Podcast appearances and mentions of elizabeth lawrence

This week we're wrapping up season three with an incredible guest. Elizabeth Lawrence's design origin story is one to inspire – rising from intern to partner at one of the most prestigious interior design firms in the country. Originally hailing from Wilmington, Delaware, the classically trained interior designer attended the University of Richmond and then the New York School of Interior Design. After graduation, a coveted internship with Bunny Williams led to a job as a Junior Designer, and she rose through the ranks, from Senior Designer to becoming the firm's first ever Partner – a major accomplishment.Together, Elizabeth and Bunny run Williams Lawrence, the interior design firm formerly known as Bunny Williams Inc., and the firm's product line, Bunny Williams Home. Elizabeth has been honored by the New York School of Interior Design, and her work has been widely published in media outlets including Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Veranda, Galerie, Milieu, and others, as well as being featured in Bunny's newest interior design course on Create Academy, “How to Design Your Dream Home.”Thank you again for joining us for this season and stay tuned for season three coming this Spring!

This week on Talk Shop, Ariel welcomes one of the most talented names in design, the queen of contemporary American decorating, Bunny Williams. Known for balancing refined beauty, welcoming livable appeal, and attention to detail, Bunny is one of Architectural Digest's “AD100 Hall of Fame” members, among many other accolades. Born and raised in the countryside near Charlottesville, Virginia, Bunny moved to New York after college and kicked off her career at the antique gallery Stair & Co., followed by 22 years with the iconic design firm, Parish-Hadley Associates. In 1998, Bunny founded her own firm, Bunny Williams Inc, and design history was made. Last year, Bunny welcomed business partner Elizabeth Lawrence to join her under the firm's new name, Williams Lawrence. Bunny's businesses include Bunny Williams Home, the firm's line of furnishings, lighting, art, and accessories; and licensed product lines with Ballard Designs, Lee Jofa, Dash & Albert, Currey & Company, and Mirror Home.  And if that doesn't keep her busy enough, Bunny is the author of eight design books and is a sought-after speaker and mentor on decoration, gardening, and entertaining. Her most recent book,  “Bunny Williams: Life in the Garden,”, leads readers on an intimate look at her much celebrated home and gardens in the Connecticut Berkshires that she has spent the last 40 years developing.  Learn more about Bunny's firm, Williams Lawrence: https://williamslawrence.com/ Plus order a copy of your own of “Life in the Garden”: https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847899692 -- Join Ariel and Fenimore Lane at the Mayflower Inn & Spa in Washington, CT for a celebration of design on Saturday, May 18th. Pick up your tickets now: https://aubergeresorts.com/mayflower/experiences/fenimore-lane-design-summit/

Diane and Sean discuss the Julia Roberts thriller, Sleeping with the Enemy. Episode music is, "Symphonie Fantastique 4th Movement" by Berlioz.-  Our theme song is by Brushy One String-  Artwork by Marlaine LePage-  Why Do We Own This DVD?  Merch available at Teepublic-  Follow the show on social media:-  IG: @whydoweownthisdvd- Tumblr: WhyDoWeOwnThisDVD-  Follow Sean's Plants on IG: @lookitmahplantsSupport the show

Today's Mystery: A woman's lover alleges that she was killed by her husband.Original Radio Broadcast Date: March 24, 1957Originated from: New YorkStarring: Nat Polen as Assistant Distict Attorney Edward McCormick, Jack Arthur, Marjorie Gateson, Elizabeth Lawrence, Bernard Grant, George Petrie, Mason Adams, Guy RappSupport the show monthly at patreon.greatdetectives.netSupport the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715Take the listener survey at http://survey.greatdetectives.netGive us a call at 208-991-4783Follow us on Instagram at http://instagram.com/greatdetectivesFollow us on Twitter @radiodetectivesJoin us again tomorrow for another detective drama from the Golden Age of Radio.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4607052/advertisement

Bunny Williams and Elizabeth Lawrence are the principals of Williams Lawrence—a firm that, until a few weeks ago, was known as Bunny Williams Interior Design. Lawrence, who started working with Williams as an intern, has risen through the ranks for two decades to become partner. On this episode of the podcast, she and Williams speak with host Dennis Scully about the lost art of patience in the design industry and their thoughts on Kips Bay, TikTok and AI.This episode is sponsored by Loloi Rugs  and Room & BoardLINKSWilliams LawrenceDennis ScullyBusiness of Home

"Turnabout: An Ace Attorney Musical" is a stage musical by the Maya Fey Protection Squad (Abigail Stanton, Diana Heslin, Elizabeth Lawrence, Katherine Leister, Joel Williams, Maxwell Dziabis, Olivia Ramsey, and Sarah Shope), presented for free as fan-art. It is adapted from the original animation screenplay of "Turnabout Musical" by PW Musical Productions and the stage script of "Turnabout Musical LIVE!" by Diana Heslin & Sarah Shope. It is based on the video game "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" by CAPCOM. This video presents an AUDIO-ONLY production (concept album and table read) of ACT ONE of "Turnabout: An Ace Attorney Musical", produced by Nerdification Media

"Turnabout: An Ace Attorney Musical" is a stage musical by the Maya Fey Protection Squad (Abigail Stanton, Diana Heslin, Elizabeth Lawrence, Katherine Leister, Joel Williams, Maxwell Dziabis, Olivia Ramsey, and Sarah Shope), presented for free as fan-art. It is adapted from the original animation screenplay of "Turnabout Musical" by PW Musical Productions and the stage script of "Turnabout Musical LIVE!" by Diana Heslin & Sarah Shope. It is based on the video game "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" by CAPCOM. This video presents an AUDIO-ONLY production (concept album and table read) of ACT TWO of "Turnabout: An Ace Attorney Musical", produced by Nerdification Media

We welcome Elizabeth Lawrence, Interior Designer and Partner at Bunny Williams Inc. Elizabeth is an iconic designer known for her layered approach to traditional interiors, and her work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Elle Decor House, and much more. Elizabeth talks about her journey from intern to partner with Bunny, a few of her favorite Bunny-isms that make a room feel layered and comfortable, and some current things she's loving in 2023. Elizabeth talks about her personal jumping-off point when starting in a home and how to add more creature comforts to your home. What You'll Hear on This Episode: Elizabeth talks about her journey from intern to partner. How does Elizabeth's personal style both align and dovetail with Bunny's? The one color both she and Bunny aren't a fan of. What about an unusual space that doesn't have a natural layout? Are there different types of seating or things that one could try? Ideas for moving around furniture in a simple way that yields powerful changes. Mentioned in This Episode: Ballard Designs Elizabeth Lawrence IG Bunny Williams Home Decorating Dilemma First, congratulations on a beautiful house that already has some great and older details! Elizabeth sees your vision for wanting to show off the trim around the windows, and an important thing to remember is that every room doesn't have to be the same. For curtains, something not too heavy with a thin metal rod would be read. It's also really pretty to paint the trim color, and you can pick one of the nice colors in the wallpaper and accent both the trim and the ceiling with it. For the ceiling, Elizabeth recommends a hint of gray, blue, pink, or something light and beautiful. We like the wallpaper and the color options that it gives you, and you are lucky to have some good choices! Keep us updated, and thanks again for writing in.

Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee    Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter |  Daily Gardener Community   Historical Events 1844 Birth of Helene Cramer, German landscape and flower painter.  Helen and her sister Molly were both painters in Hamburg, Germany. Their father, Cesar, disapproved of them as painters, so the two women didn't start painting until middle age. (Helen was 38 when she first picked up a brush.)  Helen and Molly exhibited their art throughout Germany and at the 1883 World's Fair in Chicago. Most folks say that their favorite Helene Cramer painting is her work called "Marsh Marigolds and Crown Imperials." In 1916, Helen died at 72. She and Molly are buried in Plot 27 of the "Garten der Frauen," or the Garden of Women at the Hamburg Ohlsdorf cemetery.   1888 Birth of Harry Saier, American nurseryman, printer, and garden writer. In 1911, Harry started his seed company in Lansing, Michigan. A 1916 newspaper ad encouraged women to "help beautify Lansing by a pretty home garden." Harry pledged,  We supply everything necessary for making your home and lawn a beauty spot. We have assembled a rare collection of beautiful shrubs, trees, flowers and seeds. Lovers of horticulture will find much to interest them here. By the fall of that same year, Harry posted an ad for: [A] lady to canvass city for shrubs, seeds and garden supplies. Harry acquired a new building at 3 West Michigan Avenue for his florist shop three years later. Newspapers reported that, A resplendent posy shop [was] to open. One of the features of the... shop will be an icebox, which will be the largest in the state of Michigan for its purpose. It will measure twelve [by six and made] entirely of glass and... decorated with German silver trimmings.  ...The new marble tables... will be arranged about a large fountain which will occupy the center of the building.  In 1926, Harry moved his operation to the century farm he bought on highway 99 in Dimondale. Harry was known for producing his exceptional and exhaustive garden catalog. He included a pronunciation list, plant descriptions, and miscellaneous advice.  Throughout the 40s, 50s, and 60s, if someone were looking for a plant or seeds, they would usually find their way to Harry as their last best hope. Katherine White wrote about Harry's work in her book Onward and Upward in the Garden: Consider the case of Harry E. Saier, who issues three or four catalogues a year, each of them listing as many as eighteen hundred genera and eighteen thousand kinds of seed.  Mr. Saier is not a grower but a collector and distributor of seeds... [he] primarily depends on his two hundred seed collectors, who are stationed all over the world, and on commercial growers from many countries. There is nothing beautiful about his latest catalogue and its hundred and seventy-six pages of small-print lists, interspersed with occasional dim photographs, but it is fascinating to browse in, translating, if you can, the abbreviations made necessary by lack of space.  ...His global lists of clients include nurseries, greenhouses, seedsmen, universities, botanical gardens, and drug manufacturers, but a third of them, he tells me, are amateurs like you and me.  And just to spark your nostalgia for simpler times, listen to Elizabeth Lawrence describe ordering from Harry. I find most plantsmen send their wares without cash, even when they have never heard of you, but I certainly would never ask them to. I am always in debt to Mr. Saier because he sends things at odd times, and I wake up in the night and remember that I have owed him a quarter for three years. After Harry died in 1976, JL Hudson inherited Harry's seed collection. Harry's Dimondale property is now a cemetery.   2017 On this day, the Beijing Crabapple Conference began. Conference-goers toured the Crabapple Garden, which featured many American cultivars like Brandywine, Cinderella, Molten Lava, Lollipop, and Madonna - all varieties created by Jim Zampini, a beloved nurseryman from Lake County, Ohio. During the conference, attendees learned that Jim had passed away at 85. Today, Jim's legacy lives on in his fantastic crabapple varieties like Centurion, Harvest Gold, Lancelot Dwarf, Sugar Tyme, and the Weeping Candied Apple. Generally speaking, a crabapple tree takes two to five years to bear fruit. Crabapples differ from standard apple trees in that they offer smaller fruit. Apples that are less than 2 inches in diameter are considered crabapples. And, Crabapples rarely grow taller than 25 feet high. If you want to plant a mini-orchard of Crabapple trees, space the saplings six to fifteen feet apart depending on the variety - plant tighter if you are planting dwarf or more upright varieties. Right now, crabapple trees are just starting to bloom in our 2022 gardens. Most gardeners agree that few flowering trees can rival the charm of a crabapple tree in flower. In Polish folklore, apple trees were considered dream trees. Sleeping under an apple tree was sure to cause a dream-filled sleep. And, placing an apple under a maiden's pillow could induce a dream of her future husband. In English folklore, crabapple seeds (called pips) were thrown into the fire on Valentine's Eve while chanting your true love's name. If the pips explode, your love will be true and will last forever.   Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation A Naturalist's Book of Wildflowers by Laura Martin  This book came out in 2021, and the subtitle is Celebrating 85 Native Plants in North America. Great topic. Before I tell you about this book, I want to point out Laura's incredible talent. She got her degree in botany from the University of Georgia, and she has worked as a naturalist at Georgia's Callaway Gardens. She even has a certificate in botanical art and illustration from the New York Botanical Gardens. And get this — she's published 25 books. When you see the cover of Laura's book, it's all the more special when you realize that she did all of the illustrations herself. Laura dedicated this book to her grandchildren, and I wanted to share with you what she wrote in the introduction because it gives us a little insight into Laura as a person. She writes. I have spent my entire life loving wildflowers. I grew up in the woods on the outskirts of the city and because my mother was a wildflower enthusiast, I became one too. So we have another great example of the love of flowers, the love of gardening, being passed down from one generation to the next.   And then Laura continues. I eventually acquired a bachelor's degree in botany and then a certification in botanical illustration. And the result is a naturalist book of wildflowers, celebrating 85 native plants of North America. And the celebration features scientific text, interesting folklore, detailed botanical drawings and whimsical sketches I have learned to look at plants from many different angles. And I'm happy to share this perspective with you.   As a gardener, I know you are going to love Laura's book, but even if you aren't all that much into gardening, don't be bashful about cracking open this book. Laura introduces us to these plants in a very, very friendly fashion. She's got one little paragraph called just a little botany, and she writes, Although it's not essential to know botany to appreciate wildflowers, it might make it a little more fun and interesting. And botany is just the study of plants.   It's that gentle, conversational tone that I think you're really going to like in Laura's book. There's one other aspect that I want to share with you about this book. Laura adds all these little images - these little doodles - in the margins. Laura also includes these incredible drawings of her subjects. She has the plant's name, and then underneath, in a script font, she has the Latin name for the plant. While the drawing of the plant is beautiful, of course, it is the text that she puts around the plant and the way that she places this information that I think makes these drawings extra unique. For instance, when she's talking about the Bellwort at the very top, she says it's 12 to 20 inches high in a script font, making you feel like you're looking at somebody's scrapbook. These little snippets are just marvelous and full of information and Laura's gentle perspective that you won't find in many other books. The publisher writes, A charmingly illustrated, keepsake and guide to native wild plants of North America.   