today, plans are underway to restore the grotto to its former glory. May 21, 1922 On this day, the Pulitzer prize was awarded to Eugene O'Neill for his play "Anna Christie." Remembered as one of America's greatest playwrights, most people are unaware that Eugene O'Neill was also a gardener. After becoming a Nobel laureate in literature, Eugene used his Nobel prize money to buy over 100 acres in the San Ramon valley. There, Eugene built his hacienda-style Tao Home and Garden in 1937. Taoism influenced both the home and the garden. A Chinese philosophy, Taoism focuses on living in harmony with the Tao or "the way." Tao House Garden features paths with sharp turns and walls that are blank. Today, the National Park Service is working to restore the home built by the "father of American theatre" - now a National Historic Site. The entire property was designed to promote harmony and deter bad spirits. Visitors often comment on the peaceful nature of the site. Fortunately, the O'Neill family garden designs were well chronicled. Eugene's wife, Carlotta O'Neill, designed the landscape, and she wrote about the gardens in her diaries. Carlotta especially loved white- and pink-blooming flowers. After raccoons kept killing their koi, Carlotta turned the pond into a flower bed. Incredibly, there was just one other owner of the property after the O'Neills left in 1944. But during the seven years, the O'Neill's lived in harmony at the Spanish Colonial Style Tao House, Eugene created some of his most famous plays such as "Long Day's Journey into Night" and "A Moon for the Misbegotten," among other works that made him an American literary icon. In the 1980s, the intimate courtyard garden was restored with cuttings from the original Chinaberry tree along with magnolia, walnut, and cherry trees. There are pots of geraniums and garden beds filled with birds of paradise, azalea, and star jasmine - Eugene's favorite plant. The orchards and idyllic gardens around the house are beautifully sited on a hilltop over the San Ramon Valley and offer impressive views of the valley and Mount Diablo. The property is as spectacular today as it was when the O'Neill's lived there - calling to mind a quote from A Moon for the Misbegotten, where Eugene wrote, "There is no present or future--only the past, happening over and over again--now." Today, the Eugene O'Neill Foundation hosts an O'Neill festival in the barn on the property every September. The annual play is professionally acted and produced. You can bring a picnic dinner and eat on the grounds. Unearthed Words Each of us has his own way of classifying humanity. To me, as a child, men and women fell naturally into two great divisions: those who had gardens and those who had only houses. Brick walls and pavements hemmed me in and robbed me of one of my birthrights; and to the fancy of childhood, a garden was a paradise, and the people who had gardens were happy Adams and Eves walking in a golden mist of sunshine and showers, with green leaves and blue sky overhead, and blossoms springing at their feet; while those others, dispossessed of life's springs, summers, and autumns, appeared darkly entombed in shops and parlors where the year might as well have been a perpetual winter. ― Eliza Calvert Hall, American author, women's rights advocate, and suffragist from Bowling Green, Kentucky, Aunt Jane of Kentucky Grow That Garden Library Philosophy in the Garden by Damon Young This book came out in 2020, and I love how the publisher introduces this book: Why did Marcel Proust have bonsai beside his bed? What was Jane Austen doing, coveting an apricot? How was Friedrich Nietzsche inspired by his 'thought tree'? In Philosophy in the Garden, Damon answers these questions and explores one of literature's most intimate relationships. The relationship between authors and their gardens. Now for some writers, the garden is a retreat, and for others, it's a place to relax and get away from the world. But for all of the writers that are featured in Damon's book, the garden was a muse and offered each of these writers new ideas for their work. As someone who features a garden book every day on the show and loves to feature garden writers who found their inspiration in the garden, this book is a personal favorite of mine. This book is 208 pages of authors and their gardens. And the philosophies that were inspired by that relationship. You can get a copy of Philosophy in the Garden by Damon Young 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 May 21, 1955 On this day, Truman Capote's first musical, House of Flowers, closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 165 performances. House of Flowers has nothing to do with flowers. The plot centers on an evil brothel owner, Madame Fleur, and her attempts to murder the fiancé of her star girl, Ottilie. Madam Fleur has her men kidnap the young man, seal him in a barrel and toss him into the ocean. Truman's House of Flowers was the first theatrical production outside of Trinidad and Tobago to use the instrument known as the steelpan. Today, most of us remember that Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's. But he also wrote the introduction to his friend CZ Guest's garden book called