The Daily Gardener

The 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.

January 26, 2026 Alister Clark, J. Henry Chesterton, Eloise Ray, Take Chelsea Home by Chris Young, and Jacqueline du Pré 01/26/2026

January 26, 2026 Alister Clark, J. Henry Chesterton, Eloise Ray, Take Chelsea Home by Chris Young, and Jacqueline du Pré Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Today’s Show Notes January has a way of making everything feel more honest. The garden is not performing. It is resting. This is the month of silhouettes — hedges reduced to outline, paths only faintly visible beneath the snow, branches writing their thin handwriting against the sky. It is a fitting day for stories like these: of people and gardens shaped by patience, of beauty made to endure, and of the quiet satisfaction that comes from bringing something living safely home. Today’s Garden History 1864 Alister Clark was born in Brighton, Victoria. Australia would come to know him as one of its most influential rose breeders, but Alister Clark’s story begins with land and with loss. His father, Walter Clark, built a homestead called Glenara, with gardens set high above Deep Creek near the township of Bulla. It was the kind of property that seemed to declare permanence. But Alister’s mother died when he was just one year old. And in 1873, his father was violently killed. Alister, still young, was sent away — back to Scotland — and raised by relatives, separated from the country that would later become the center of his life. He followed the expected path: Cambridge, a law degree, a formal education meant to steady him. But when Alister married a wealthy New Zealand heiress, he returned to Australia and bought Glenara back from his father’s estate. The place became not just an ancestral property, but a devotion. Alister lived the life of a gentleman of his era. He was a huntsman, a polo player, a racehorse owner, a golfer, and a photographer. But his most consuming passion was roses. He maintained a ten-hectare garden once described as “a place of great charm and beauty,” a phrase that somehow understates the seriousness of his work as a rosarian. A newspaper described Glenara in 1928 as an “old-world garden,” with spreading lawns and sheltering trees, and roses gradually taking over the orchard — encroaching on grapes and vegetables, as though beauty, once established, refuses to be contained. At first, Alister ordered roses from England. But imported roses often failed to meet expectations once climate and growing conditions had their say. So Alister began to breed. He wanted roses that could live honestly in Australian conditions — hot, dry summers, mild winters, drought that does not negotiate. The key to his work was Rosa gigantea, vigorous, heat-tolerant, and resilient. His first great success was ‘Jessie Clark,’ named for his niece. Then came others — names that still feel like people passing through a garden gate: Lorraine Lee, Nancy Hayward, Sunny South, Black Boy, Squatter’s Dream. Alister did not breed roses as trophies. He bred them to be companions. His roses were meant to climb, to ramble, to flower continuously, and to hold their own. Many were released for philanthropic purposes, passed on to societies and organizations for propagation and sale, as if the point of a new rose was not ownership, but circulation. After his death in 1949, many of his roses were lost. Labels fade. Gardens change hands. Names slip away. But decades later, people went looking. Some of Alister Clark’s roses were found again. Today, near Bulla, the Alister Clark Memorial Rose Garden holds the surviving collection, maintained by volunteers. A life’s work still blooming, because of one man’s devotion to creating living beauty that could endure. 1883 J. Henry Chesterton died on a riverbank in Colombia. Henry began as a valet traveling through South America, an unlikely start for a plant collector. But gardens have always made room for unlikely beginnings. Somewhere along his journey, Henry fell hard for orchids. Not a mild appreciation, but a hunger. After building an impressive collection, he wrote to Sir Harry Veitch in England with one urgent question: how do you pack living plants for a long voyage by sea? Help was arranged. Months later, Henry Chesterton arrived unannounced at the Chelsea nursery gates, carrying orchids so carefully tended they survived the journey. The Veitch nursery bought the entire collection, and Henry was sent back to South America — not as a valet, but as a plant hunter. His task was to find the “scarlet Odontoglossum,” an orchid long rumored, often found, and rarely delivered alive. Henry succeeded. The plant flowered in Chelsea in 1873 — a flower long whispered about, opening at last under glass, thousands of miles from where it grew. Plant hunting carried a cost. Henry Chesterton died in 1883, still a young man, after leaving his hotel sickbed too soon, believing he had recovered enough to travel. His obituary called him reckless. But sometimes reckless simply means unwilling to turn back from something you love. And Henry loved hunting orchids. Unearthed Words 1905 Landscape architect Eloise Ray was born. Speaking of the great private estates she helped design, and what it took to keep them alive, Eloise once remarked: “We would estimate the need for at least eight full-time gardeners for most of our estates.” Eight gardeners — a number that sounds almost mythic now. Later, she warned against choosing what looks easy — lawns, shortcuts, simplicity — without understanding what landscapes truly demand. It is very January wisdom: less romance, more structure, and a bare-bones respect for the invisible labor behind beauty. Book Recommendation This is a rare Chelsea book that does more than admire the spectacle — it translates it. Paths. Proportion. Planting combinations. Structure. Chris Young selects some of the most influential show gardens and uses them as benchmarks, not for imitation, but for practical inspiration in gardens big and small. In late January, when you are planning more than planting, this is the kind of book that turns Chelsea — often called the catwalk of garden design — into a garden you can actually make for yourself. Botanic Spark And finally, here's something sweet to ignite the little botanic spark in your heart. 1945 Cellist Jacqueline du Pré was born. Her talent was immense, and illness cut her career short far too early. There is a rose named ‘Jacqueline du Pré’ in her honor. Soft white blooms brushed with blush, a strong fragrance, and flowers that open simply, revealing bright stamens like a note held in the air. Her namesake rose does not replace what was lost. It simply gives us a living way to remember — something that blooms, fades, returns, and for a moment, makes the air sweeter without asking for applause. Perhaps that is something the rosarian Alister Clark understood too — that the best roses are not meant to impress from a distance, but to stay with us, to add cheer, to help us remember, and to endure. Final Thoughts January leaves the garden in outline. And sometimes, most unexpectedly and most profoundly, that is when we see it most clearly. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember, for a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/39762840

January 23, 2026 Peter Joseph Lenné, Gertrude Penfield Seiberling, Elizabeth Lawrence, The Unsung Season by Sydney Eddison, and Ken Nakazawa 01/23/2026

January 23, 2026 Peter Joseph Lenné, Gertrude Penfield Seiberling, Elizabeth Lawrence, The Unsung Season by Sydney Eddison, and Ken Nakazawa Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Today’s Show Notes January is a month that strips things back. The garden shows us structure instead of spectacle. Paths without flowers. Trees without leaves. Design without distraction. That makes today’s stories especially fitting, because they are about people who believed gardens should hold meaning, even when nothing is in bloom. Today’s Garden History 1866 Peter Joseph Lenné died at the age of seventy-six. Lenné was one of the most important landscape architects of the nineteenth century, though you will not find him quoted on mugs or calendars. He left behind something far more lasting than aphorisms. He left parks. Born into a family of working gardeners, Lenné learned early that gardens are not decorations. They are systems. He trained in Paris and Vienna, studied botany and architecture, and eventually became Director General of the Royal Prussian Parks in Potsdam and Berlin. What Lenné believed, and showed, was this: a garden should feel inevitable, as though it had always been there. He embraced the English landscape style — long sightlines, borrowed views, gentle transitions — and rejected rigid formality. Baroque gardens impressed. Lenné’s gardens rested the eye. As his career matured, so did his sense of responsibility. He believed green space mattered not only to kings but also to ordinary people. That parks were not luxuries. They were relieved. Places where the city could soften, where people could breathe. Today, many of the landscapes Lenné shaped — Sanssouci, Glienicke, and Babelsberg — are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. But perhaps his truest legacy is quieter: the idea that a garden can be a conversation between nature, design, and the human spirit. 1866 Gertrude Penfield Seiberling was born. She was blessed in many ways, but she never took her gifts for granted. One of the ways she kept herself grounded was by gardening. Gertrude grew up in Ohio and later married F. A. Seiberling, the founder of Goodyear. In Akron, Ohio, they created a home together known as Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, a place shaped not only by architecture, but by intention. Gertrude was never simply the lady of a great house. She helped shape the gardens herself, walking them, imagining them, living into them season by season. In 1924, she founded the Akron Garden Club, helping to build a community around the shared pleasure of growing things. She was also a musician, a singer who once performed at the White House, and later in life, a painter who returned again and again to landscapes: streets edged by trees, buildings softened by green. Above the entrance to Stan Hywet is a motto carved in stone: Non Nobis Solum — Not for Us Alone. It feels like something a gardener would choose, because Gertrude understood that gardens are never only personal. They are gifts. They outlast grief. They hold joy and memory at the same time. Her family once described the Seiberlings as a clan — loud at holidays, together often, constantly bustling — a world of people who made their own warmth. Gertrude understood that gardens are not possessions. They are gifts. They gather people. They outlast us. She died in 1946 at Stan Hywet, surrounded by the beauty she helped bring into being. Unearthed Words 1945 Elizabeth Lawrence wrote a letter that opened in the heart of winter. Her salutation sets the scene simply: she was enjoying thin toast, wild strawberry jam, and tea by the fire in her studio. She wrote about food shared with friends, conversations that wander, and people quietly doing their work in the world. The letter moved gently, the way winter days do — nothing rushed, nothing forced. Then, just before she signed off, she added this wonderfully human line: “I must put the puppy to bed before he chews up all the files of Gardening Illustrated.” It is such a small moment, but it tells us everything. Even the most thoughtful garden writers lived among interruptions. That is winter gardening in a sentence: not grand plans, just warmth, memory, and something alive nearby doing exactly as it pleases. Book Recommendation This is a book written for gardeners who live where winter is real. Sydney Eddison writes about what happens when the garden goes quiet, and how gardeners adapt. Some strap on snowshoes to check beds. Others turn to winter crafts, seed sorting, or garden planning. Some bring the garden indoors. Others design landscapes meant to shine in the coldest months — bark, berries, structure, and light. What makes The Unsung Season special is its tone. It does not rush winter away. It does not treat it as a problem to solve. Instead, it honors winter as part of the gardening life — a season of observation, patience, and faith. It is a book that understands January. Botanic Spark And finally, here's something sweet to ignite the little botanic spark in your heart. 1940 News of a garden lecture appeared in The San Bernardino County Sun. The speaker was Ken Nakazawa, a professor at the University of Southern California and a writer deeply attuned to cultural meaning. Nakazawa invited his audience into the philosophy of Japanese gardens, explaining that the perfect garden is composed of three elements: heaven, earth, and man. Nothing, he said, is accidental. Some stones are meant to be seen. Some are meant to be hidden. Some are meant to be used. He reminded listeners that gardens are not only meant to be seen, but to be heard: water moving, wind in trees, birds arriving like punctuation. What makes this moment especially tender is what came later in Nakazawa’s life. Within a year, he would be arrested and imprisoned following Pearl Harbor, swept up not because of anything he had done, but because of who he was. And yet, even in confinement, Nakazawa spoke of gardens and human psychology, of watching how people live together under strain. It is hard not to hear his garden philosophy differently, knowing that. That he believed meaning could exist in restraint. That some things must remain hidden. That harmony depends on how carefully we place ourselves in relation to others. In January, when gardens are mostly shape and silence, that feels like a lesson worth keeping. Final Thoughts January teaches us to notice structure — what remains when ornament falls away. Paths. Edges. The quiet work beneath the surface. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember, for a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/39762380