This book is truly a delight. It's 288 pages of North American wildflowers in their myriad colors. By the way, Laura organized this book by plant color, which is so helpful. So if you have a blue garden or a pink garden, you'll be able to find the wildflowers of that color and then look up the ones you want to grow in your garden. You can get a copy of A Naturalist's Book of Wildflowers by Laura Martin and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $8.   Botanic Spark 1963 Every year on this day, April 14th, Japan celebrates Drew Day in honor of Kathleen Drew-Baker, a British phycologist. Phycology is the study of algae, and Kathleen was the first president of the British Phycological Society.  She was utterly devoted to learning everything about these often dismissed sea plants. Although she was forced to give up lecturing at the University of Manchester after getting married (the college did not allow married women to work), Kathleen continued as an unpaid researcher. Two decades later, in 1949, Kathleen figured out the mysterious life cycle of a red algae known as Welsh Porphyra ("POR-fer-ah") - commonly called laver ("LAY-vur"). Kathleen had tried repeatedly to grow laver in the lab to no avail. In a stroke of luck, she decided to toss some oyster shells in the bottom of the tank with the laver spores. Soon the oyster shells were covered in pink sludge. Unsure what to make of it, Kathleen feared she had contaminated her work. But she soon realized that the sludge was simply the juvenile part of the laver life cycle. The shells provided shelter for the seeds. When Kathleen's discovery was published in Nature magazine, a Japanese biologist named Sokichi Segawa realized that she had probably just cracked the code on cultivating seaweed. For centuries, Japan had harvested a sister variety of laver to make sushi. But the Japanese seaweed variety was getting harder and harder to source in the wild. It had all but disappeared after WWII. What the Japanese didn't realize was how important shells on the seafloor were to the seaweed lifecycle. American underwater mines from WWII, typhoons, and pollution meant that bivalves like oysters, scallops, and mussels were in scarce supply. Without the shells, the Japanese red seaweed called nori couldn't reproduce. Kathleen's understanding of the seaweed lifecycle meant that the Japanese now knew how successfully farm nori seaweed, creating a stable supply for sushi. It also meant that Japanese fisherman could feed their hungry, recovering nation and make a living. Her discovery also led to the commercial practice of collecting oyster shells for seeding seaweed. After Kathleen's work proved successful, Japanese nori fishermen took up a collection for a statue to honor Kathleen. But before she could sit for the artist, Kathleen died of cancer at 55. On April 14, 1963, the Japanese unveiled a memorial to Kathleen - a slab of granite inset with a metal plaque with Kathleen's likeness that overlooks the Ariake Sea. Kathleen's scientific papers and graduation garb were buried on site. To this day, the Japanese lay an offering of seaweed at Kathleen's shrine every April 14th.  While the rest of the world is largely unaware of Kathleen Drew-Baker, in Japan, Kathleen is remembered as the Mother of the Sea.    Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

In this episode, in Poppin' Culture, we discuss the potential cultural impacts of dating shows. Then we do an Academic Deep Dive into the new article, “Peer Network Processes in Adolescents' Healthy Lifestyles,” recently published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Written by Dr. Jimi Adams, Joshua Goode, and Dr. Stefanie Mollborn at the University of Colorado, Dr. Elizabeth Lawrence at UNLV, and Dr. David Schaefer at UC Irvine. Finally, in Good or Bad Advice we talk about GOOD mental health advice that people have received.

Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee   Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community   Historical Events 1746 Birth of André Michaux (books about this person), French botanist and explorer. André grew up on a royal farm in Satory south of Versailles. His father trained both he and his brother in horticulture, and after his father died, André carried on at the farm. André married a prosperous farmer's daughter from a nearby farm named Cécile Claye. A month shy of their first wedding anniversary Cécile delivered a son, Francois-André. Later in life, André would name an oak in his son's honor. Tragically, Cécile died after the delivery. André battled through the next decade by studying horticulture. His friend, the naturalist Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier ("Lew-ee Ghee-ohm Lew-moh-nay"), urged him to focus on exotic plants, and the great botanist Bernard de Jussieu gave André a solid understanding of botany. The next step for André was travel. In 1786, André was asked to go to North America. As a single father, he brought François-Andre, then 15, along with him. André's mission was to establish a botanical garden in America. The goal was to set up a botanical clearinghouse of sorts and send seeds and specimens back to France. André established his nursery on the land where the Charleston Area National Airport exists today. In fact, at the Charleston airport, there is a stunning mural installed in 2016 that honors Andre and his son. In one panel, Andre-François and his father are depicted in the potager or kitchen garden. The central scene shows the rice fields along the Ashley River and the Charleston Harbor, where Michaux introduced one of the first Camellia plants. Native to Asia, Camellias are small, evergreen flowering trees or shrubs, and Camellias are in the Theaceae or tea family, which is why Camellias are commonly called tea plants. In Floriography ("FLOOR-EE-ah-grah-FEE") or the language of flowers, the Camellia represents love and loyalty. Camellia blossoms are beautiful and come in various colors, sizes, bloom times, and forms. And, best of all, Camellias are long-lived and can grow for 100 to 200 years. Finally, here are two fun facts about the Camellia: In California, Sacramento is nicknamed the Camellia City, and the Camellia is the state flower of Alabama.   1836 Birth of Sir Michael Foster, English physician, and iris breeder. He's regarded as the father of iris cultivation. In the late 1800s, Michael became the first person to crossbreed new varieties of Iris. He started his work with purple and yellow iris and made a beautiful blend by the third generation. Soon Michael had large wild iris specimens arriving from all over the world. He found that missionaries could be a great help to him. They sent Trojana, Cypriana, and Mesopotamica varieties from the Near East. In time, Michael's iris creations had bigger flowers and grew taller. He crossed Irises in every conceivable way, and he once wrote to the plant breeder William John Caparne, "In hybridizing, be bold." Michael once said, Nature is ever making signs to us; she is ever whispering to us the beginnings of her secrets.   April 26, 1970, Elizabeth Lawrence (books by this author) reflected on the spring, writing, This spring, I was asked if I am bored. How can anyone ask that of a gardener? No Gardener could ever be bored, for ... Every season is new and different from all those that went before.  There always is something new in bloom, something expected and something unexpected, something lost that is found, and there is always disappointment, but being sad is not the same thing as being bored. “It acts like spring, but I dare not hope,” Carolyn Dorman wrote on Saint Valentine's Day. "It was about this time in 1899 that the temperature here in Northern Louisiana was 20 degrees below… God spare us, daffodils are beginning now, and Magnolia Alba Superba will soon be in bloom.”  It is the white form of Magnolia x soulangiana that Caroline calls “alba superba”. She thinks it more beautiful than the Yulan. In my garden the Yulan (Magnolia denudata) and two of its hybrids M. x soulangiana and M. x veitschii, came into bloom together on March 8th. I can't think of when, if ever before, all three have bloomed at once when the weather was warm but not hot, when there was no frost and no rain, and when only a few petals were whipped off by wind.   Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation Private Gardens of Santa Barbara by Margie Grace This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is The Art of Outdoor Living. Margie is a two-time-named International Landscape Designer of the Year. She has worked in the field for over three decades, and she is the perfect host to showcase these magnificent private gardens in Santa Barbara, which is often called the American Riviera.  This book features eighteen gardens designed by Margie and representing a range of spaces from large estates to surf retreats. This is an elegant coffee table book - a total escape - to the lush spaces of Santa Barbara's private gardens, and they are water-smart, maintenance-smart, and fire-smart. This book is 256 pages of incredible private California gardens showcased by one of the country's top designers. You can get a copy of Private Gardens of Santa Barbara by Margie Grace and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for $28.   Botanic Spark 1897 Birth of Joseph Pla (books by this author), Spanish journalist and a popular author. His seminal work, The Gray Notebook, was a diary he wrote in 1918 during the onset of the Spanish flu pandemic. Joseph was a law student at the University at Barcelona, but when the school shut down, he was forced to return home to Palafrugell ("Pala-frew-yay") on the coast of Spain. Realizing he would rather be a writer than a lawyer, he kept a journal to improve his writing skills. It was Joseph Pla who once said, Cooking is the landscape in a saucepan.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee    Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter |  Daily Gardener Community   Historical Events 1717 Birth of Catharina Helena Dörrien ("Durr-ee-in"), German botanist, writer, and artist. After the death of her parents, Catharina became a governess for the Erath ("AIR-rit") family in Dillenburg. Sophie Erath was a childhood friend of Catharina's, and Anton Erath was an attorney; they became Catharina's second family. While teaching the Erath children, Catharina turned to nature to teach almost every subject. Catharina even wrote her own textbooks, heavily focused on botany and the natural world. As the Erath children grew, Catharina focused on her botanical work. Anton helped her gain membership to the Botanical Society of Florence - something unheard of for women of her time. Catharina would go on to be a member of the Berlin Society of Friends of Nature Research and the Regensburg Botanical Society in Germany. When Catharina was alive, Dillenburg was part of the Orange-Nassau principality. And Catharine's 496-page flora called Flora for Orange-Nassau was published in 1777. Catharina not only used the Linnaean system to organize and name each specimen, but she also named two new fungi ("funj-eye") - two little lichens - she named major Doerrieni ("Durr-ee-en-ee") and minor Doerrieni- an extraordinary accomplishment for a woman during the 1700s. As for her botanical illustrations, Catharina created over 1,400 illustrations of local flora and fauna. Yet, these masterpieces never made it into her flora. Instead, Catharina's botanical art became an heirloom passed down through the generations of the Erath family. In 1875 a few pieces of Catharina's work were shown at an exhibition. However, fifteen years later, a large collection of paintings by Johann Philipp Sandberger was bought by the Museum of Wiesbaden. Johann was a dear friend of Anton Erath's, and today, his work is considered to be copies of Catharine's original watercolor masterpieces. Still, Sandberger's pieces are precious because they give us a glimpse of Catharine's breadth and depth of talent. Without Sandberger, all would be lost because the bulk of Catharine's work has been lost to time. The curator Friedrich von Heinbeck once said that the precision of Catharine's brush strokes was like that of an embroiderer who stitched with only the finest of thread.   1848 Birth of Augustus Saint Gaudens ("gaw-dens") (books about this person), American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation. He is remembered for his stunning Civil War monuments, including a work called Abraham Lincoln: The Man.  In Augustus Saint Gaudens, biography, Reminiscences, he wrote, What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. The Frick museum has a medallion carved by Augustus. He was a fan of Robert Louis Stephenson, and the two met toward the end of Stephenson's life. The medallion has an inscription: Stevenson's poem Underwoods (1887), which reads: Youth now flees on feathered foot Faint and fainter sounds the flute  … Where hath fleeting beauty led?  To the doorway of the dead  Life is over, life was gay We have come the primrose way.   1877 Birth of Lenore Elizabeth Mulets, children's author, poet, and teacher  Born Nora Mulertz in Kansas, Lenore's mother died when she was ten, and so she was raised by her uncle. In addition to teaching, Lenore was a marvelous children's author. Her books were always charming, and her titles include Stories of Birds, Flower Stories, Insect Stories, and Tree Stories, just to name a few. In the preface to Flower Stories, Lenore wrote, When the flowers of the field and garden  lift their bright faces to you,  can you call them by name  and greet them as old acquaintances?  Or, having passed them a hundred times,  are they still strangers to you? And in her book Stories of Birds, Lenore wrote: Such a twittering and fluttering there was when this news came.   Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation Stylish Succulent Designs by Jessica Cain  This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is & Other Botanical Crafts. Jessica wants to teach you how to elevate your succulent creations and learn the tricks you need to know to create professional-quality succulent arrangements made simple! Jessica is the creator and owner of "In Succulent Love." She is a native of San Diego, the succulent capital of the world, and she fell in love with making succulent arrangements after working with succulents with her grandmother. Jessica's DIY guide teaches how to makeover forty creative projects using many varieties of succulents, air plants, and other easy-care botanicals. This book is 176 pages of creating beautiful and lush succulent designs that are simple to make and will last for months.  You can get a copy of Stylish Succulent Designs by Jessica Cain and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for $2.   Botanic Spark 1958 On this day, The New Yorker published gardener and garden writer Katharine White's (books about this person)review of garden catalogs.  It was the first time a garden catalog received a published review, and it was an immediate hit. Readers wrote in to request the name of the author since Katharine had signed off with only her initials, KSW. Katherine was married to EB White - the author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.  But the garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence (books about this person) figured out that KSW was Katherine, and she sent her a letter a month later. The two women would exchange correspondence about gardening for the rest of their lives. Here's an excerpt from Elizabeth's letter: I asked Mrs. Lamm if you were Mrs. E. B. White, and she said you were. So please tell Mr. E. B. that he has three generations of devoted readers in this family... Have you the charming Barnhaven catalogs? (Gresham, Oregon).  You should, even if you don't want rare primroses. And do you know Harry E. Saier? Dimondale, Michigan. I subscribe to his Garden Magazine too. Used to be free, now a dollar a year ...comes four times a year, if it comes.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

Dr. Liz Lawrence currently practices at UNM, where she also serves as the Chief Wellness Officer, the Assistant Dean for Professional Wellbeing, and a Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. In this episode, we get into navigating relationships. We highlight transitions that Dr. Lawrence went through in her career and what she learned during that time. We talk about self reflection and recognition of our inner state. We talk about the importance of self care and boundary setting in our profession. There are so many pearls in this episode, listen in to hear them all. Dr Lawrence gives her 3 Principles of Well-Being: 1- Spend time with the People you Love 2- Exercise 3- Sleep We discussed "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams" by Matthew Walker Ph.D.