First Garden: An Illustrated Garden Primer. CZ Guest, born Lucy Douglas Cochrane, was an American fashion icon and garden columnist. She authored three garden books and three garden planners. In 1990, she came out with her own line of organic fertilizer, insect repellant, tools, scented candles, and soap - all of which were sold at Bergdorf-Goodman and Neiman-Marcus. Writing about CZ, Truman affectionately wrote, "There, with her baskets and spades and clippers, and wearing her funny boyish shoes, and with her sunborne sweat soaking her eyes, she is a part of the sky and the earth, possibly a not too significant part, but a part." Truman Capote is remembered for this famous garden saying: "In my garden, after a rainfall, you can faintly, yes, hear the breaking of new blooms." In 1957 for the Spring-Summer edition of the Paris Review, "I will not tolerate the presence of yellow roses--which is sad because they're my favorite flower." Finally, in the Jay Presson Allen play "Tru," Truman throws away a Christmas gift of a poinsettia, dismissing it by saying something Truman actually said, "Poinsettias are the Robert Goulet of botany." Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
Today we celebrate a prolific French writer and poet remembered for his realism and in his little home and garden - now a Paris museum. We'll also learn a little history lesson about the Chelsea Flower Show. We hear an excerpt from a beloved children's story. We Grow That Garden Library™ with an artistic look at flowers through the eyes of a modern artist. And then we'll wrap things up with National Pick Strawberries Day. 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 Curated News 10 Garden Stairways | Gardenista | Meredith Swinehart 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 20, 1799 Today is the birthday of the prolific 19th-century French writer, poet, and the father of Realism in French literature, Honoré de Balzac. Today, the Maison de Balzac, or Honoré's modest Paris home, has been turned into a museum. With its courtyard and garden, the house faced the Eiffel Tower and was a refuge for Honoré, who rented the top floor under his housekeeper's name (Mr. de Breugnol). The home had multiple exits, which allowed Honoré to flee his creditors quickly. Honoré's friends used a password to be able to gain access to the house to visit him. Today a bust of Honoré de Balzac stands in the little garden where fans of his work can sit and enjoy refreshments during their visit. Laurel shrubs frame Honoré's bust - a nod to the pivotal women named Laure in Honoré's life: his mother Laure, his younger sister Laurence, his older sister Laure, and his lover and faithful champion Laure de Berny who was one year older than his mother. Honoré's house is one of three home museums for French literary greats - along with the homes of Honoré's dear friend Victor Hugo and George Sand. Today, Honoré's five-room apartment contains his writing desk and chair, as well as his tea kettle and a coffee pot. Honoré was a notorious coffee-drinker and a night owl as he wrote his masterpieces. But for Honoré's fans, his most famous possession was his oversized gold and turquoise-studded cane - the handle looks like it is covered in forget-me-knots. Honoré's cane created a sensation in 1834 Paris, and soon fancy walking sticks were the standard of fashion for gentlemen. When Honoré was alive, his home smelled of pears. Honoré loved pears, and he stockpiled 1,500 pears in his pantry. He picked violets and lilacs for the woman he would ultimately marry in his garden: Ewelina Hańska. Their tragic love story was chronicled in their many letters to each other, which altogether read like a novel. Although she was married, Ewelina had started the affair by writing an anonymous fan letter to Honoré. Honoré and Ewelina's relationship was forged in nearly two decades worth of letters to each other. Over the course of nearly twenty years, they had only met in person eight times before they were eventually married. Sadly, five short months after their wedding, Honoré died in Paris in 1850. In terms of his work, gardeners should know that Honoré's 1835 book, Lily of the Valley, has nothing to do with the woodland plant used by Dior to create their famous fragrance in 1956. Instead, Honoré's book tells the story of unconsummated love, and the title was inspired by the bible verse from the Song of Solomon 2:1-2: I am the Rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. Today, gardeners can remember Honoré in the 'Honoré de Balzac ®' rose; a pink-blend hybrid tea rose introduced in the United States by Conard-Pyle (Star Roses) in 1996. In 1845, Honoré wrote, "A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over." He also wrote, "Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside." Finally, here's a little verse from Honoré's poem called The Camellia: In Nature's poem flowers have each their word The rose of love and beauty sings alone; The violet's soul exhales in tenderest tone; The lily's one pure simple note heard. The cold Camellia only, stiff and white, Rose without perfume, lily without grace, When chilling winter shows his icy face, Blooms for a world that vainly seeks delight. Yet, in