January 22, 2026 Francis Bacon, Francis Guthrie, Winter Garden Design at Anglesey Abbey, People With Dirty Hands by Robin Chotzinoff, and Bill and Ben 01/22/2026

January 22, 2026 Francis Bacon, Francis Guthrie, Winter Garden Design at Anglesey Abbey, People With Dirty Hands by Robin Chotzinoff, and Bill and Ben Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Today’s Show Notes Before we step fully into today’s garden history, a brief note from the weather ledger: 1985 A deep cold wave swept through Florida, destroying nearly ninety percent of the state’s citrus crop. Years of growth, lost in a single night. It is a reminder gardeners understand well: abundance is always provisional. Today’s Garden History 1561 Francis Bacon was born. He gave us one of the most enduring garden essays ever written: Of Gardens. Bacon did not treat gardening as a pleasant aside. He called it “the purest of human pleasures” and “the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man.” He imagined the truly learned life as one that required more than books: a garden, a library, a laboratory, and a cabinet of curiosities — a place for wonder, objects, and close observation. Bacon had the kind of sensibility gardeners recognize instantly: learning is not just what you read. It is what you notice, what you tend, what you return to day after day. Bacon also understood something gardeners know instinctively: tending living things disciplines the mind. He wrote, “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” So today, if winter has you feeling a little cramped indoors, Bacon is essentially giving you permission to treat green things like medicine. 1831 Francis Guthrie was born. He is remembered for asking a deceptively simple question in 1852 while coloring a map: what is the minimum number of colors needed so that no neighboring regions touch? That curious question became known as the Four Colour Problem, and it puzzled mathematicians for more than a century, until computers finally confirmed Guthrie’s solution in 1976. But Guthrie himself never saw the resolution. He published little. He moved to South Africa. He taught. He collected plants. He lectured on botany. He lived a life of attention rather than acclaim. Plants were later named in his honor — living things carrying forward the memory of a man who noticed patterns, boundaries, and relationships. Guthrie’s story begins the way so many garden insights do: with someone looking closely, noticing edges, adjacency, and pattern. The same habits gardeners practice every day. So today’s history gives us two companions: Bacon, who argued that green space restores the spirit, and Guthrie, who shows how careful looking can quietly reshape how we understand the world. Unearthed Words 2015 The Guardian shared winter garden design wisdom from David Jordan, the assistant head gardener at Anglesey Abbey. Jordan’s advice was simple and bracing: the winter garden succeeds not by excess, but by clarity. Start with a tree whose bark holds the light. Add a shrub that offers scent or color when little else does. Let the ground rest. At Anglesey, one of the most powerful sights is a stand of West Himalayan birches — pale trunks against dark earth, nothing competing, nothing hurried. Winter, like good design, rewards restraint. Book Recommendation Published in 1996, this book by Robin Chotzinoff is built from portraits of gardeners, gardens, and moments rather than instructions. Chotzinoff is a journalist by training, and the book quietly reveals why people keep gardening long after logic says they should stop. Chotzinoff writes: “Gardening is all there is, while you’re doing it.” And: “There are no child prodigy gardeners.” The book reinforces garden wisdom through a series of intimate profiles. One of the most memorable is Zelma, who spends her days at a picnic table beneath a grape arbor — shelling peas, writing letters, and refusing to move indoors as she ages. As Chotzinoff puts it: “The older she got, she said, the less she wanted to be inside.” People With Dirty Hands reminds us of something gardeners already know: you cannot rush a garden. You cannot dominate it. You must grow alongside it, season after season. Botanic Spark And finally, here's something sweet to ignite the little botanic spark in your heart. 1953 British television aired the very first episode of Bill and Ben — The Flower Pot Men. The premise was simple, almost impossibly so. There was a little house, and around the little house, a beautiful garden. While the gardener stepped away for his dinner, two terracotta flower pots at the bottom of the garden came quietly to life. Bill. And Ben. Between them grew their small companion, Little Weed — a smiling, nodding presence who never moved far, rooted firmly in place, watching everything. Bill and Ben did not roam. They whispered. They muddled through small mishaps. They blamed one another gently. And when footsteps returned, they slipped back into stillness just in time. What made Bill and Ben endure was not the story. It was the faith it placed in the garden. The idea that a garden has its own inner life. That when we turn our backs, something tender carries on. That flower pots might talk, weeds might listen, and nothing truly important needs to hurry. For many children, this was an early lesson: gardens are not decorations. They are inhabited. They are places where patience matters, where small lives are worthy of attention, where even a weed has a voice and a place. And perhaps that is why the closing line always lingered: “And I think the little house knew something about it — don’t you?” Gardens still know things we do not. They keep watch. They wait. They remember us when we forget ourselves. That quiet assurance — that something gentle is continuing, just out of sight — may be the sweetest gift a garden gives. Final Thoughts As we move through January — spare, cold, and honest — it helps to remember this: Not everyone changes the world loudly. Some do it by paying attention. By getting their hands dirty. By noticing what belongs, and what does not. Gardens understand this instinctively. They make room. They allow small things to grow where they will, even weeds. Especially weeds. Like Little Weed, quietly watching from between the pots, the winter garden keeps its counsel. The garden notices us, even when we forget to notice it. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember, for a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/39762355

January 21, 2026 Charles Edward Faxon, William Roy Genders, Christian Dior, A Year of Garden-Inspired Living by Linda Vater, and Squirrel Appreciation Day 01/21/2026

January 21, 2026 Charles Edward Faxon, William Roy Genders, Christian Dior, A Year of Garden-Inspired Living by Linda Vater, and Squirrel Appreciation Day Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Today’s Show Notes This is the season when gardeners live a little more in the imagination. We watch winter light move across bare branches, notice the architecture of trees, and make plans we can’t quite act on yet. So today feels right for honoring people who worked quietly — not as household names, but as steady hands who loved the natural world and served it with patience, consistency, and craft. Today’s Garden History 1846 Charles Edward Faxon was born in Massachusetts. If you’ve ever fallen in love with a botanical book because of its illustrations, there’s a good chance you already understand Faxon’s gift. He trained as a civil engineer, but plants pulled him in. He taught botany and eventually joined the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, where he helped develop the herbarium and library. Faxon’s lasting legacy is drawing. He possessed a rare combination: an artist’s eye, a botanist’s discipline, and the patience to sit with a specimen until its truth came through. Leaves. Flowers. Fruit. Seed. The parts that matter when you’re trying to really know a tree. He illustrated major works with Charles Sprague Sargent, including the great American tree books that helped people recognize their own forests. Hundreds and hundreds of drawings — not decorative, but instructive. The kind of art that teaches you how to see. Faxon never chased the spotlight. He served the work, the collection, the record. If you’ve ever pressed a leaf into a book, carefully labeled a seed packet, or taken a photo just so you’d remember what something looked like — you’re part of that same tradition. 1913 William Roy Genders was born. Genders lived more than one life. As a young man, he played first-class cricket after the war. Alongside that, he wrote extensively about gardening. His book titles alone tell you who he was writing for: Soft Fruit, The Epicure’s Garden, works on mushrooms, scent, old-fashioned flowers, and practical plants for everyday use. He wrote from experience, not from a pedestal. And there’s a small, telling detail tucked into one of his books, The Scented Wild Flowers of Britain. It’s dedicated simply, “To the memory of my parents.” That’s a gardener’s dedication. A lineage acknowledgment. A quiet recognition that what we love is often inherited. Faxon drew plants so people could recognize them. Genders described plants so people could live with them. Two different kinds of devotion. Same root. Unearthed Words In today’s Unearthed Words, we hear from Christian Dior: “After women, flowers are the most divine creations.” Whatever you think of fashion, that sentence is pure gardener. Because if you’ve ever stood in a winter garden and remembered the roses — or opened a seed catalog like it was a devotional — you know exactly what he meant. Book Recommendation This is a book for gardeners who want to live seasonally even when the garden itself is quiet. A Year of Garden-Inspired Living offers ideas for carrying the feeling of the garden into daily life — through the whole year. It’s less about productivity and more about presence: how to notice, arrange, celebrate, and mark time when there’s nothing to harvest and nowhere to dig. It’s the kind of winter reading that doesn’t make you feel behind. It makes you feel accompanied. Botanic Spark January 21st is Squirrel Appreciation Day. If you want to think of squirrels as fellow gardeners, you can. They plant trees one forgotten nut at a time. So it feels right to end with Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Squirrel.” Whisky Frisky, Hippity hop, Up he goes To the tree top! Whirly, twirly, Round and round Down he scampers To the ground. Furly, curly, What a tail! Tall as a feather Broad as a sail Emily understood something simple — and so do squirrels. Not everything that looks promising is worth the effort. A nut can be hollow. What matters is what’s inside. Emily ends her poem this way: Experiment to me Is every one I meet. If it contain a kernel? The figure of a nut Presents upon a tree, Equally plausibly; But meat within is requisite, To squirrels and to me. Squirrels test. They choose. And they move on if there’s nothing there. It’s a quiet lesson the garden keeps offering us again and again: be discerning. Tend what sustains you. Final Thoughts Wherever you are, whatever season you’re in, may you find something today worth tending. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember, for a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/39762325

January 20, 2026 Henry Danvers, Thomas Serle Jerrold, Eliot Wadsworth II, The Winter Garden by Richard Rosenfeld, and Napoleon Bonaparte 01/20/2026