Auntie Jo Jo will be sharing a story about Elizabeth Lawrence, the first women to recieve a BS in Lanscape Architecture from NCSU. Elizabeth spent many years expressing her creativity through gardening and writing. She is a published author and columnist in North Carolina. Her Charlotte home and garden is preserved by Wing Haven. You can visit winghaven.org to get more information on her home, garden and legacy. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/auntiejojoslibrary/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/auntiejojoslibrary/support

Today we celebrate a man who published his garden journal in a book - and inspired countless gardeners and gardener writers with his resonant words. We'll also learn about a young botanist with drive and good intentions, as well as a personal beef with another botanist - both of these men had a dramatic impact on the Calcutta Botanical Garden. We hear some fascinating words about tree bark and pH - it's a little-discussed topic, but it's a good one. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that helps us cook with flowers. And then we’ll wrap things up with a look at winter chores for this week from 1889.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated News Jade Plants Are the Low-Maintenance Houseplants Everyone Should Know About | MarthaStewart.com   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events February 9, 1830 Today is the birthday of the English gardener and writer Henry Arthur Bright. As an adult, Henry began a diary, which would become a book called A Year in a Lancashire Garden. Henry’s book is one of the most beloved garden biographies of the nineteenth century, and Henry's book inspired future garden writers like Henry Nicholson Ellacombe, Theresa Earle, and Elizabeth Lawrence. And for today, I thought I would share a February 1874 excerpt from Henry's journal. Although this was almost 150 years ago, Henry was doing what gardeners do this time of year: worrying about how the winter would affect the garden, noticing the progress of the earliest blooming trees and shrubs, cleaning up and editing the garden for the new season, looking through his garden magazines for new and old plants, experiencing some disappointment in the spring showing of some of his flowers (in this case, his Aconites), and mulling over why some spring-flowering bulbs go unappreciated - like the humble spring Crocus. “Since I wrote, we have had the sharpest and keenest frost — sharper than we have had all the winter... Now spring has come again, and (as Horace says) has "shivered" through the trees. The Elders are already unfolding their leaves, and a Lonicera ("lon-ISS-er-ah”) or Honeysuckle is in the freshest bud.  I remember when, a few years ago, Mr. Longfellow, the American poet, was in England, he told me that he was often reminded by the tender foliage of an English spring of that well-known line of Watts, where the fields of Paradise,   "Stand dressed in living green;" and I thought of this today when I looked... at the fresh verdure of this very Lonicera. But all things are now telling of spring. We have finished our pruning of the wall-fruit; we have ...sown our earliest Peas.  We have planted our Ranunculus bed and gone through the herbaceous borders, dividing and clearing away where the growth was too thick, and sending off hamperfuls of Peony, Iris, Oenothera ("ee-no-THAIR-ah"), Snowflake, Japanese Anemone ("ah-NIM-oh-nee), Day Lily, and many others.  On the other hand, we have been looking over old volumes of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, and have been trying to get, not always successfully, a number of old forgotten plants of beauty, and now of rarity. We have found enough, however, to add a fresh charm to our borders for June, July, and August. On the lawn, we have some Aconites in flower… This year they are doing badly. I suspect they must have been mown away last spring before their tubers were thoroughly ripe, and they are punishing us now by flowering only here and there.  Then, too, the Crocuses are bursting up from the soil... "all gleaming in purple and gold." Nothing is more stupid than the ordinary way of planting Crocuses — in a narrow line or border. Of course, you get a line of color, but that is all, and, for all the good it does, you might as well have a line of colored pottery or variegated gravel. They should be grown in thick masses, and in a place where the sun can shine upon them, and then they open out into wonderful depths of beauty.  Besides the clusters along the shrubberies and the mixed borders, I have a number [of Crocus] on the lawn beneath a large weeping Ash; the grass was bare there, and… it was well to do something to veil its desolation in the spring. Nothing can be more successful than a mass of Crocus, yellow, white, and purple. I sometimes think that the Crocus is less cared for than it deserves. Our modern poets rarely mention it; but in Homer, when he would make a carpet for the gods, it is of Lotus, Hyacinth, and Crocus…   February 9, 1845 Today is the anniversary of the early death of the promising English botanist and naturalist, William Griffith. William’s peers in Madras, India, honored William with a plaque that says, “He had attained to the highest eminence in the scientific world; and was one of the most distinguished botanists of his age.” William was exceptionally bright and fit. Confident and capable, William made one discovery after another on his expeditions across the globe. But in researching William, while I discovered a man who was unquestionably intelligent and driven, he was also embroiled in a personal battle against a fellow botanist - an older peer named Nathaniel Wallich. One of the great botanists of his age, Nathaniel, was in charge of the Botanical Garden in Calcutta, India. During his time in India, he wrote a Flora of Asia, and the palm Wallichia disticha (“wall-IK-ee-uh DIS-tik-uh”) was named in Wallich’s honor. In 1824, Nathaniel was the first person to describe the giant Himalayan Lily (Cardiocrinum giganteum) - the world's largest Lily species. If you decide you’d like to grow giant Himalayan Lilies (and who wouldn’t?), expect blooms anytime after year four. Now, Richard Axelby wrote an excellent in-depth paper that shares the sad story of dislike and mistrust between William Griffith and Nathaniel Wallich. It’s a fascinating read, and it underscores the damage that can be done when people don’t get along. In a nutshell, when William arrived at the botanical garden in Calcutta, he essentially played the role of the new sheriff in town, and he didn’t like the way Nathaniel had organized the garden. He didn’t like Nathaniel’s arrogance and adherence to the old ways. And for his part, Nathaniel hadn’t anticipated this kind of challenge to his authority; He had hoped to finish out his final years respected and revered until he received his pension and returned to England. When Nathaniel’s health deteriorated, he was forced to leave the Calcutta Botanical Garden, and he went to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to recover. During his absence, William went to work. After being put in charge of the garden, William set about executing a complete renovation. In hindsight, William’s personal feelings likely got in the way of exercising a more thoughtful redesign. He essentially threw the baby out with the bathwater. For instance, there was an avenue of stately Cycas trees that was beloved by visitors to the garden; they were wiped out. William’s total dedication to organizing the garden by classification meant that aesthetics and common sense were secondary, and that proved detrimental to the garden. Plants that had thrived under the canopy of established trees and shrubs were suddenly exposed to the harsh Indian sun, and they burned and perished out in the open. And even if he could be a difficult man to work with, it’s hard not to imagine the shock Nathaniel experienced when he returned to the garden in the summer of 1844 and saw the complete devastation in every bed, every planting, and every corner of the garden. Nothing was untouched - it had all been changed. And as Nathaniel returned to the garden that summer, William was preparing to leave. In September, he married his brother’s wife’s sister - Emily Henderson - by the end of the year, on December 11th, and he quit and left the garden for good. Two months later, on February 8, 1845, Nathaniel poured out his pain in a letter to his old friend William Hooker: “Where is the stately, matchless garden that I left in 1842?  