a theatre, or ball-room light, I gladly see Camellias shining bright Above some stately woman's raven hair, Whose noble form fulfills the heart's desire, Like Grecian marbles warmed by Phidian fire. May 20, 1913 On this day, the first Chelsea Flower Show was held at Chelsea General Hospital. Originally called the Royal Horticultural Society's Great Spring Show, the first Chelsea Flower Show was held in 1862 at the RHS garden in Kensington. Staged in a single tent, the first show made a profit of £88. Unearthed Words Rikki-Tikki had a right to be proud of himself. But he did not grow too proud, and he kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with tooth and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its head inside the walls. ― Rudyard Kipling, English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi Grow That Garden Library Petal by Adriana Picker This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is A World of Flowers Through the Artist's Eye. Well, let me begin by saying that this book is absolutely gorgeous, and it contains original artwork by Adriana Picker. I love that her last name is Picker and that the title of this book is Petal; Somehow, that goes together. Now, as I just mentioned, Adriana is an artist - she's a botanical illustrator. In this book, she features the petals from all sorts of flowers - from simple daisies to exotic lilies. And she features all kinds of angles in her work. You're going to see close-ups, cross-sections of flowers and buds, and foliage that reveals the flower's unique characteristics. You're going to see architectural beauty, incredible colors, and texture that leaps off the page. Adriana writes about things like the fame of particular flowers and the folklore and traditions surrounding certain blossoms. She discusses the scent of flowers and floriography, which is the meaning and symbolism behind some of our favorite blooms - in addition to some fun facts and flower trivia. Another feature that I especially appreciate about Adriana's book is that she organizes her work by plant family. First, she covers the rose family and the legume family, and then she moves into the daisy family, the nightshade family, the orchid family, and so on. And I thought you'd enjoy getting a little taste of this personal story from Adriana that she shares and introducing her book. She writes, "When I was five years old, my maternal grandmother, Emma announced to my mother that I would be a florist. And every time I visited my grandmother, we would spend hours together in her beautiful garden, hunting for blossoms. Well, I did not have very long in Emma's garden. She died when I was seven and my grandfather sold the home. And on the day of her funeral, her roses were in full glorious bloom. And I collected a huge bunch for the dining table. My aunt Margo made me point out each Rose Bush I had picked from so that she could move them to her own garden and memory of her mother. My botanical education continued after Emma's death furthered by my mother, Sally. also an avid gardener." Now isn't that a wonderful glimpse into the early inspiration behind Adriana's work and art? I love that story. This book is 256 pages of beautiful lush botanical art from a woman with a lifelong passion for flowers, plants, and botanical illustrations. You can get a copy of Petal by Adriana Picker 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 On this day and every May 20th, National Pick Strawberries Day is observed. Here are a few fun facts about this beloved sweet fruit: First, the etymology of the name strawberry is likely a corruption of the phrase "strewn berry." This would reference the way the plant produced thanks prolifically to runners, resulting in berries that were strewn about the ground. Fragariaphobia is a little-known word and is the fear of strawberries. In terms of their uniqueness, strawberries are the only fruit that wears its seeds on the outside, and the average strawberry has 200 seeds. Strawberries are perennial and are members of the rose family. The strawberry flower averages five to seven petals. In terms of harvesting, strawberry plants are hand-picked about every three days. A single acre of land can grow almost 50,000 pounds of strawberries. California produces a billion pounds of strawberries every year which means that 75% of the American strawberry crop is grown in California - with Florida and North Carolina in the 2nd and 3rd place. As for strawberry quotes, the author Toni Morrison once wrote: "I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies." And the author Tsugumi Ohba, Death Note Box Set, wrote "If you keep my secret, this strawberry is yours." Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