January 20, 2026 Henry Danvers, Thomas Serle Jerrold, Eliot Wadsworth II, The Winter Garden by Richard Rosenfeld, and Napoleon Bonaparte Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Today’s Show Notes In the garden, January is a month of plans more than action. Seed catalogs pile up. Lists are made. Dreams are revised. So it’s a fitting day to remember the people who made gardens possible — not always by planting them, but by supporting, studying, and sometimes stubbornly defending them. Some legacies grow slowly. Some arrive as books. Some are simply the decision to protect a piece of ground so others can learn from it. Today’s Garden History 1644 Henry Danvers, the 1st Earl of Danby, died. Danvers is remembered by gardeners not for the plants he grew, but for the garden he made possible. In 1621, he founded what would become the Oxford Botanic Garden — the oldest botanic garden in Britain. At the time, the land he donated lay opposite Magdalen College and had once served as a Jewish burial ground. Danvers conveyed five acres to the University of Oxford “for the encouragement of the study of physic and botany.” It was an act of vision rather than speed. The garden wasn’t fully planted until the 1640s, and Danvers did not live to see it flourish. But he ensured its future — having the ground raised, enclosed by high stone walls, and endowed through his will so it could be maintained long after his death. Gardeners understand this kind of legacy. Not every garden is planted for the present. Some are planted for people we will never meet. The gateway of the Oxford Botanic Garden still bears an inscription dedicating the space to the glory of God, the honor of the king, and the use of the academy and the republic — a reminder that gardens have long stood at the intersection of science, belief, and public good. 1907 Thomas Serle Jerrold died. Jerrold was trained as a gardener at Chatsworth, under Sir Joseph Paxton — the same Paxton who would later design the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851. During Jerrold’s apprenticeship, Paxton was sketching ideas that would change architecture, while teaching young gardeners how to grow things well. Jerrold went on to become a writer who believed gardens should be practical as well as beautiful. His books carried titles that gardeners immediately understood: The Garden That Paid the Rent, Our Kitchen Garden, and Household Horticulture. He spent years living in Canada, returned to England late in life, and left behind not only books, but a philosophy — that gardens are meant to sustain households, not just impress visitors. Unearthed Words 1985 Eliot Wadsworth II of White Flower Farm offered one of those lines gardeners tend to repeat forever. “My appetite for new plants is like most people’s appetite for macadamia nuts.” Every gardener understands this. You don’t need another plant. But somehow, you always have room for just one more. Book Recommendation The Winter Garden is a thoughtful, seasonal book that invites gardeners to slow down and notice what winter reveals: structure, light, patience, and the quieter forms of beauty that don’t announce themselves in bloom. It’s a perfect January companion — a reminder that winter isn’t an interruption, but part of the cycle. When flowers are gone, the garden shows its bones: the lines of paths, the rhythm of trunks and branches, the way low sun changes everything. The book meets you there, in that pared-back landscape, and makes you feel less like you’re “waiting” and more like you’re watching. For gardeners who keep walking outside even in cold weather, it’s the kind of book that sharpens attention. It helps you notice what’s still happening — what’s holding, what’s resting, what’s quietly preparing — and it leaves you with a steadier, calmer sense that the garden is still very much alive. Botanic Spark 1820 Napoleon Bonaparte, exiled on the island of Saint Helena, was reported to have taken up gardening. It makes sense. Confined, restless, and stripped of power, he turned to the small control a garden allows — arranging paths, directing plantings, taking an interest in what grew and where. Gardening gave him something immediate and living to tend. But the story doesn’t end peacefully. That same day, Napoleon reportedly shot Count Bertrand’s goat after the animal wandered into the garden and ate his plants. Even in exile, even in reflection, Napoleon remained… Napoleon. The episode is funny, yes — but it’s also revealing. Gardens ask for patience. They ask for restraint. And not everyone, even great historical figures, is equally suited to those lessons. Final Thoughts Wherever you are, whatever you’re planning, may you find something today worth tending. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember, for a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/39762295

January 19, 2026 Alice Eastwood, G. Ledyard Stebbins, Janus and the Snowdrop, The New Romantic Garden by Jo Thompson, and Harris Olson 01/19/2026

January 19, 2026 Alice Eastwood, G. Ledyard Stebbins, Janus and the Snowdrop, The New Romantic Garden by Jo Thompson, and Harris Olson Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Today’s Show Notes January is a quieter season in the garden. The beds are resting. The work is mostly invisible. This is the time of year when gardeners turn to stories — to the people who noticed plants closely, saved what mattered, and carried knowledge forward, even when it would have been easier to let it go. Today is full of those stories. Today’s Garden History 1859 Alice Eastwood was born. Alice Eastwood would become one of the most important botanists in American history — not because she sought attention, but because she understood how easily plant knowledge can be lost if no one tends it. Her early life was unsettled. After her mother died, Alice and her sister were placed in a convent while her father moved west. What steadied her was learning — and later, walking. When Alice began studying plants seriously, she did so the way many gardeners do: by going where plants grow naturally and paying attention. In Colorado, she climbed into the Rocky Mountains, collecting alpine plants and learning which species thrived in exposure and which needed protection. Her careful work brought her to California, where she met Katherine Brandegee, curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences. Together with her husband, Townshend Brandegee, Katherine edited a journal called Zoe, named for the Greek word meaning life. Zoe was a working journal, not a polished one. It gave field botanists a place to publish discoveries about western plants at a time when much of that flora was still being named and understood. New species. Corrections. Observations. This was where the real work appeared. Alice Eastwood did not just write for Zoe. She helped sustain it. 1893 When the Brandegees retired, Alice became curator of botany at the Academy, a position she would hold for more than fifty years. Then came the 1906 earthquake. The Academy burned. Cabinets collapsed. Thousands of specimens were nearly lost. Alice climbed the damaged stairways herself, rescuing what she could — and then rebuilt the herbarium almost from scratch, traveling tirelessly to restore what had been destroyed. Gardeners understand that instinct. When something precious is lost, you do not abandon the garden. You begin again. 2000 The botanist G. Ledyard Stebbins died at the age of ninety-four. Stebbins helped explain something gardeners observe every season: that plants change gradually, shaped by environment, variation, and time. His work gave botanists a way to understand plant evolution not just as theory, but as something visible in fields, hillsides, and gardens themselves. He once said he simply pointed out what plants had been showing us all along. Unearthed Words In today’s Unearthed Words, we explore the etymology of the word January, which takes its name from Janus, the Roman guardian of thresholds — the figure who looks both backward and forward at once. It is a fitting image for the garden at this time of year. January’s birth flower is the snowdrop, one of the first blooms to appear while winter still holds firm. In folklore, the soft green markings on its inner petals are said to be a promise — a sign that warmth will return. Here is a snowdrop verse to hold onto: “The snowdrop, in purest white array, First rears her head on Candlemas Day.” The gardening year does not begin with abundance. It begins with courage. Book Recommendation If you are gardening mostly by imagination right now, this is a winter-perfect recommendation. The New Romantic Garden celebrates gardens shaped by feeling as much as function. These are gardens built for atmosphere, reflection, and beauty — places where restraint matters as much as abundance. It is a book to read slowly, perhaps by the fire, letting it influence how you think about gardens long before you step back into the soil. Botanic Spark And finally, here's something sweet to ignite the little botanic spark in your heart. 2001 The Detroit Free Press shared the story of Harris Olson, a man whose personal mission was to turn everyone he met into a gardener — preferably, a daylily gardener. With his warm smile and battered gray truck, license plate reading “Mr. Daylily,” Harris was widely known in the Detroit area for his volunteer work and his plant breeding. He hybridized daylilies and peonies, naming varieties for the people he loved. For forty-five years, he served as volunteer head gardener at the Congregational Church of Birmingham. Under his direction, the nine-acre grounds became an arboretum-like landscape filled with peonies, daylilies, roses, hostas, and other perennials. Even when his health declined, Harris refused to stop gardening. When he could no longer weed himself, he sat in a lawn chair while others worked the beds, offering commentary and encouragement. “Life isn’t worth living unless you can pull a weed,” he liked to say. Gardeners like Harris remind us that tending plants is often just an excuse to tend people — generously, patiently, and for as long as we are able. Final Thoughts Wherever you are, whatever season you are in, may you find something today worth tending. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember, for a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/39762150

November 19, 2024 November Gardens Between Activity and Rest, Helen Hunt Jackson, Danske Dandridge, Julia Wilmotte Henshaw, Outside In by Sean A. Pritchard, and Amy Baik Lee's Garden Closing 11/19/2024

November 18, 2024 A Century of November Garden Reflections, Archibald Menzies, Asa Gray, New Nordic Gardens by Annika Zetterman, and Beatrix Farrand Plans the Rose Garden for the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) 11/18/2024

November 15, 2024 Garden Musings, William Wordsworth, Georgia O'Keefe, Around the House and In the Garden by Dominique Browning, and Empress Josephine's Les Liliacées by Pierre-Joseph Redouté 11/15/2024

November 14, 2024 A Second Spring, Nell Gwynn, John Custis IV, Gardens for the Soul by Sara Bird and Dan Duchars, and Robert Buist 11/14/2024

November 13, 2024 Gardens, Meteors, and Chrysanthemums, Joseph Paxton, Cherry Trees of 1909, The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing Cacti and Succulents by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and Paul Rees and The Dangerous World of Rare Orchids 11/13/2024

November 12, 2024 Revelations in the Fall Garden, Auguste Rodin, Princess Therese of Bavaria, Habitat Creation In Garden Design by Catherine Heatherington and Alex Johnson, and Clarissa Tucker Tracy 11/12/2024

November 08, 2024 Winter Preparation, William Copeland McCalla, Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald, A New Cottage Garden by Mark Bolton, and Margaret Mitchell 11/08/2024

November 07, 2024 November's Little Garden Tasks, Rockingham Colonial Gardens, Warren Manning, The Landscape of Home by Edmund Hollander, and Ruth Pitter 11/07/2024

November 06, 2024 Finding Hope in the November Garden, Alice Lounsberry, Frank Kingdon-Ward, Favorite Poems for the Garden by Bushel & Peck Books, and Martha Turnbull 11/06/2024

November 05, 2024 Arranging Flowers and Planting Bulbs, Humphry Marshall, Ellen Biddle Shipman, Garden Favorites by Warren Schultz, Rebecca W. Atwater and Rick Darke, and Ida Tarbell 11/05/2024

November 04, 2024 Last Call for Spring Bulbs, John Bradby Blake, William Rickatson Dykes, Harry Ferguson, My Favorite Plant by Jamaica Kincaid, and Saving Summer with a Windowsill Garden 11/04/2024

November 01, 2024 Welcome November Gardens, Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, John Joly, Adventures in Eden by Carolyn Mullet, and Maude Jeannie Young 11/01/2024

October 31, 2024 Spiderwebs and Snow, John Keats, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Seedtime and Harvest by Christie Purifoy, and Troston Gardener Edward Ward 10/31/2024

October 30, 2024 October Blooms at David Culp's Brandywine, Heinrich Cotta, Evelyn Booth, The Cottage Garden by Claus Dalby, and Alfred Sisley's Garden Wisdom 10/30/2024

October 29, 2024 A Gardener's Late October Checklist, Charles Wright, Thoreau the Botanist, A Home in Bloom by Christie Purifoy, and USDA Pioneer Effie Southworth 10/29/2024

October 28, 2024 The Garden's October Lullaby, Hippolyte François Jaubert, Harold Basil Christian, Growing Your Own Tea Garden by Jodi Helmer, and Sarah Sophia Banks 10/28/2024

October 25, 2024 Patrick Neill, Joseph Hetherington McDaniels, Tyge Wittrock Bocher, The Healing Garden by Juliet Blankespoor, and A Tale of Two Postmen Turned Accidental Alpine Plant Merchants 10/25/2024

October 24, 2024 The Great Indoor Houseplant Migration, Marianne North, A Vermont October Snow Story, Margaret Owen, A Life in the Garden by Barbara Damrosch, and Henry Arthur Bright's October Garden Musings 10/24/2024

October 23, 2024 The Autumn Garden, William Casson, Annie Lorrain Smith, Neltje Blanchan, Katharine Stewart, Life in the Garden by Bunny Williams, and Ludwig Leichhardt 10/23/2024

May 16, 2023 William Henry Seward, Martha Ballard, Luigi Fenaroli, Herbert Ernest Bates, Goldenrod, Of Rhubarb and Roses by Tim Richardson, and Jacob Ritner 05/16/2023