Is this the same as that?  Can it be?  No–no–no!  Day is not more different from night that the state of the garden as it was from its present utterly ruined condition. But no more on this.  My heart bleeds at what I am impelled daily – hourly to witness.  And yet I am chained to the spot, and the chain, in some respects, is of my own making.  I will not be driven away.  Lies, calumnies, every attempt... to ruin my character – publicly and privately... are still employed – they may make my life miserable and wretched, they may break my heart: but so so long as my conscience acquits me... so long will I not budge one inch from my post.” Well, when Nathanial wrote this letter, William and Emily were back in Malacca in Southwestern Malaysia - but all was not well. William had gotten sick on the voyage to Malaysia. It was hepatitis, and he had languished for ten days. And the very day after Nathaniel sent his letter to William Hooker about his broken heart at seeing his dear Calcutta Botanical Garden, William Griffith died on this day in 1845 in Malaysia. He was just 34 years old.   Unearthed Words Each tree's bark will have its own pH, and some are more acidic than others. Larches and Pines are notoriously acidic; Birch, Hawthorne and Oak are acidic too, but slightly less so. Rowan, Alder, Beech, Linden, and Ash are little less acidic again, and Willow, Holly and Elm are getting closer to neutral. Sycamore, Walnut, and Elder are alkaline. The less acidic the bark is, the more growth you are likely to see from colonizing plants and lichens. Pine bark is often bare, whereas Sycamore might have a glorious guest hanging off its bark. —Tristan Gooley, New York Times Bestselling author, The Lost Art of Reading Nature Signs, Bark   Grow That Garden Library Cooking with Flowers by Miche Bacher This book came out in 2013, and the subtitle is Sweet and Savory Recipes with Rose Petals, Lilacs, Lavender, and Other Edible Flowers. In this book, Miche put together more than 100 recipes to create beautiful flower-filled dishes for your table! This botanical cookbook features creations that will speak to any gardener: sweet violet cupcakes, savory sunflower chickpea salad, pansy petal pancakes, chive blossom vinaigrette, daylily cheesecake, rosemary flower margaritas, mango orchid sticky rice, and herb flower pesto. Miche is an herbalist, chef, and owner of a custom confectionary studio, so she’s an expert in preparing and using botanicals in the kitchen. Miche shares how to find, clean, and prep edible blossoms. You’ll also learn that the color and flavor of various blooms can infuse vinegars, vodkas, sugars, frostings, jellies and jams, and even ice creams. This book is 192 pages of edible flowers, visually stunning desserts, and one-of-a-kind creations. You can get a copy of Cooking with Flowers by Miche Bacher and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $6   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart February 9, 1889  On this day, The Lancaster Gazette shared a little snippet about the garden chores that should be done this week. So let’s see how our chores stack up against chores from the late 1800s. “Outdoor Work must have a full share of attention.  Whatever... winter work remains must now be cleared up, or the consequences will be serious.  Make quickly a thorough clearance of the vegetable quarters.  Prepare all plots requiring manure at once, as it is much better to have the manure completely incorporated with the soil than to sow or plant immediately after manuring.  The ground for Peas, Beans, Onions, Cauliflowers, and Broccolis must be liberally manured and deeply stirred.  Mark out the quarters for Onions into four-foot beds and raise the bed six inches above the general level and leave the surface rough. At sowing time, the surface will be nicely pulverized through exposure to the air, and the seed can be set clean and rolled in firm... Choose for Potatoes ground on which Cabbage, or Broccoli, or Celery has been grown... last year.  Make up sloping borders under warm walls and fences for early Lettuce and Radish. Prick out Broccoli and Cauliflower from seed.  Plant.”   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the pardoned outlaw who donated the land for the Oxford Botanic Garden. We'll also learn about Carl Jr. - Linnaeus’s son - Linnaeus filius, who surely felt some pressure growing up in his father’s shadow. We’ll hear one of my favorite letters from the garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a delightful book of hope and grace for gardeners and for anyone - an excellent book for 2021. And then we’ll wrap things up with the story of the first female botanist in America.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated News Jobs for January | Adventures in Horticulture | Lou Nicholls   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events January 20, 1643 Today is the anniversary of the death of Henry Danvers, the 1st Earl of Danby. In 1621, Henry founded the Oxford Botanic Garden, but planting didn’t start until the 1640s As a young man, Henry was an English soldier who was outlawed after killing a rival family’s son. The Danvers and the Longs had feuded for generations. Along with his brother and a few friends, Henry ambushed Henry Long as he was dining at a tavern. And that’s when Henry Danvers shot and killed Henry Long and became an outlaw. After the shooting, Henry and his gang fled to France, where they honorably served in the French army. Four years later, the King of France interceded on the men’s behalf and secured a pardon for them. After returning to England, Henry regained favor for his service and ultimately became a Knight of the Garter and the lifelong governor of Guernsey's isle. Henry never married, but he created a lasting legacy for himself when he donated five acres of land to the University of Oxford. Henry had the flood-prone land along the river raised and enclosed with a high wall. The massive stone gateway to the garden was designed by a peer and friend to Inigo Jones, a master mason named Nicholas Stone. The Danby gateway is inscribed: Gloriae Dei opt. max. Honori Caroli Regis. In usum Acad. et Reipub. and the frieze inscription is Henricus Comes Danby D.D. 1632 - or “In honor of King Charles, for academic use and the general welfare by the Earl of Danby 1632."   January 20, 1741 Today is the birthday of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus the Younger, the son of the great Carl Linnaeus or Carl von Linné. To distinguish him from his famous father, he was referred to as Linnaeus filius, Latin for Linnaeus, the son. For botanical purposes, he is referred to with the abbreviation L.f. for Linnaeus filius. Carl Linneaus learned of his son’s birth while he was away in Stockholm. He wrote a letter straight away to his wife Sara Lisa, saying: “How excited I was when I received the news I had been longing for… I kiss the gracious hand of God ... that we have been blessed with a son. Take care to avoid changes of temperature and draughts, for carelessness of that sort might harm you. I remain, my dearest wife, your faithful husband, Carl Linnaeus Greetings to my little Carl.” When he was just nine years old, Linnaeus filius enrolled at the University of Uppsala and taught by great botanists like Pehr Löfling, Daniel Solander, and Johan Peter Falk. Eleven years later, Linnaeus filius backfilled his father’s position as the chair of Practical Medicine at the University. Unfortunately, Linnaeus filius was resented by his peers after favoritism played a role in the promotion. At the tender age of 22, Linnaeus filius got the job without applying or defending a thesis. Twenty years later, Linnaeus filius was in the middle of a two-year-long expedition through Europe. When he reached London, Linnaeus filius became ill and died from a stroke. He was just 42 years old.   