Today we celebrate an American female botanist who collected the flora of the great state of Maine. We'll also learn about a Michigan conservationist who is remembered as the First Lady of Michigan State Parks and Natural Areas. We'll remember Nathaniel Hawthorne on the anniversary of his death today - and the quirky little story he wrote about a mad scientist and his experiment involving geraniums. We hear an excerpt about botanically-inspired girl's names. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about Organic Gardening And then we'll wrap things up with the wonderful Nora Ephron and one of her best-loved movie quotes. 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 Curated News Then and now: 7 ways garden design has evolved over the last 40 years | House Beautiful | Olivia Heath 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 19, 1834 Today is the birthday of the daring self-taught American botanist Catherine Furbish. Kate is remembered for her life-long work collecting, classifying, and illustrating the flora of the great state of Maine. Kate spent six decades crisscrossing her home state. Her delicate, beautiful, and simple botanical art charms gardeners still today. Kate grew up in an upper-middle-class home. She attended private school and studied drawing as a child. By the time she was thirty, she had combined her love for flowers and drawing and embarked on a goal of collecting, cataloging, and drawing all the native flora of Maine. During Kate's lifetime, Maine was still a rugged and wild place. Her amateur eagerness to explore the forests and wildernesses of Maine put her in direct contrast to the women of her time. Her exemplary fieldwork drew respect from her male counterparts - many of whom worked at the major Universities or scientific centers across the country. In 1881, after getting a plant named for her, Kate wrote to Sereno Watson at Harvard to acknowledge the honor, saying, "Were it not for the fact that I can find no plants named for a female botanist in your manual, I should object to "Pedicularis Furbishae"... But as a new species is rarely found in New England and few plants are named for women, it pleases me." In 1895, Kate helped found the Josselyn Botanical Society of Maine. In 1925, her friend "Joss" (Louise Coborn) described Kate as a botanist in her sixties: "I can see her as I saw her then — a little woman with uplifted head already turned gray, in animated talk, or with bowed face using her keen eyes along a forest trail, or up a mountain path. She had the sort of eyes that were made for seeing, and nothing escaped the swift circle of her glance. Her feet were as untiring as her eyes, and she could out-last many a younger woman on a cliff-side climb or river-bank scramble." On September 16, 1978, the New Castle News out of New Castle, PA, shared an article written by Mike Finsilber with a headline that read: Exhibit Depicts Female Scientists. Here's an excerpt: "When curator Deborah Warner suggested to her superiors at the Smithsonian Institution that she put together an exhibit documenting the accomplishments of American women in science in the 19th century, her superiors were skeptical. Women scientists in the 19th century? Would there be enough of them to fill an exhibit? They doubted it. Ms. Warner didn't. Yesterday her display opened in the Museum of History and Technology, telling of, among others: Kate Furbish, the botanist who discovered the now-famous Furbish Lousewort. It is now famous because it is endangered and for a time threatened to block construction of the Lincoln-Dickey Dam in Maine." May 19, 1898 Today is the birthday of the woman known as the First Lady of Michigan State Parks and Natural Areas and the "Mother" of Michigan State Parks system, Emma Genevieve Gillette, who was born in Lansing. Genevieve learned to love nature from her dad. He would take her into the woods in the spring to see arbutus flowering and the brook running. Genevieve recounted how he would kneel down by the brook and ask, "Can you hear what it is saying? It's talking to us." In 1920, Genevieve was the only woman to be part of the very first landscape architecture class to graduate from the Michigan Agricultural College. She ended up going to work for the great Landscape Architect Jens Jensen, known as the "Dean of Landscape Architects," and would become a trusted mentor and lifelong friend to Genevieve. In terms of a role model, Jens was perfect for Genevieve; he was an early pioneer in the conservation movement, used art as activism, and was generally ahead of his time. Jens once famously said, "Trees are much like human beings and enjoy each other's company. Only a few love to be alone." A contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright, Jens was also a maker of public parks and spaces. Genevieve later said Jens "pestered her" to start a state park system in Michigan. Genevieve befriended the Michigan Parks Chief Peter J. Hoffmaster, who was one of her old college classmates. Her sincere alliances with state officials helped her garner support to serve as the president of the Michigan Park Association. Genevieve boosted public support and funding for more than 200,000 acres of Michigan's state and national parks during her tenure, including the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. In the mid-1960s, Genevieve was asked to serve on President Lyndon Johnson's Committee on Recreation and Natural Beauty. It was the honor of her career. May 19, 1864 Today is the anniversary of the death of the American novelist and short-story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. In 1843, Nathaniel wrote a crazy short story about a mad scientist who became obsessed