May 16, 2023 William Henry Seward, Martha Ballard, Luigi Fenaroli, Herbert Ernest Bates, Goldenrod, Of Rhubarb and Roses by Tim Richardson, and Jacob Ritner Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Historical Events 1801 William Henry Seward "Sue-erd", an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, is born. He was also featured in the book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called , in which she wrote about William as a naturalist. He loved his garden. This little passage offers so many insights into William as a nature lover. As a gardener and just to set this up, this is taking place during the civil war when there's a little break in the action for Seward, and he accompanies his wife Frances and their daughter, back to Auburn, New York, where they were planning to spend the summer. Seward accompanied Frances and Fanny back to Auburn, where they planned to spend the summer. For a few precious days, he entertained old friends, caught up on his reading, and tended his garden. The sole trying event was the decision to fell a favorite old poplar tree that had grown unsound. Frances could not bear to be present as it was cut, certain that she "should feel every stroke of the axe." Once it was over, however, she could relax in the beautiful garden she had sorely missed during her prolonged stay in Washington. Nearly sixty years old, with the vitality and appearance of a man half his age, Seward typically rose at 6 a.m. when first light slanted into the bedroom window of his twenty-room country home. Rising early allowed him time to complete his morning constitutional through his beloved garden before the breakfast bell was rung. Situated on better than five acres of land, the Seward mansion was surrounded by manicured lawns, elaborate gardens, and walking paths that wound beneath elms, mountain ash, evergreens, and fruit trees. Decades earlier, Seward had supervised the planting of every one of these trees, which now numbered in the hundreds. He had spent thousands of hours fertilizing and cultivating his flowering shrubs. With what he called 'a lover's interest," he inspected them daily. Then I love what Doris writes next because she's contrasting Seward with Abraham Lincoln in terms of their love of working outside. [Seward's] horticultural passion was in sharp contrast to Lincoln's lack of interest in planting trees or growing flowers at his Springfield home. Having spent his childhood laboring long hours on his father's struggling farm, Lincoln found little that was romantic or recreational about tilling the soil. When Seward "came into the table," his son Frederick recalled, "he would announce that the hyacinths were in bloom, or that the bluebirds had come, or whatever other change the morning had brought." 1809 Martha Ballard recorded her work as an herbalist and midwife. For 27 years, Martha kept a journal of her work as the town healer and midwife for Hallowell, Maine. Today Martha's marvelous journal gives us a glimpse into the plants that she regularly used and how she applied them medicinally. And as for how Martha sourced her plants, she raised them in her garden or foraged for them in the wild. As the village apothecary, Martha found her own ingredients and personally made all of her herbal remedies. Here's what the writer, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Wrote about Martha's work back in May of 1809. Martha's far more expansive record focused on the mundane work of gardening, the daily, incremental tasks that each season exacted. In May of 1809, she "sowed," "sett," "planted,' and "transplanted" in at least half dozen places, digging ground "west of the hous" on May 15 and starting squash, cucumbers, muskmelons and watermelons on "East side house" the same day. She planted "by the hogg pen" on May 16 and 18 on May 23 sowed string peas "in the end of my gardin," and on May 26, planted "south of the hous." The plots she defined by the three points of the compass were no doubt raised beds, rich with manure, used for starting seeds in cool weather. The garden proper had a fence, which Ephraim mended on May 12. Whether it included the plot near the "hogg pen," we do not know. All of these spots, managed by Martha, were distinct from the "field." which Jonathan plowed on May 15, and DeLafayette and Mr. Smith on May 27 and May 31. Martha's was an ordinary garden, a factory for food and medicine that incidentally provided nourishment to the soul. "I have workt in my gardin, she wrote on May 17, the possessive pronoun the only hint of the sense of ownership she felt in her work. The garden was hers, though her husband or son or the Hallowell and Augusta Bank owned the land. "I have squash & Cucumbers come up in the bed East side the house," she wrote on May 22. The garden was hers because she turned the soil, dropped the seeds, and each year recorded in her diary, as though it had never happened before, the recurring miracle of spring. 1899 Luigi Fenaroli, the great Italian agronomist and botanist, is born. Luigi wrote a flora of the Alps, and he was an expert in forestry, but today we remember him for his work with chestnuts. Luigi wrote two books on chestnuts, and he was passionate about chestnuts as a good source of nutrition - especially for people who've lived in the mountains. Although today, of course, chestnuts are beloved in Italy, as well as other parts of the world. Chestnuts are unique in that they contain very little fat and protein compared to other types of nuts, but they are an excellent source of both carbohydrates and water. There is about a 50-50 ratio there. And so it's not surprising to learn that Roman soldiers were given porridge made of chestnuts before they went into battle. It gave them sustenance, that simple Chestnut porridge. Today chestnuts are known as a superfood. They are healthy and irresistibly tasty. And so they rank near the top of the list for most nutritious snacks. 1905 Herbert Ernest Bates (pen name H. E. Bates), English author, is born. He is remembered for his books Love for Lydia (1952), The Darling Buds of May (1958), and My Uncle Silas (1939). In his book, A Love of Flowers (1971), Herbert wrote, It is wonderful to think that one of the few unbroken links between the civilization of ancient Egypt and the civilization of today is the garden. Herbert also wrote, I shut my eyes it returns: the evocation of a whole wood, a whole world of darkness and flowers and birds and late summer silence... more than the mere memory of a wood, the first and the best wood. Herbert wrote about gardeners. He said, The true gardener, like an artist, is never satisfied. And he also once wrote this about gardens. Gardens... should be like lovely, well-shaped girls: all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises, and then still more curves. 1926 On this day, the state of Kentucky selected the Goldenrod for its Floral Emblem. Prior to 1926, Kentucky's floral emblem had been the Bluegrass (which seems more fitting still today), but Kentucky gardening clubs felt Bluegrass wasn't representative of the whole state. And here's a fun fact: Alabama and Nebraska also picked the native goldenrod to be the State Flower. Goldenrod has a lot of haters because many people confuse it for ragweed. I hate to even write that - because it makes people think they must look similar. But that's just not true. Once you see Goldenrod and Ragweed individually - you could never confuse them. Ragweed flowers are green and not eye-catching, while goldenrods are golden and very pretty. I saw an infographic a few years ago that said, Goldenrod Warning: if I'm here, so is ragweed. Stay indoors! Achoo! This is clearly maligning Goldenrod. It might as well say the black-eyed Susans are blooming, so is ragweed. Or the Joe Pye Weed is blooming - and so is ragweed - and so, by the way, are all the late summer bloomers - echinacea, helenium, oriental lily, asters, balloon flowers, sedums, tickseed, autumn crocus, Japanese anemones, blue mist shrub, hydrangeas, the list goes on and on. It's just an issue of timing. The genus name Solidago is taken from the Latin "in solidum ago vulnera" and it means "I make wounds whole." And so it's not surprising to learn that Native Americans and herbalists have long recognized the curative power of goldenrod when it comes to wound care. Now, If you want to plant some Goldenrod, keep in mind that it is an early autumn bloomer. It's also an important food source for honey bees and makes for a fantastic cut flower. Finally, the botanical painter Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden once painted the goldenrod and observed, Abundant it may be, but repugnant it is not. Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation This book came out in 2013, and the subtitle is The Telegraph Book of the Garden. Well, this is such a happy and fun book for gardeners in the summertime. I love the cover, which shows a gentleman sleeping on a garden bench with a little golden Tabby cat beneath him. There's also a lawnmower and a wheelbarrow full of produce. There are beautiful garden beds. There's a beautiful garden arbor. And then, of course, there's a newspaper of the daily Telegraph That's laid out on the wheelbarrow, right by the tomatoes and the carrots and the cabbage and so forth. But this is a book that the Telegraph put together, and it is a compilation book - an anthology of garden essays by garden writers And so in this book, you will find fantastic garden essays from the likes of Stephen Lacey, Mary Keen, Helen Yemm, Bunny Guinness, Monty Don, Rosemary Verey, and the like. Now here's what Tim wrote in the introduction to this book. I'm not sure quite what I was anticipating, but I know it was not diatribes against melon frappé or the best places to find wild chives on the Lizard peninsula. I'm not sure, either, that I was quite ready for the fact that a garden column appeared in the newspaper every single day from the late 1950s on. The result was bulging file after file brought up from the Telegraph's distant archive, each filled to bursting with carefully snipped clippings. Snow, drought, storm, new plants launched, old plants rediscovered, the latest furor at the Chelsea Show - the garden columnist falls upon everything that makes one year different from the last, for with a cyclical subject such as horticulture there is the ever-present danger of repeating oneself. The Telegraph's writers have avoided this for the most part, though I was amused to come across at least four versions of a 'May I introduce you to euphorbias?" piece by the same author. One of the fascinations of gardening is the way the same issues arise year after year while always seeming different, somehow - perhaps because of the vagaries of the seasons. Thomas walks us through some of the history of garden writing over at the Telegraph. And he concludes with these words. The best writers can achieve this balance between practical advice and lyrical appreciation - in the case of newspapers, all to a strict deadline. I suppose this theme of writing to order looms large for me today since the deadline for this introduction is suddenly upon me, and I find myself writing during a weekend away. As it happens, the place is Sissinghurst, and the borrowed desk I am sitting at was Vita's, my view through casement windows that of burnished orange echinacea, crimson salvias, clipped yew, and the beatific, wondering smiles of the visitors gliding by. Their expressions make me think, Does anything in life give as much pleasure as a beautiful garden?' Last night, the white garden at midnight was a revelation. But that is not a subject to be enlarged upon now; I am going to write it up in the next day or two. It will, I hope, become another garden article fit for publication in the pages of the Daily Telegraph. If you like garden writing and you love anthologies, this is the perfect book for you. Personally, I think this is a great summer gift for gardeners because this book has already been out for a decade already -it came out in 2013, and so used copies are readily available on Amazon for a song. But again, this is a beautiful and fun book. One reviewer wrote, [It's] an assorted box of chocolates. I happily skipped between essays by the likes of Vita Sackville-West, Germaine Greer, and Sir Roy Strong, greedily consuming one after the other in quick succession. For those with more restraint, this is a book that promises many hours of savoured delights. This book is 464 pages of funny and well-informed garden writing dating back to the 1950s. . Botanic Spark 1861 Jacob Ritner, a Union captain in the civil war, wrote to his wife Emeline. In fact, there's a great book that features all of the letters that he wrote to his wife Emeline during the Civil War, and it's called . Anyway, I stumbled on this letter that Jacob wrote on this day during the civil war when I was reading an excerpt from a book by DC Gill called In this excerpt, Gill reveals how soldiers survived the war, not only physically but also mentally, and quotes Kirby Farrell: "To preserve their sanity," writes Kirby Farrell, "soldiers [often] concentrated on a prosthetic "reality" by which to ground themselves" (Farrell 1998, 179). We already know that the garden is grounding. DC writes that mental images of happy places, like gardens, can mitigate bad environments, such as a war zone. An artificial image of home can substitute for the deficiencies of a present-day environment in a war zone. It allows soldiers to mentally project themselves into a more comforting geography. Soldiers' letters repeatedly ask for details to furnish these environments of the mind. "Now Emeline dear," writes Union Captain Jacob Ritner on May 16, 1861, "you must write me a great long letter next Sunday.. .. Tell me all the news, how the trees grow, the garden and grass, what everybody says" The power of the garden to anchor us extends past space and time, and even merely thinking of our gardens can lift our spirits and calm our worries. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/26859429