with removing his wife, Georgiana's birthmark. He decides to repurpose a remedy he created to remove blotches from the leaves of his geraniums. In the end, as his wife drinks the mixture, her birthmark does indeed fade away but so does her life force, and she dies a perfect, unblemished woman. Unearthed Words Like their mother, Honor Sparrow, dead now for twenty-some years- gone on the very day her youngest daughter, Impatiens, arrived - the sisters had all green thumbs. It was ordained, really. They had each been named after a botanical, mostly flowers, and as their mother kept producing girls, the names became slightly ridiculous. But Honor was a keen gardener and in darkest winter, calling her daughter's names reminded her that spring would come again. For months after her death, the older girls hated their names and all they recalled for them. By the time they founded the Sparrow Sisters Nursery, though, each thoroughly embraced their names as the sign they were. ― Ellen Herrick, American publishing executive and author, The Sparrow Sisters Grow That Garden Library Organic Gardening for Everyone by Cali Kim This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Homegrown Vegetables Made Easy - No Experience Required! In this book, Kim shows you just how easy it is to grow healthy vegetables at home - something she started doing in 2012. At the time, Kim approached her desire to garden in a very unique and compelling way: she crowdsourced it! After launching a YouTube channel under the name "CaliKim" (a nod to her California residency) and asking for help from everyday gardeners, Kim started gardening. When questions or problems popped up, Kim found support, advice, information, and connection from her viewers and subscribers. Gradually, she learned to garden, and her garden managed to survive and thrive even under the hot, harsh conditions of the California climate. Kim's book is her way of giving back the gardening wisdom she's accumulated. Now, almost a decade later, Kim answers more garden questions than she asks, and she's here to help grow more gardeners through her lovely book. With Kim's step-by-step encouragement, you'll realize that anyone can garden and overcome any hesitations that gardening is too hard, intimidating, or time-consuming. With a busy family of her own, she shares her own inspirational story of balancing the garden's demands alongside the demands of a modern, busy California family. Kim offers friendly and practical advice that celebrates the joy of gardening. She offers her best advice on her passion for organic vegetable gardening. This book is 160 pages of garden encouragement, wisdom, and enthusiasm from a California mom who became a passionate modern organic gardener over the past decade. You can get a copy of Organic Gardening for Everyone by Cali Kim and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $5 Today's Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart May 19, 1941 Today is the birthday of the New York director and screenwriter Nora Ephron. Nora was the writer of many favorite movies: When Harry Met Sally (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and You've Got Mail (1998). In You've Got Mail, Nora wrote one of the most iconic lines about daisies in a scene between the two main characters: Kathleen and Joe. In the movie, Kathleen Kelly looks at the vase of daisies that Joe sets on the table beside her, and she says, I love daisies. And then, Joe Fox replies: You told me. Kathleen ignores the clue in Joe's remark. Now, had she noticed what he just said, she'd realize that he purposefully bought her the daisies because he remembered their very first meeting at her bookstore. During his visit with Annabelle and Matthew, she tells the kids about her handkerchief. (Since they didn't know what a handkerchief was!) Kathleen tells the kids, "My mother embroidered this for me - [with] my initials and a daisy because daisies are my favorite flower." But Kathleen misses Joe's comment because he had just set the flowers on the table beside her. At that moment, Kathleen gets distracted by the daisies and caught up in the beauty of the flowers. She offhandedly remarks, "They're so friendly. Don't you think daisies are the friendliest flower?" At this comment, Joe Fox looks to the side (because at this point he realizes she's missed the meaning of his earlier comment), and then he simply answers her with, "I do." Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
Today we celebrate an old poet who loved gardens, We'll also learn about an inventor and architect who created a large machine to help move established trees during the establishment of Prospect Park. We hear a delightful excerpt about a purée of spring vegetables. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a beautiful set of Paper Flower Cards - a little stationery set for the gardener today. And then, we'll wrap things up with a British philosopher, mathematician, and author who won the 1950 Nobel Prize for literature. He spent a great deal of time studying happiness, and no surprise - he found it in a garden. 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 Curated News Gardening 101: Solomon's Seal | Gardenista | Marie Viljoen 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 18, 1048 Today is the birthday of the Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet Omar Khayyam ("Ky-yem"). In 1859, the British writer Edward FitzGerald translated and published Omar's signature work, The Rubáiyát ("Rue-By-yat"). In The Rubáiyát, Omar wrote some beautiful garden verses: I sometimes think that never blooms so red The rose that grows where some once buried Caesar bled And that every hyacinth the garden grows dropped in her lap from Some once lovely head. Today in Iran, tourists can visit the beautiful mausoleum of Omar Khayyam and the surrounding gardens. And gardeners in zones 4-9 can grow a pretty pink damask rose named Rosa 'Omar Khayyam.' Over on the Missouri Botanical Garden website, they report that, "'Omar Khayyam' ... is reputed to have grown on the tomb of Omar Khayyam in Persia, [and] was brought to England by William Simpson, an Illustrated London News artist, and in 1893 was planted on the grave of Edward Fitzgerald, who translated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam into English. According to the Modern Roses 12 database of the American Rose Society, it was registered in 1894. It is a small, dense shrub with grayish-green, downy foliage and numerous prickles. Its clear pink, double flowers are 2 in. wide with a small center eye and 26 to 40 petals. Blooming once per season in late spring to early summer, the flowers are moderately fragrant and in groups of 3 to 4. 'Omar Khayyam' grows 2 to 3 ft. tall and wide." May 18, 1839 Today is the birthday of the American civil engineer, landscape architect, inventor, and plantsman John Yapp Culyer. John was commissioned to work on parks in major cities across America - like Chicago and Pittsburgh. He was the Chief Landscape Engineer of Brooklyn's Prospect Park, which opened to the public in 1867. During his time at Prospect Park, John invented a machine to help relocate large trees. His impressive tree-movers (he had two of them built) moved established trees and placed large specimen trees from nurseries. In February 1870, the Brooklyn Eagle reported that John's tree-moving machines had relocated 600 trees - a feat in scope that had never been attempted. To aid with pruning old-growth forest trees, John invented the extension ladder. John's ladders would stand on a platform and extend over fifty feet in the air. The New York Historical Society shares photos of John's workers on these ladders, and the images are breathtaking - the danger of working on those ladders is so obviously apparent. Unearthed Words "Beef consommé or purée of spring vegetables," she read aloud. "I suppose I'll have the consommé." "You'd choose weak broth over spring vegetables?" "I've never had much of an appetite." "No, just listen: the cook sends for a basket of ripe vegetables from the kitchen gardens- leeks, carrots, young potatoes, vegetable marrow, tomatoes- and simmers them with fresh herbs. When it's all soft, she purées the mixture until it's like silk and finishes it with heavy cream. It's brought to the table in an earthenware dish and ladled over croutons fried in butter. You can taste the entire garden in every spoonful." ― Lisa Kleypas, a best-selling American author of historical and contemporary romance novels, Devil's Daughter Grow That Garden Library Paper Flowers Cards and Envelopes: The Art of Mary Delany by Princeton Architectural Press "Each exquisite paper flower in this elegant collection blooms with extraordinary detail and color. Eighteenth-century British artist Mary Delany created each piece by cutting and layering tiny pieces of paper on black ink backgrounds. The fine shading and depth are as intricately detailed as a botanical illustration and scientifically accurate as well. Printed on thick, textured paper, the set features sunflowers, rhododendron, cornflower, water lilies, and more. Perfect for any occasion that warrants beauty and sophistication." You can get a set of Stationery featuring The Art of Mary Delany by Princeton Architectural Press 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 18, 1872 Today is the birthday of the British philosopher, mathematician, pacifist, and author Bertrand Russell. Bertrand won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 for his work called A History of Western Philosophy (1945). One of Bertrand's first works was about happiness and how to find it. He wrote, "Anything you're good at contributes to happiness." Bertrand also wrote: "I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite." And "The happiest person I have ever known is my gardener, who each day wages war to protect vegetables and flowers from rabbits." As for the cure for anxiety, Bertrand once told this story, "I knew a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them that the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found that he was planting trees in his garden." When it came to the natural world, Bertrand recognized the limits of the earth's natural resources, and he liked to say, "It's co-existence or no existence." It was Bertrand's study of happiness that led him to recognize the power of hope. He wrote, "Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that but hope and enterprise and change." Bertrand hoped that humankind would get smarter about the natural world and our planet. He wrote, "The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