May 2, 2023 John Cabot, Leonardo da Vinci, Meriwether Lewis, John Abercrombie, Thomas Hanbury, Hulda Klager, A Gardener's Guide to Botany by Scott Zona, and Novalis 05/02/2023

May 2, 2023 John Cabot, Leonardo da Vinci, Meriwether Lewis, John Abercrombie, Thomas Hanbury, Hulda Klager, A Gardener's Guide to Botany by Scott Zona, and Novalis Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Historical Events 1497 John Cabot, the Canadian Explorer, set sail from Bristol, England, on his ship, Matthew. He was looking for a route to the west, and he found it. He discovered parts of North America on behalf of Henry VII of England. And in case you're wondering why we're talking about John Cabot today, it's because of the climbing rose named in his honor. And it's also the rose that got me good. I got a thorn from a John Cabot rose in my knuckle and ended up having surgery to clean out the infection about three days later. It was quite an ordeal. I think my recovery took about eight months. So the John Cabot Rose - any rose - is not to be trifled with. 1519 Leonardo da Vinci, the mathematician, scientist, painter, and botanist, died. Leonardo once said, We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot. He also wrote, The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself. And if you're spending any time outdoors, we are learning new lessons in spring. Isn't that the truth? There's always some new development we've never encountered - and, of course, a few delights. Leonardo continued to study the flower of life, the Fibonacci sequence, which has fascinated them for centuries. You can see it in flowers. You can also see it in cell division. And if you've never seen Leonardo's drawings and sketches of flowers, you are missing a real treat, and I think they would make for an awesome wallpaper. Leonardo once wrote about how to make your own perfume. He wrote, To make a perfume, take some rose water and wash your hands in it, then take a lavender flower and rub it with your palms, and you will achieve the desired effect. That timeless rose-lavender combination is still a good one. I think about Leonardo every spring when I turn on my sprinkler system because of consistent watering. Gives such a massive boost to the garden. All of a sudden, it just comes alive. Leonardo said, Water is the driving force in nature. The power of water is incredible, and of course, we know that life on Earth is inextricably bound to water. Nothing grows; nothing lives without water. Leonardo was also a cat fan. He wrote, The smallest feline is a masterpiece. In 1517 Leonardo made a mechanical lion for the King of France. This lion was designed to walk toward the king and then drop flowers at his feet. Today you can grow a rose named after Leonardo da Vinci in your garden. It's a beautiful pink rose, very lush, very pleasing, with lots of lovely big green leaves to go with those gorgeous blooms. It was Leonardo da Vinci who wrote, Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, or more direct than does nature because in her inventions, nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous. 1803 On this day, Napoleon and the United States inked a deal for the Louisiana Purchase and added 828,000 square miles of French territory to the United States for $27 million. This purchase impacted the Louis and Clark Expedition because they had to explore the area that was bought in addition to the entire Pacific Northwest. To get ready for this trip, Meriwether Lewis was sent to Philadelphia. While there, he worked with a botanist, a naturalist, and a physician named Benjamin Smith Barton. He was the expert in Philadelphia, so he tutored Meriwether Lewis to get him ready because Lewis did not know natural history or plants. So he needed to cram all this information to maximize what he saw and collected. Now, in addition to all of this homework, all of this studying about horticulture and botany and the natural world, Meriwether made one other purchase for $20. He bought himself a big, beautiful Newfoundland dog, and he named him Seaman. It's always nice to have a little dog with you while exploring. 1806 The garden writer John Abercrombie died. The previous day, John had fallen down some steps. He had broken his hip a few weeks earlier, and so this last fall is what did him in. John was a true character. He loved to drink tea. He was a vegetarian. He was Scottish, and he was a lifelong gardener. His most significant success was his book, Every Man His Own Garden. John would go on to write other books on gardening like The Garden Mushroom, The Complete Wall and Tree Pruner (1783), and The Gardener's Daily Assistant (1786), but none of them rose to the level of popularity as Every Man His Own Garden. John and his wife had 17 children, and they all died before him - with his last child dying about ten years before he died on this day in 1806. 1867 Thomas Hanbury bought a property in the French Riviera that he called La Mortola. In 1913, The Botanical Journal shared the story of Thomas and his brother Daniel, and it also described the moment that Thomas saw his property for the first time. It had been the dream of Thomas Hanbury from his early youth to make a garden in a southern climate and to share its pleasures and botanical interests with his favorite brother. While staying on the Riviera, in the spring of 1867, after many years of strenuous work in the East, he decided to carry out his plan. He was first inclined to buy Cap Martin, near Mentone, but gave up the idea as soon as he became acquainted with the little cape of La Mortola. As he first approached it by sea, he was struck by the marvelous beauty of this spot. A house, once the mansion of a noble Genoese family, and at that time, though almost a ruin, known as the Palazzo Orego, stood on a high commanding position. Above it was the little village, and beyond all rose the mountains. To the east of the Palazzo were vineyards and olive terraces; to the west, a ravine whose declivities were here and there scantily clothed by Aleppo pines; while on the rocky point, washed by the sea waves, grew the myrtle, to which La Punta della Murtola probably owed its name. So Thomas purchased this incredible property in May of 1867, and by July, he returned with his brother, and together the two of them started to transform both the home and the garden. The article says that Thomas's first goal was to get planting because the property had been destroyed by goats and the local villagers who had come in and taken what they wanted from the property during all the years that it was left unoccupied now Thomas and Daniel went all out when it came to selecting plants for this property, and by 1913 there were over. Five thousand different species of plants, including the opuntia or the prickly pear cactus, along with incredible succulents (so they were way ahead of their time). Thomas loved collecting rare and valuable plants and found a home for all of them on this beautiful estate. Now, for the most part, Thomas and his brother Daniel did the bulk of the installations, but a year later, they managed to find a gardener to help them. His name was Ludwig Winter, and he stayed there for about six years. Almost a year after they hired him, Thomas's brother Daniel died. This was a significant loss to Thomas, but he found solace in his family, friends, and gorgeous estate at La Mortola - where Thomas spent the last 28 years of his life. Thomas knew almost every plant in his garden, and he loved the plants that reminded him of his brother. Thomas went on to found the Botanical Institute at the University of Genoa. The herbarium there was named in his honor; it was called the Institute Hanbury and was commemorated in 1892. As Thomas grew older, the Riviera grew more popular, and soon his property was opened to the public five days a week. The garden is practically never without flowers. The end of September may be considered the dullest time. Still, as soon as the autumnal rains set in, the flowering begins and continues on an ever-increasing scale until the middle of April or the beginning of May. Then almost every plant is in flower, the most marked features being the graceful branches of the single yellow Banksian rose, Fortune's yellow rose, the sweet-scented Pittosporum, the wonderful crimson Cantua buxifolia, and the blue spikes of the Canarian Echium.\\ But Thomas knew that there were limitations, frustrations, and challenges even in that lovely growing zone. It was Thomas Hanberry who said, Never go against nature. Thomas used that as his philosophy when planning gardens, working with plants, and trying to figure out what worked and what didn't - Proving that even in the French Riviera, never go against nature. 1928 On this day, folks were lined up to see the lilacs in bloom at Hulda Klagers in Woodland, Washington. Here's an excerpt from a book by Jane Kirkpatrick called . In it, she quotes Hulda. Beauty matters… it does. God gave us flowers for a reason. Flowers remind us to put away fear, to stop our rushing and running and worrying about this and that, and for a moment, have a piece of paradise right here on earth. Jane wrote, The following year there were two articles: one in Better Homes and Gardens and yet another on May 2, 1928, in the Lewis River News. The latter article appeared just in time for my Lilac Days and helped promote Planter's Day, following in June. They were covering the news, and we had made it! In the afternoon, a count showed four hundred cars parked at Hulda Klager's Lilac Garden in one hour, the road being lined for a quarter of a mile. It is estimated that at least twenty-five hundred people were there for the day, coming from points all the way from Seattle. In addition, there were several hundred cars during the week to avoid the rush. Today you can go and visit the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens. It's a nonprofit garden, and of course, it specializes in lilacs. The gardens are open from 10 to 4 pm daily. There's a $4 admission fee - except during lilac season when the admission fee is $5. Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation This book came out in December of 2022, and the subtitle is The Biology Behind the Plants You Love, How They Grow, and What They Need. I think it's that last part - what they need - that most gardeners are intrigued by. If you're a true botany geek, you'll love every page of Scott's book. I wanted to share a little bit from the preface of Scott's book. Scott, by the way, is truly an expert. He's a research botanist by training, and his undergraduate degree is in horticulture, so he's a lifelong gardener and a trained expert. He's a conscious-competent. He knows exactly what he is writing about, Here's what he wrote in the preface of his book. As I sit down to write, I gaze at the windowsill near my desk. On it sits a dwarf sansevieria forming little rosettes of deep green leaves above. It hangs a slab of cork on which is mounted a tiny air plant that is pushing out oversized violet flowers, one at a time. Nearby are two plants, an agave, and an aloe, that have similar forms, but one evolved from Mexico and the other in South America. Above them, a furry-leaved and a hybrid philodendron both grow contently in the diffuse light that reaches the shelf next to the window. My most curious visitors might ask a question about a plant or two, and when that happens, I can barely contain my delight. There is so much to tell. Well, this book starts out with a chapter called Being a Plant, and if you are a bit of an empath, you may feel that you understand what it's like to be a plant, but Scott is going to tell you scientifically what does it mean to be a plant. He writes in chapter one, For most people, the plant kingdom is a foreign land. It's inscrutable. Inhabitants are all around us, but they communicate in a language that seems unintelligible and untranslatable. Their social interactions are different. Their currency doesn't fit in our wallet and their cuisine. Well, it's nothing like what we eat at home in the plant kingdom. We are tourists. So I would say this book is for the very serious and curious gardener- and maybe you. This book was a 2023 American Horticulture Society Award winner. I love the cover. It's beautiful, and of course, I love the title, A Gardener's Guide to Botany. This is the perfect book to round out your collection. If you have the book, it looks like a big botany workbook. I love that book. This book is a great companion to that. There's also a book called, and when I think about Scott's book here, I will be putting it on the shelf beside both books. This book is 256 pages that will amp up your understanding of plants - No more mystery -and provide all of the answers you've been looking for. Botanic Spark 1772 Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, better known by his pen name Novalis, is born. He was an 18th-century German poet and writer, mystic, and philosopher of early German romanticism. All last week I was watching videos about Novalis. He led such an exciting but short life. He had a tragic romance after falling in love with a girl who tragically died of tuberculosis, and then Novalis himself died young. He died at 28 of tuberculosis as well. But in his concise life, he accomplished so much, including the fact that during his life, he had three moments of mystical revelation, which led to a deeper understanding of the world and time, and humanity. This is partly what makes him such a fascinating person to examine. One of the things that we remember Novalis for is his fascination with blue flowers. He made the blue flower a symbol of German romanticism. To Novalis, the blue flower represented romantic yearning. It also meant a point of unification between humanity and nature. It represented life, but it also described death. And if you are a gardener who the blue flower bug has bitten (and who hasn't? I mean, who does not love a blue flower?), you know what I'm talking about. Blue blossoms are so rare. They're so captivating. Most people can relate to Novalis' love of Blue Flowers and why it became so significant in his writing. Now the book where Novalis wrote about the Blue flower is a book called Henry of Ofterdingen, and it's here where we get these marvelous quotes about the blue blossom, which some believe was a heliotrope and which others believe was a cornflower, But whatever the case, the symbolism of the blue flower became very important. Novalis wrote, It is not the treasures that have stirred in me such an unspeakable longing; I care not for wealth and riches. But that blue flower I do long to see; it haunts me, and I can think and dream of nothing else. And that reminds me of what it was like to be a new gardener 30 years ago. A friend got me onto growing Delphinium, and I felt just like Novalis; I could not stop thinking about the Delphinium and imagining them at maturity around the 4th of July, standing about five to six feet tall, those beautiful blue spikes. And, of course, my dream of the Delphinium always surpassed what the actual Delphinium looked like, and yet, I still grew them. I loved them. And I did that for about ten years. So there you go, the call and the power of the blue flower. Novalis writes later in the book, He saw nothing but the blue flower and gazed at it for a long time with indescribable tenderness. Those blue flowers command our attention. Well, I'll end with this last quote. It's a flower quote from Novalis, and it'll get you thinking. Novalis was a very insightful philosopher and a lover of nature, and he believed in the answers that could be found in nature. And so what he does here in this quote is he asks a series of questions, and like all good philosophers, Novalis knows that the answer is in the questions and that the questions are more powerful than the answers. Novalis writes, What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then? Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/26859303