Today we celebrate a woman who became a renowned floral artist late in life. We'll also learn about an English poet and politician who loved nature. We'll recognize some of the final sentiments about the wonder of nature from a television dramatist, screenwriter, and journalist. We hear an adorable excerpt about growing a mitten tree. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about a botanist who loved the gardens, landscapes, and ecology of the Southern Coastal Plain. And then, we'll wrap things up with the story of the scientist who helped with the first color photograph. 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 Curated News How Constance Spry radicalized the art of floristry | House & Garden | Fiona McKenzie Johnston 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 17, 1700 Today is the birthday of the botanical tissue paper decoupage artist Mary Delany. Mary Delaney led an extraordinary life. When she was 17, her family had forced her to marry a sixty-year-old man. Mary soon discovered he was an alcoholic. To make matters worse, when he died, Mary's husband forgot to include her in his will. Despite her lack of inheritance, Mary quickly realized that, as a widow, she had much more freedom than she had had as a young single woman. Fate brought fortune for Mary, met and fell in love with an Irish doctor and pastor named Patrick Delany. They married in June 1743. Although her family wasn't thrilled with the idea of a second marriage, Mary did it anyway. She and Patrick moved away to his home in Dublin. Patrick's garden was a thing of beauty, and Mary wrote to her sister: "[The] fields are planted in a wild way, forest trees and … bushes that look so natural... you would not imagine it a work of art ... [There is] a very good kitchen garden and two fruit gardens which ... will afford us a sufficient quantity of everything we can want. There are several prettinesses I can't explain to you — little wild walks, private seats, and lovely prospects. One seat I am particularly fond of [is] in a nut grove, and [there is] a seat in a rock … [that] is placed at the end of a cunning wild path. The brook ... entertains you with a purling rill." After twenty-five years of wedded bliss, Patrick died. Mary was widowed again, this time at the age of 68. But Mary's life was not over. In another stroke of luck, Mary hit it off with the wealthy Margaret Bentinck, the Duchess of Portland, and together they pursued botanical activities. The two women loved to go out into the fields and collect specimens. Through the Duchess that Mary got to know Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. When Mary was in her early 70s, she took up decoupage - which was all the rage at the time - and she created marvelous depictions of flowers. Today, historians believe Mary probably dissected plants to create her art. Botanists from all over Europe would send her specimens. King George III and Queen Charlotte were her patrons. They ordered any curious or beautiful plant to be sent to Mary when in blossom to use them to create her art. Her paper mosaics, as Mary called them, were made out of tissue paper. Mary created almost 1000 pieces of art between the ages of 71 and 88. If you ever see any of her most spectacular decoupage pieces, you'll be blown away at the thought of them being made from tiny pieces of tissue paper by Mary Delany in the twilight of her life in the late 1700s. May 17, 1824 On this day, the diaries of the English Romantic poet, satirist, and politician, Lord Byron, are burned by six of his friends. The act intended to protect his privacy has also been described as "the greatest crime in literary history." The loss likely impacted botanical literature as Lord Byron also wrote about gardens and nature. Lord Byron famously wrote: There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more. May 17, 1935 Today is the birthday of the English television dramatist, screenwriter, and journalist Dennis Potter. Best known for his two hit movies, Pennies from Heaven (1978) and The Singing Detective (1986), Dennis sat down for an interview with Melvyn Bragg, and it was titled Seeing the Blossom. At the time. Dennis was at the end of his life. He was dying from pancreatic cancer. And in a brave and incredibly candid move, he spoke about what his life was like, knowing that the end of his life was near and how it gave him a heightened appreciation for what was going on around him. He said, ". . . Now at this season, the blossom is out in full now, there in the west early is a plum tree, it looks like an apple blossom but it's white. And looking at it, instead of saying "Oh that's nice blossom" ...Now, last week looking at it through the window when I'm writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were — and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous." Unearthed Words Finding missing mittens is hard work. It would be easier to grow new ones! Let's try planting the other mitten right here in the garden. Next spring, when the snow melts, a little mitten tree might sprout. Miss Seltzer and I would take good care of it all summer long. In the fall, we'd pick the ripe mittens. Then I'd give mittens on Christmas. And mittens on birthdays. And mittens on Valentine's Day! ― Steven Castle Kellogg, American author, and illustrator of over 90 children's books, The Missing Mitten Mystery Grow That Garden Library On Harper's Trail by Elizabeth Findley Shores This book came out in 2008, and the subtitle is Roland McMillan Harper, Pioneering Botanist of the Southern Coastal Plain. In this book, Elizabeth shares the first full-length biography of the accomplished botanist, documentary photographer, and southern coastal plain explorer Roland McMillan Harper who was born in 1878. The celebrated plant scientist of the New York Botanical Garden, Bassett Maguire, said that Roland had "the greatest store of field experience of any living botanist of the Southeast." And yet, the years obscured Roland's scientific contributions, including his unique insights on wetlands and fire. Along with his brother Francis, Roland traced William Bartram's route through Alabama and the Florida panhandle. And in his work describing plant species and writing papers, Roland corresponded with the leading botanists of his time, including Nathaniel Britton, Hugo de Vries, and Charles Davenport. This book is 296 pages of the life story of a maverick botanist from the north who fell in love with the gardens, landscapes, and ecology of the Southern Coastal Plain. You can get a copy of On Harper's Trail by Elizabeth Findley Shores 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 May 17, 1861 On this day, the first color photograph was taken. The picture was of a tartan ribbon displayed by Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell to the Royal Institution in London. Maxwell is remembered for his formulation of the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation. In 1922, when Albert Einstein visited the University of Cambridge, his host announced that he had done great things because he stood on Isaac Newton's shoulders. Einstein corrected him when he replied, "No, I don't. I stand on the shoulders of Maxwell." In 1879 James Clerk Maxwell wrote a letter to his friend William Thompson. It's a letter gardeners can delight in, and it was titled Peacocks as Gardeners. We got our original stock from Mrs McCunn, Ardhallow. At that time (1860), the garden there was the finest on the coast and the peacocks sat on the parapets & banks near the house. Mr. McCunn was very fond of his garden and very particular about it, but he also cared for his peacocks... Whenever he went out, he had bits of bread and such for them. Mrs. Maxwell (my wife) always gets the peacocks to choose the gardener and they have chosen one who has now been seven years with us. At seed time (in the garden) they are confined in a [little house] where they have some Indian corn and water. When the hen is sitting, she is not [confined], for she keeps to her nest and nobody is supposed to know where that is, but she comes once a day to the house and calls for her dinner and eats it and goes back to her nest at once. The peacocks will eat the young cabbages, but the gardener tells them to go... They find it pleasanter to be about the house and to sit on either side of the front door." A professor and researcher, James, once likened the work of academia to the life of bees, writing, "In a University we are especially bound to recognise not only the unity of science itself, but the communion of the workers in science. We are too apt to suppose that we are congregated here merely to be within reach of certain appliances of study, such as museums and laboratories, libraries and lecturers, so that each of us may study what he prefers. I suppose that when the bees crowd round the flowers it is for the sake of the honey that they do so, never thinking that it is the dust which they are carrying from flower to flower which is to render possible a more splendid array of flowers, and a busier crowd of bees, in the years to come. We cannot, therefore, do better than improve the shining hour in helping forward the cross-fertilization of the sciences." Isn't that a grand way to look at the legacy of your work? This past week, I've been putting together my roster of student gardeners for 2021. As we work together during the summer, we end every session with 10 minutes of photography. The kids capture incredible color images with their phones. James Clerk Maxwell would be delighted. I am delighted at how easy it is for them to share their images of my garden with my iPhone using the airdrop feature. But in terms of legacy, think for a moment of the typical teenager's camera roll on their phone. It's loaded with memes, selfies, pets, and friends. Maybe a sibling or two. But after a summer of working in my garden, these kids will have hundreds of images of flowers, landscapes, leaves, stones, water, raindrops, insects, and Sonny. How do we get kids interested in horticulture? We have to change what they see every day. We have to get flowers on their phones. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
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