May 1, 2023 May Day, Karl Friedrich von Gaertner, Phebe Holder, Thomas Hoy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily's Fresh Kitchen by Emily Maxson, and Calvin Fletcher 05/01/2023

May 1, 2023 May Day, Karl Friedrich von Gaertner, Phebe Holder, Thomas Hoy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily's Fresh Kitchen by Emily Maxson, and Calvin Fletcher Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Historical Events 1772 Karl Friedrich von Gaertner, German botanist, is born. Karl Friedrich von Gaertner had a fantastic last name; Gaertner translates to mean gardener. Karl was a second-generation gardener. His dad was Joseph Gaertner, the great German botanist and horticulturist, so Karl essentially stepped in his father's footsteps. Karl's claim to fame was his work with hybrids with hybridizing plants. Along with other botanists, he laid the foundation for Gregor Mendel, who discovered the basic principles of heredity through his experiments with peas in his garden at the Augustinian monastery he lived in at Brno ("BURR-no") in the Czech Republic. 1890 Phebe Holder's poem, A Song of May, appeared in newspapers this month. In addition to her religious poems, Phebe wrote about the natural world. Gardeners delight in her poems for spring and fall. Phebe is a fabulous New England Victorian poet and gardener I love and admire. She loved the delicate plants of springtime and wrote a poem called A Song of May. What song hast thou, sweet May, for me, My listening ear what song for thee? A song of life from growing things, The life thy gentle presence brings; The tender light of budding spray. The blooming down on willow grey, The living green that earth overspreads, The creamy flowers on mossy beds. From blossoms pure with petals white As pressed from out the moonbeam's light. The fragrant lily of the vale, The violet's breath on passing gale: Anemones mid last year's*leaves, Arbutus sweet in trailing wreaths, From waving lights of forest glade The light ferns hiding neath the shade. A song of joy from wood and plain, From birds in old-time haunts again; The silvery laugh of tuneful rill O'er rocky bed, down craggy hill; Soft coming of warm dropping showers, The sighing wind in piney bowers; The music breathed by low-voiced waves, For listening, from ocean caves, A plaintive strain doth memory sing, A breathing of departed Spring: An unseen Presence in the home, A spirit voice-"The Master's come!". While hearts in tender sorrow wept O'er one beloved who silent slept, Who in the May-time long ago Passed the pearl gates of glory through. A grateful song, our God, to Thee For treasures of the earth and sea; For all the beauty Thou hast given; A dream to loving hearts, of heaven; A song of life, of joy, of love, Of trust, of faith in light adore This offering on thy shrine I lay; This song hast thou for me, sweet May. Phebe's A Song of May recalls the flowers of spring. In the second verse, she's touching on many great spring beauties: the Lily of the Valley, violets, anemones, The Mayflower (also known as the trailing arbutus), and then, of course, ferns. In May, fern fronds cover the woodlands and understories. All of these spring plants emerge very quickly once they get growing. The ground transforms from leaf-littered - brown, drab, and dreary - to excellent with beautiful little blossoms. 1822 Thomas Hoy, English gardener, horticulturist, and botanist, died. Thomas was a dedicated gardener and head gardener for the Duke of Northumberland for over four decades - so he worked with plants his entire life. Thomas was a fellow of the Linnaean Society and liked to show his work at various plant societies And outings. Thomas is remembered as an experienced botanist and a capable cultivator. He was very good at his job. In fact, he was so good that the botanist Robert Brown named a popular plant genus for Thomas Hoy. Can you guess what it is? Well, if you were thinking Hoya, you are correct. The Hoya is a beautiful way to be remembered and honored. I love Hoyas. I picked up a couple of variegated Hoyas over the winter, and I'm so excited to see what the flower looks like. Overall the Hoya is a gorgeous plant named for the intelligent, thoughtful, and dedicated gardener Thomas Hoy, who died on this day when he was 72. 1867 Ralph Waldo Emerson inscribed a copy of his book, May Day, to Sophie Thoreau, the devoted sister of Henry David Thoreau. May Day is a collection of Emerson's writing and poems and includes the line, "Why chidest thou the tardy spring?" from his May Day poem. Why chidest thou the tardy Spring? The hardy bunting does not chide; The blackbirds make the maples ring With social cheer and jubilee; The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee, The robins know the melting snow; The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed, Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves, Secure the osier yet will hide Her callow brood in mantling leaves; And thou, by science all undone, Why only must thy reason fail To see the southing of the sun? In other words, why be upset that spring is late? Spring has everything in hand. Don't be angry about nature's timing. A library first shared this inscription with Ralph Waldo Emerson's beautiful handwriting. About a decade after receiving the book, Sophie gifted the book to her friend Mabel Loomis and inscribed the transfer in the book. If you're looking for a sentimental month of May gift or have a May birthday and want to give something unique, look for an old copy of May Day by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It's a beautiful gift. Well, it turns out that May 1st is a great day to release a brand new gardening book, and so I thought I'd wrap up today's botanical history with three great garden books released on May 1st. 2001 If you're into growing mountain plants, Alpine plants, wildflowers, etc., and if you have a cold climate, you'll enjoy this book. 2015 2018 Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation This book came out in January of 2022, and the subtitle is Cook Your Way to Better Health. I must be honest and let you know that I stumbled on this book at my local Goodwill and was immediately taken with it. I think it's fantastic. And I can't believe I missed it last year, so I'm playing catch up here. But the cover captivated me because it features a great soup - Her Roasted Butternut with Sage Soup infused with Coconut Cream. I bet it's fantastic. It sure makes for a pretty cover. And I must say that all of the pictures in this book are beautiful. I wanted to share a little bit about Emily because her story has inspired so much of her work, and she writes, After a Crohn's disease diagnosis at age 28 and over a decade of unsuccessful traditional treatment, Emily Maxson discovered the specific carbohydrate diet's positive effects and food's transformative power to improve health. She's a trained chef who poured her heart into creating delectable dishes that meet her diet's rigorous guidelines. So the diet that she's following is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. If you haven't heard about it, Emily is an expert. And for her, the diet has led to a healthier and happier life. Now, if you're curious about this and can't wait to get the book, head over to her website - it's the same name as the book title. You will find incredible recipes, inspiring stories, and photos there. She does a top-notch job. I also want to share more about this Specific Carbohydrate Diet because you're probably curious. This is a primarily plant-based diet, which is great for gardeners who want to eat fresh from the garden. And here's what Emily writes about on page nine of her book. Following this diet, I cooked myself out of disease and into good health. While the diet was strict, the results were miraculous. It was such a blessing not to have to take medications or to spend time in hospitals, my gut was healthy again, and I was able to start introducing foods that were not allowed while following the diet. Today, I strive for my diet to be 80% plant-based. I focus on fiber and try to get a variety of plant foods in my diet daily, including some gluten-free whole grains. This diet and way of life are working for her. Consequently, Emily has written a great cookbook with lots of ideas. I thought what I would do is walk you through the chapters here. First, she does a quick overview of what's in her pantry. Then, she talks about her favorite kitchen tools. I love the gadgets, and I love her tips on this. Emily has an excellent section on salads, main dishes, soups, sides, breakfast, and smoothies. That's a critical section for me because I always feel like if I can nail down what I'm having for breakfast, the rest of the day goes well. Then she shares appetizers and savory snacks, which is a good section, too. I've been looking for delicious things I can eat in the evenings. I will check this out. The next chapter covers sweets, treats, condiments, dressings, and spice blends. This is an essential tool, especially if you're going to a plant-based diet because you don't want to lose the flavor. And then drinks and cocktails. Emily is pretty thorough, and it's easy to tell that this is an entire lifestyle for her. She's mastered this, and she can use her own story as a testament to the fact that it does work; to cook your way to better health. This book is 284 pages of nutritious and flavorful dishes that will help heal your body and get you back on the road to health. This is a great gift book if you're looking for an excellent garden-to-table cookbook. Botanic Spark 1859 On this day, Calvin Fletcher, American attorney, banker, farmer, and state senator in Indianapolis, wrote these words in his diary: This a most delightful Sabbath morn and the anniversary of my leaving Westford, Massachusetts in 1817 forty two years ago. [It's] also the anniversary of my alliance to my sainted wife in 1821 thirty eight years ago to day. Both days are of great beauty & loveliness. This morn I worked my garden & retrospected on the past. Brought up the enumerable reasons for gratitude to Almighty God for the undeserved blessings have enjoyed. All nature seemed to accord to my strain of thought. Bless the Lord O! my soul & all that is within me say Amen! Mrs. F. & I went to Westly Chapel to hear E. preach from the Canticles (Solomon's Songs): "The winter is past & the time of singing of birds has come..." Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/26721933

April 25, 2023 John Mulso, Thomas Jefferson, George Herbert Engleheart, David Fairchild, Harry Radlund, Leslie Young Carrethers, The Gardener's Guide to Prairie Plants by Neil Diboll and Hilary Cox, and Maurice Baring Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Historical Events 1766 John Mulso writes to his friend English naturalist, Gilbert White, in Selborne Gilbert White was born in 1720, So he was 46 when he received this letter from John. At the time. Gilbert had been keeping a journal about the goings on in his garden. Gilbert kept a journal for about three decades, and it was eventually published to the delight of readers everywhere. Today people still love reading through Gilbert White's notations, drawings, and comments. Gilbert had a knack for observing the natural world and describing in a relatable way all the goings on outdoors. Gilbert was very curious. He was also really personable. When John Mulso begins his letter with a comment on the garden, he finds a point of agreement. Vegetation thrives apace now, and I suppose you are quite intent on your new study. You will not perhaps relish a Prospect the worse when we force you to look up, as presume you will go with your eyes fixed on the ground most part of the summer. You will pass with country folks as a man always making sermons, while you are only considering a Weed. John makes a very astute observation - Gilbert liked gardening more than anything else on Earth. Gilbert was like many pastors or reverends of his time who also pursued their hobbies as naturalists or gardeners. During the growing season, it was coming for a naturalist parson to get distracted by their gardens. 1809 A retired Thomas Jefferson enjoyed spending most of his time in his garden. (Finally!) In the spring of this year. Thomas was no longer consumed with the duties of being president. We know that in the last year of his presidency, he spent many hours pining for his garden and accumulating plants from his friend Bernard McMann and other plantsmen. So in April of 1809, Thomas Jefferson was living his dream and his best life as a gardener. He wrote to his friend, Etienne Lemaire, on this day, I am constantly in my garden or farms. And am exclusively employed out of doors as I was within doors when I was at Washington. I find myself infinitely happier in my new mode of life. Isn't that an interesting observation? Comments like that may pass unnoticed, but this change in seasons, the warmer weather, and getting outdoors is powerful medicine. Spending time outdoors plays a role in our attitudes and our moods. We get more vitamin D we feel more energy. This time of year, we eat the fresh green offerings from our gardens, whether microgreens or asparagus. The rhubarb is popping. You can even eat some hosta leaves, little tiny rolled-up cigars, as they emerge from the Earth. You can cut and fry them up in a pan the same way you would asparagus. (If they're good enough for the deer, they're good enough for us.) They're pretty tasty. The key is to harvest them early - just like you would the fiddleheads. The joys of spring... 1851 George Herbert Engleheart, English pastor and plant breeder, was born. Like Gilbert White, George Herbert Engleheart was a gardener and a pastor. In 1889, George began breeding daffodils - some 700 varieties in his lifetime. Sadly many of them have been lost to time, but we know that some survived. Fans of 'Beersheba,' 'Lucifer,' or 'White Lady' owe a debt of gratitude to Reverend Engleheart. Engleheart spent every spare minute breeding, and his parishioners would often find a note tacked to the church door saying, "No service today, working with daffodils." Engleheart's charming note reminds me of the little notes that gardeners hang on their porches or somewhere on their front door saying something sweet, like, " in the garden." And if you don't have one of those signs, you can grab a little chalkboard and a little twine And make your own. 1905 On this day, David Fairchild, the great botanist, married Marian Graham Bell, the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell. Marian and David Fairchild had a long and happy marriage. When David went on his plant explorations, Marian would often accompany him. Together the couple had three children. David Fairchild is considered American botanical royalty for all his collecting and the sheer quantity of his plant introductions, including items like pistachios, mangoes, dates, soybeans, flowering cherries, and nectarines. Without David Fairchild, we would not have cherry trees blooming in Washington, DC. We also might not have kale at Trader Joe's. (David Fairchild is the man who brought kale to the United States.) David also got the avocado here as well. David Fairchild had a fair amount of luck in his life. He had a generous benefactor in a wealthy woman named Barbara Latham, who funded many of his adventures. Of course, by marrying Marian, David had access to the connections of his famous father-in-law. Today you can continue to learn about David Fairchild and see his legacy at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida. It is filled with many of the plants that David himself collected. And, of course, it's named in his honor. 1911 Harry Radlund, a gardener from Kilborne, Wisconsin, shared his garden successes with a plantsman named Henry Field. In 1911, Henry announced a garden contest for his customers to encourage good gardening. Later, he put their stories together in The Book of a Thousand Gardens. In the forward, Henry wrote, I requested them to send in the stories of their gardens, true unvarnish- ed stories telling what they grew, how they grew it, what paid best, how big the garden was, what troubles they had, and how they overcame them. Also asked them to send in some pictures if possible. These letters are the result. And they are the most interesting batch of letters I ever read. They are real heart to heart talks, told in their own language and in their own way. And the pictures, well you can look at them for yourself. Every garden was a real garden not a paper garden. The people were real people like you and I and our neighbors. There were men and women and boys and little girls and old bachelors. They were all garden cranks and garden lovers. You can learn more by a study of these letters than by reading all the text books in creation. You get the real stuff here. Real experience. The only trouble was, I run short of room in the book. It would have taken a book as big as Webster's Unabridged to hold them all in full. Here's Harry's garden story from 1911: On April 23d, I planted some kale seed from you. We tried to raise kale for ten years but never had any success. This year, the best is about 3 1/2 feet high and about three feet wide without spreading the leaves. On the same day planted some dill, parsley, onion seed and onion sets. The dill grew good and went to seed, the parsley didn't grow very good. My early cabbage grew good and all the heads were used. The first planting of radishes was on April 25th, and I have had radishes all summer. The Shenandoah tomatoes in the garden are dandies, the best we ever had. So are the cucumbers. My cauliflower didn't grow very well in the warm weather, but is growing fine now. 1948 Leslie Young Carrethers, American poet & artist, died. So much about Leslie has been lost to time. But one of his accomplishments is little garden poetry books that are very challenging to find nowadays. I got my copies on eBay, and I love them. I think they're so precious and filled with little poetry about various garden plants, trees, and nature. Now, these books are tiny little pamphlets. Leslie produced about half a dozen or so. They've got adorable little titles, like These Shady Friends (about trees), blooming Friends, and More Blooming Friends. Now Leslie's friends called him Reggie. I didn't realize this until recently when I stumbled on some more research about him. But this clue leads me to think that one of the little books I bought on eBay was one of Reggie's copies because he signed it, making it even more precious to me. But I thought I would share a few little snippets from Leslie to give you a taste. He's whimsical when he writes and coves the garden and plants. Here's a little poem that he wrote about Lemon Verbena. If I were allowed only to grow One fragrant herb I know I'd choose Lemon Verbena. Oh yes, my views Are prejudiced, I'll admit ts so. But I love the way She scents my garden At close of day On a silver plate, In a crystal bowl A spray of her leaves Delights my soul. And then here's a poem that he wrote about the Foxglove. The fox-glove in the garden Is very, very sly. She always looks at the earth below- Not at the passer-by. But I will tell her secret, Known only to birds and trees When no one is near With her spotted lips She eats the bumble-bees. Finally, here's his poem about Monkshood. Beware of the Monkshood- His deep purple cowl Is a tricky disguise- He's as wise as an owl. You may think that he bends his head over to pray- He doesn't he brews fearful poisons all day. He's a wicked magician, by evil obsessed Don't be tricked by his acting nor how he is dressed. I hope this gives you a tiny sampling of the charming poetry of Leslie Young Carrethers. Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation This book came out this year. It's another brand-new book for gardeners and an invaluable reference for Prairie plants. So, if you are working with native plants, putting together a tiny meadow, as we discussed with yesterday's book, . or if you want to add to your garden reference collection, then this book is truly a gem. Here's what Doug Tallamy wrote about this book. If you are looking for the complete- and I do mean complete - guide to than this much-needed book. Diboll and Cox cover not only what prairie species look prairie ecosystems, you will not do better like each of their growth stages (a first!), they also dive deep into their historical and ecological roles in prairie ecosystems. So overall, this book is an excellent book and reference guide. One feature I love about this book is how they produced the cover. Even though it's a paperback, it's a little more firm plastic-coated cover, making it wipable. So I imagine having this book in the car with me or in the garden and handling the use and abuse. Now I want to take a second and say, have you ever seen Neil Diboll? (Maybe you are lucky enough to have attended one of his workshops or presentations.) But I want to say he is the friendliest-looking guy, and he is so approachable in how he shares information. I've watched some videos of him on YouTube, and he is frank and genuinely passionate about plants. In short, He is an excellent, very generous speaker and expert in the area of native plants, Prairie plants. Meadows wildflowers and the like, so the minute I saw that he was one of the authors of this book, I immediately put a little heart by it, and I was like, yes, I need to see this copy so that I can see what he did - And now I can also tell you about it. Now I will walk you through how the book is structured, But I won't get too deep in the weeds here. No pun intended. I will walk you through each of the chapters. So the book starts with the history and ecology of the Prairie. They also talk about understanding your soil, which is essential for growing anything, much less Prairie plants. Then they discuss how to design, plant, and maintain Prairie gardens. Chapter five is significant because it talks about all the different types of plants; it's a Prairie species field guide. They go into great detail about monocots and dichotomy. Grasses and sedges. This is about 300-plus pages worth of data here. Chapter Six is all about establishing a flourishing Prairie meadow. And so that dovetails nicely with yesterday's book, . So this would be a great companion piece to that book. I would say that book is more artistic and design oriented. This book is more of a reference. Chapter Seven talks about burning your Prairie safely. Chapter eight is about propagating Prairie plants from seed, which is pretty easy to do, and also a great way to save money because if you're creating a Prairie, you need to have plants in mass. Chapter Nine is about propagating plants vegetatively. So two excellent chapters on propagation there. Then Chapter 10 is an excellent addition to this book;l It's the Prairie food web. So there's a deep dive into that. And then there is a superb Chapter 11 at the back of the book that goes through the various Prairie seed mixes you might be intrigued by. So, if you are considering growing a Prairie - I had a friend do this a couple of years ago, and they did a beautiful job - but anyone who's raised a Prairie will tell you there is a science of growing a Prairie, which is precisely what is covered in this book - And then there is the art of developing a Prairie and maintaining a Prairie. So it's a little bit of both. It's the yin and yang of Prairie's, but this book will be an indispensable guide. If you are serious and curious about Prairie plants and native plants, especially if you're doing some restoration work, Maybe you are a landscaper, and you need to work with a lot of native plants; maybe you're just a gardener who has a passion for Prairie's Meadows, wildflowers and that type of thing, whatever your scenario, this is a great guide. It's also a heavy book - but it's not so heavy that it's cumbersome or unusable. This book is 636 pages- although it doesn't feel like it - of Prairie plants. Everything you need to know and A truly definitive guide. "A one-stop compendium" is what they say about this book on Amazon. It is a worthy investment. Botanic Spark 1917 On this day, Maurice Baring writes about flying over the Fourth Army among some nature entries in his WWI diary. Maurice was a soldier with the Royal Flying Corps, and I think Maurice would be surprised and delighted to know that his diary is part of a gardening podcast here in 2023. I found a lovely little review of his diary, which became a book called A War Diary by Maurice Baring. The reviewer wrote: The remarkable thing about his book is that although it has an objective quality, it is also extraordinarily personal. It is far from being a history of the work of the R.F.C. during the war. It attempts nothing of the kind. It is rather an account of the author during the war, and by noting down whatever interested him at the moment, whether it was the book he happened to be reading or a talk he had had, he conveys to us what the war was in reality to him. His irrelevancies are relevant to that. An enormous number of these entries might have been made in his diary if there had been no war going on. Yet their inclusion is precisely what conveys to us the sense of actuality. He has endless details to attend to, news and odd rumours pour in from all sides, men are fighting and being killed (often he stops to record the death of a friend), yet his other interests persist. He is not always thinking about the war he copies out passages from the books he reads, quotes the poets, translates Horace; speculates about this and that, trusting that if he puts down all these things without emphasis, picture of what the war was actually like IS an experience to live through at H.Q. will be left in the reader's mind. Entries follow each other pell-mell. These are typical pages. Dip in anywhere and you will find the same drift of unconnected observations and unaccentuated records, noted down simply and quickly, by a man sensitive to many sides of life. Read the whole book and a curious ineffaceable impression remains of a confused process of human activity and emotion rushing on, on, on, in a definite direction, like a train which carries its passengers, now looking out of the windows, now talking together, now occupied with their own memories, on to a terminus. Such is Mr. Baring's record of the war. As a gardener, I am delighted by the number of times Maurice mentions some plant or something happening in nature. The natural world was an anchor for him amid wartime chaos and heartbreak. Here's what Maurice wrote: On April 25th, 1917: We heard two shots in the air on the way there on the way back, just as we were this side of the Somme, a kite balloon was shot down and floated down into the river. We were looking at this; at that moment a scout appeared in the sky, and came swooping towards us. I thought it was a German, and that we were going to land looking down at the shelled condition of the ground. I was terrified. It turned out to be an S.E.It was bitterly cold : the earth looked like was a photograph: a war photograph. April 26th. I cannot read any more, not another line of the Golden Bowl by Henry James. April 28th. The garden full of oxlips and cowslips. The trees are red with sap. The hedges are budding. April 20th. We went to Vert Galant to see Harvey Kelly, who commands No. 19 Squadron... He always took a potato and a reel of cotton with him when he went over the lines. The Germans, he said, would be sure to treat him well if he had to land on the other side, and they found him provided with such useful and scarce commodities. He was the first pilot to land in France. A little look back at WWI through the eyes of a nature lover, a gardener, and a pilot. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/26656470

April 24, 2023 Jakob Böhme, Robert Bailey Thomas, Paul George Russell, Charles Sprague Sargent, Purple Mustard, Pansies, Kurume Azaleas, Tiny and Wild by Graham Laird Gardner, and Solar System Garden Subscribe | | | | Support The Daily Gardener Connect for FREE! | Historical Events 1575 Birth of Jakob Böhme, German original thinker. Jakob Böhme did a great deal of thinking and writing, not only about theology and Christianity but also about the natural world. Here's what Mary Oliver wrote about Böhme. I read Jacob Boehme and am caught in his shining web. Here are Desire and Will that should be (he says) as two arms at one task; in my life they are less cooperative. Will keeps sliding away down the hill to play when work is called for and Desire piously wants to labor when the best season of merriment is around me. Troublemakers both of them them. And another writer I admire and enjoy is Elizabeth Gilbert. Elizabeth wrote about Jakob Böhme in her book, The Signature of All Things. The title of her book is from something that Jakob Böhme had written. Jacob Boehme was a sixteenth-century cobbler from Germany who had mystical visions about plants. Many people considered him an early botanist. Alma's mother, on the other hand, had considered him a cesspool of residual medieval superstition. So there was considerable conflict of opinion surrounding Jacob Boehme. The old cobbler had believed in something he called the signature of all things"- namely, that God had hidden clues for humanity's betterment inside the design of every flower, leaf, fruit, and tree on earth. All the natural world was a divine code, Boehme claimed, containing proof of our Creator's love. 1766 Robert Bailey Thomas, founder, editor, and publisher of The Old Farmer's Almanac, is born. Robert made his first edition - his very first copy of The Old Farmer's Almanac -back in 1792. 1889 Paul George Russell, American botanist, is born. Paul George Russell was born in Liverpool, New York. He worked as a botanist for the United States government for over five decades. Paul George Russell went on collecting trips in Northern Mexico. He's remembered in the names of several different plants, including the Verbena russellii, a woody flowering plant that is very pretty. And he's also remembered in the naming of the Opuntia russellii, which is a type of prickly pear cactus. Now during his career, Paul George Russell could identify plants based on what their seeds looked like. One of the ways that he developed this skill is he compiled a seed bank of over 40,000 different types of sources. Today Paul George is most remembered for his work with cherry trees. He was a vital part of the team that was created to install the living architecture of Japanese cherry trees around the Washington Tidal Basin. Paul George Russell put together a little bulletin, a little USDA circular called Oriental Flowering Cherries, in March 1934. It was his most impressive work. His guide provided all kinds of facts and detailed information about the trees just when it was needed most. People were curious about the cherry trees and fell utterly in love with them once they saw them blooming in springtime. Paul George Russell passed away at the age of 73 after having a heart attack. On a poignant note, he was supposed to see his beloved cherry trees in bloom with his daughter. They had planned a trip to go to the tidal basin together. But unfortunately, that last visit never happened. So this year, when you see the cherry trees bloom, raise a trowel to Paul, George Russell, and remember him and his fine work. And if you can get your hands on a copy of that 72-page circular he created in 1934, that's a find. It's all still good information. 1841 Charles Sprague Sargent, American botanist, is born. He was the first director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum. Charles was known for being a little curmudgeonly. He was pretty stoic. One of my favorite stories about Charles was the day he went on an exploration of mountains. The botanist accompanying him could hardly contain himself when they stopped at a spot of singular beauty. The botanist was jumping around and shouting for joy, and he looked over at Charles Sprague Sargent and said something to the effect of "How can you stand there and say and do nothing amidst this incredible beauty?" That's one of my favorite stories and a glimpse into the personality of Charles Sprague Sargent. 1914 James M. Bates observed a deep violet patch of blooming flowers in an alfalfa field in Arcadia Valley County in Nebraska. James wrote about the experience in a publication called The American Botanist. The plant that James was writing about was Chorispora tenella, which is in the mustard family. It is known by several common names, including purple mustard, Musk mustard, or the cross flower - because it's a crucifer meaning the flowers are in a cross shape. Now the name Musk flower has to do with the fragrance, the smell;, on a website for Colorado wildflowers, the author wrote, I think they smell of Crayola crayons, warmed and melting in the sun. And so I called this plant, the crayon plant. So purple mustard or Muskflower, however, you call it, is edible, in case you were wondering. The backyard forger writes that You can snip the top four to six inches off of each plant. Including the flowers, which are not only edible, but pretty, now you might be asking yourself, how could I use purple mustard And feast magazine says this purple mustard can be used much the same way as you would. Other mustards Spread some on your next arugala sandwich. Serve it alongside pickles and crusty bread with charcuterie. Whisk a teaspoon into your vinaigrettes instead of Dijon. So there are some uses for your purple mustard. 1916 Today Vassar College honored Shakespeare on the 300th anniversary of his death by planting pansies. Students from Winifred Smith's Shakespeare class and Emmeline Moore's botany class planted the pansies in a garden on the school grounds. And, of course, Shakespeare referred to pansies as the flower for thoughts. A flower that can withstand the cold, pansies have a chemical, essentially nature's antifreeze, that allows it to fight those cold temperatures. The Canadian naturalist Charles Joseph Sariol once said that pansies should be grown from seed. Beatrix Potter liked Pansies. And the happy poet Edgar Albert Guest wrote about pansies in verse from his poem To Plant a Garden. If you'd get away from boredom, And find new delights to look for, Learn the joy of budding pansies, Which you've kept a special nook for. Pansies are a happy flower and a great way to honor Shakespeare. 1919 Ernest H. Wilson worked at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and received a shipment of Kurume azaleas from Japan. Ernest wrote, "104 azaleas were unpacked at the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard, and all were found alive. Considering the length of their journey. They were in good condition." Ernest also alludes to the fact that he had to work on nurturing his relationship with his growers and gardeners. The Kurume azaleas were grown by a Japanese gardener who had "a reluctance to part with them". And so the fact that these azaleas made it to America was in no small measure due to the relationship building and people skills of Ernest Henry Wilson - something that doesn't often get enough attention when we think about plant explorers. Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation Graham has the perfect last name for a garden author - Gardner. I mean, how'd that happen? In any case, this is a beautiful book. It's one of the prettiest books for gardeners this year. And the subtitle is Build a Small-Scale Meadow Anywhere. So, of course, we're talking about creating tiny Meadows on your property. The cover of this book had to be appealing; there are a lot of attractive purple flowers in the meadows, of course. The cover illustrates how you can integrate wildflowers - flowers you will find in Meadows that you can use in your outdoor living spaces and garden designs- and how those flowers play an essential role in our ecosystems. Now Graham kicks things off in this book by asking, "Why a mini meadow?" (I will share my thoughts on why a mini meadow might be just the ticket for your garden after Graham's appeal.) Graham writes, You've heard the calling for a more resilient biodiverse garden, full of flowers and movement that's inspired by natural plant communities and the wild spaces around you. Perhaps you feel a sense of nostalgia for the wilderness of your childhood? Or need to invite wild places home. Do you have a balcony or an underperforming section of yard? Maybe you have an area of lawn you'd like to convert or a section of your veggie plot you'd like to devote to attracting more pollinators and other beneficial insects; however, you're not quite sure where to begin. And so, of course, many Meadows might be the solution that you've been looking for. Now, when I think about answering the question, "Why mini-meadows?" I think the timing is correct in terms of design trends and acceptance. We've all been exposed to Piet Oudolf's gardens, and he's been incorporating plants like grasses and wildflowers for so long. He's been painting our public spaces with his version of Meadows - beautiful, beautiful Meadows - that are handpicked and planted to maximize beauty. So I think gardeners are ready for this book. The other day, I talked to my neighbor across the street, and she shares a common pond area with other neighbors. And for most of the year, it can be rather unsightly, especially if we're going through a drought. And so she was wondering what they could do, what they should be planting, and I think the answer is found in this book with many of the plants that would go in a meadow. Think of all kinds of grasses, wildflowers, and of course, incorporating lots of native plants - embracing the wildness that you find along so many of our waterways, whether it's a river, a brook, or a pond, for instance. Now the chapters in this book are as follows: First, find inspiration in your parks and the plant communities that are around you. The second chapter talks about the importance of site selection. Don't underestimate this because, as the saying goes for real estate and houses when you're going to home your plants, you need to think about location, location, location. Then the third chapter talks about design tips for your mini meadow -how to combine the beauty and the function of a field in your garden. The next couple of chapters get into the nitty-gritty of installing a meadow, which isn't as complicated as it sounds, but it's great to have a detailed guide like this to help you remember all the little details. Chapter Six talks about how to maintain your meadow, which is Probably the most crucial chapter in the book, and it's where the bulk of your annual laborers will come into play. And then, chapter seven is the fun chapter - What to Plant. Here Graham shares a bunch of different plant lists and charts so that you can pick the perfect plants for your tiny metal. I love that. So in the past couple of years, you've heard me talk about planting mini orchards, Reforesting with mini forests - and now we are here, building Tiny and wild Meadows In our gardens. Botanic Spark 1916 On this day, a small garden known as Foundation Stone was installed at Farm Leigh house in Phoenix Park. A man named Patrick Pearse helped christen the garden with a commemorative speech. This unique garden was a reflection of the solar system on that very day. So the planets and their alignment were perfectly represented by nine lichen-covered boulders positioned to orbit a granite bowl, representing the sun. This simple garden with nine boulders and a granite bowl also incorporated circular ripples of grass around the boulders, accentuating their perfect placement in the garden, which mirrored the night sky. To me, this garden perfectly illustrates that there is no end to the amount of creativity we can use when it comes to garden design. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day. /episode/index/show/thedailygardener/id/26644179

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