Unearthed Words January 20, 1945 ... I can’t imagine anything worse than a square of dogwoods back of the house. I thought your idea was that you wanted to clear that all out (except for the serviceberry, which is to one side) so you could look out of the kitchen window and up the mountainside instead of being hemmed in? If you want to put dogwoods there, I would suggest putting them to the left side (as you look up the mountainside) in a group near the fence. And not so as to hide the prettiest view of the woods, to frame it if possible. If you keep the apple tree, you might have a seat under it. ... I don’t know what you mean by spider lilies, but I am sure that you won’t hurt whatever they are if you take a big ball of earth and do not disturb the roots. The point is not to break them when they are growing. I feel sure that white pines will be the best and quickest screen for the pigsty. ... If you order any, be sure to have your holes all dug before they come. Dig three feet deep and four in diameter, and fill in with woods mold, and put a good mulch of leaves over it, and if you have it where you can water, I think everyone would grow soon and make a screen. Be sure to write to me before you do anything drastic. ... Bessie and I took a salad and a pan of rolls and went to have supper with your family last night. We had Blanche’s walnuts for dessert. And Robert and I made Cleopatras, not so good, somehow, as the ones at Christmas.  I must put the puppy to bed before he chews up all the files of Gardening Illustrated. — Elizabeth Lawrence, gardener and garden writer, letter to her sister Ann, January 20, 1945   Grow That Garden Library All Along You Were Blooming by Morgan Harper Nichols  This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is Thoughts for Boundless Living. I fell in love with this book when I saw the beautiful cover that features botanical art. With over a million followers on Instagram, Morgan’s fans love her beautiful artwork and inspiring thoughts about life. This book is a fabulous collection of illustrated poetry and prose that helps you "stumble into the sunlight" and bask in the joy that is all around you. All Along You Were Blooming is a perfect gift for any occasion. This book is 192 pages of grace and hope, and artistic beauty. You can get a copy of All Along You Were Blooming by Morgan Harper Nichols and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $11   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart January 20, 1756 On this day, Peter Collinson wrote to John Bartram about Jane Colden. "Our friend, Colden's daughter, has… sent over several sheets of plants, very curiously anatomized after [Linnaeus's] method.  I believe she is the first lady that has attempted anything of this nature."  Peter Collinson was one of the first botanical experts to recognize Jane Colden as the first female botanist in America. Like our modern-day plant swaps, Jane took part in something called the Natural History Circle - an event where American colonists and European collectors exchanged seeds and plants. Jane’s father was the Scottish-American physician, botanist, and Lieutenant Governor of New York, Cadwallader Colden (CAD-wah-LIDDER). Aside from his political endeavors, Cadwallader enjoyed botany and practiced the new Linnaean system. A proud dad, Cadwallader wrote to his friend Jan Gronovius, "I (have) often thought that botany is an amusement which may be made greater to the ladies who are often at a loss to fill up their time… Their natural curiosity and the pleasure they take in the beauty… seems to fit it for them (far more than men).  The chief reason that few or none of them have applied themselves to (it)… is because all the books of any value are (written) in Latin. I have a daughter (with) an inclination... for natural philosophy or history… I took the pains to explain to her Linnaeus's system and put it in English for her to use - by freeing it from the technical terms, which was easily done by using two or three words in the place of one. She is now grown very fond of the study… she now understands to some degree Linnaeus's characters [even though] she does not understand Latin. She has already (written) a pretty large volume in writing of the description of plants." Cadwallader gave Jane access to his impressive botanical library; he even shared his personal correspondence with her and allowed her to interact with the many botanists who visited the family's estate. In 1754 at Coldenham, when Jane was 30 years old, she met a young William Bartram who was less than half her age at just 14 years old. She also met with the Charleston plantsman Alexander Garden who was only 24 years old. In 1758, Walter Rutherford wrote to a friend after visiting the Colden home, Coldingham, and he described Cadwallader, his house, and his 34-year-old daughter Jane this way: "We made an excursion to Coldingham... From the middle of the woods, this family corresponds with all the learned societies in Europe…. his daughter Jenny is a florist and a botanist. She has discovered a great number of plants never before described and has given their properties and virtues [in her descriptions].... and she draws and colors them with great beauty… She (also) makes the best cheese I ever ate in America." Today the genus Coldenia in the borage family is named after Jane's father, Cadwallader Colden. After Jane discovered a new plant, the Coptis trifolia, she asked Linneaus to name it in her honor Coldenella - but he refused. With the common name Threeleaf Goldthread, Coptis trifolia is a woodland perennial plant in the buttercup family with glossy evergreen leaves. The long golden-yellow underground stem gives the plant the Goldthread part of its common name. Native Americans used to dig up the yellow stem and chew on it as a canker sore remedy, which is how it got its other common name: canker-root.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate an English botanist who discovered which way sap flows in plants. We'll also learn about a female Dutch botanist who fought for equity and is now remembered as a trailblazer. We’ll remember a thoughtful and witty garden writer whose only book became a garden classic. We hear some thoughts on the garden in winter from one of my favorite authors. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that shares the story of the French naturalist and medical doctor Aimé Bonpland (“bon-plon”). And then we’ll wrap things up with a little garden trivia in honor of National Trivia Day.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated News Invasive Species Spotlight: Garlic Mustard | Washington Gardener | Jacqueline Hyman   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events January 4, 1761 Today is the anniversary of the death of the English clergyman, botanist, and physiologist Stephen Hales. Stephen applied himself to many different areas of science. Stephen spent most of his life studying tree sap and blood flow. Do you know the direction sap flows in a plant? Stephen figured this out - it flows upward - and he also examined other fascinating aspects of plants like the sap's pressure, the pressure roots exert on sap, and how fast shoots and leaves grow. He also demonstrated that plants absorb air. Stephen’s curiosity about sap and blood flow led him to become the first person to measure blood flow, blood volume, and blood pressure. Stephen was always thinking about the forces around us - from our internal blood pressure to external air pressure. It’s not surprising that Stephen became curious about air quality and whether improved airflow could help fight typhus. And so, Stephen invented a ventilator to purify stale air. Stephen’s device was essentially large bellows that had to be moved by hand, but they were still effective and were used in ships, prisons, and mines. And there was another use for Stephen’s ventilator: it also preserved and dried food. In the twilight of his life, Stephen had royal visitors. Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Princess Augusta, both stopped by to discuss gardening and botany. And it was Stephen Hales who gave Princess Augusta advice on the creation of Kew Gardens. Today, Stephen is remembered in the genus for the snowdrop tree, the Halesia carolina. And since 1927, the Stephen Hales Prize is awarded to a scientist who made an outstanding contribution to plant biology science.   January 4, 1883 Today is the birthday of a Dutch plant pathologist and the first female professor in the Netherlands, Johanna Westerdijk, who went by "Hans." In 1906, Johanna completed her thesis on the regeneration of mosses, and she was hired to be the director of a major botanical institute at the ripe old age of 23. By 1917, Johanna became the first female professor in the Netherlands. During her tenure, Johanna supervised 56 doctoral students - half of them women - and she strongly believed in equal opportunities for women. She once said, “I strive for a genuinely equal division of men and women in high positions.” To illustrate how her peers perceived Johanna during her lifetime, check out this excerpt from The Lincoln Star Journal from October 29, 1914. Johanna had traveled to America to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the article was titled, “Woman Botanist Who Smokes and Drinks Publicly.” “A famous woman botanist, who both drinks and smokes In public, is now in the United States. Doctor [Charles] Bessey of the State University met her in St. Louis a short time ago. The name of the peculiar woman is Doctor Johanna Westerdtjk, and she is in charge of the pathological laboratories in Amsterdam.  "She was quite enraged because botanists did not pay quite as much attention to her in St. Louis as she thought she deserved," said Doctor Bessey.  "She insists that women should have the same rights as men and is in rebellion against American conventions. In large hotels, wherever it is permissible, she stays up late and drinks and smokes In the lobby."  Doctor Bessey has a picture of all the botanists in attendance at the Missouri Botanical Gardens' anniversary.  There is Miss Johanna Westerdijk, cigarette in hand. She appears to be the only one of any of the men or women in the picture who is smoking. Doctor Bessey believes that there is little danger of the learned doctor coming as far as Lincoln on her American travels.” Joanna led an all-female team of scientists who identified the fungus that caused Dutch Elm disease. Joanna’s Dutch Elm Committee was a group she formed on her own to fund additional research for elm disease. Johanna was a pioneer in plant pathology and fungi, and her system is still used to classify species. Today Johanna is remembered for some great quotes: “Both work and play are needed to create a beautiful mind.” and "Even fungus dies from a dull and monotonous life."  Today, at the university, there’s a wall showing the photos of all the professors of her time - all men, of course - and right there, in the lower bottom left frame, is a painting of Johanna. And almost four years ago, on February 12, 2017, the Fungal Biodiversity Centre Institute was renamed the Westerdijk Institute in honor of Joanna. She served as the Institute’s Director for over fifty years. Today, the Westerdijk Institue is the largest microbial, fungal resource center in the world.   January 4, 1918 Today is the birthday of the American writer and gardener Eleanor Perenyi. We lost Eleanor in 2009, at the age of 91. Her book, Green Thoughts, is widely considered to be a classic of garden writing. Sadly, it was Eleanor's only book. Eleanor wrote about working in her Connecticut garden, and she was not a fan of rock gardens, chemical pesticides, or petunias. She once called petunias, “as hopelessly impractical as a chiffon ball dress.” And her book Green Thoughts gives us many more witty quotes and sayings from Eleanor. Here are a few of my favorites: “A little studied negligence is becoming to a garden.” “The double hoops for peonies are beyond-description maddening to unfold and set in place.  Two people are needed, one of them with better control of his temper than I have.” “I ordered a modern purple martin house myself  and proceeded to construct a dreadful object:  unpainted, it looked like a cheap motel;  painted blue and white, it looked like a cheap Greek motel  and had to be thrown out.” “A killing frost devastates the heart as well as the garden.” And finally, here's a quote for gardeners who are too hard on themselves. Eleanor recognized that this happens - quite a bit. “It takes a while to grasp that not all failures are self-imposed - the result of ignorance, carelessness, or inexperience.  It takes a while to grasp that a garden  isn't a testing ground for character  and to stop asking,  “What did I do wrong?”  Maybe nothing.”   Unearthed Words I have had to enjoy the winter garden vicariously, with the help of books. The best for this purpose I’ve found is Elizabeth Lawrence’s new one. Gardens in Winter (Harper), which has allowed me to share the delights of the author’s garden in Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as the gardens and woods she knows from her wide reading. Miss Lawrence is a classicist and can cite Virgil and the English poets as freely as she does Gertrude Jekyll and Jane Loudon. In this volume, she leads us most often to the English garden of Canon Henry Ellacombe, from whose two books In a Gloucestershire Garden (1896) and In My Vicarage Garden (1902) she often quotes. She also takes us to Walden Pond and Concord, in the winter sections of Thoreau’s Journal. In North Carolina, Miss Lawrence says, there are two springs—the first in autumn, just after the killing frosts, and then the true spring, which starts on St. Valentine’s Day—but she reminds us that it was Thoreau who wrote, “All the year is a spring,” and her book seems to prove this to be true, even in the North. She has collected winter-garden notes and-flowering dates from her network of correspondents all over the United States and shares these with her readers. Though we Northerners will envy her her iris and camellias in November, her roses and hardy cyclamens in December, and her violets and hoopskirt daffodils in January, she shows us that all winter, even in the most frigid and unlikely spots, there are flowers or shrubs in bloom or, at the very least, in fruit, if we look for them carefully. — Katharine S. White, gardener and garden writer, Onward and Upward in the Garden,   Grow That Garden Library A Life in Shadow by Stephen Bell This book came out in 2010, and the subtitle is Aimé Bonpland in Southern South America, 1817–1858. In this book, Stephen shares the story of the French naturalist and medical doctor Aimé Bonpland, one of the most important South American scientific explorers in the early nineteenth century. Working alongside Alexander von Humboldt, Aimé later conducted his own research and went much farther south than Humboldt. Stephen outlines Aimé’s movements through Argentina, Paraguay (where he was imprisoned for nearly a decade), Uruguay, and south Brazil. By exploring the interior of South America, Aimé’s experience is a unique account of the natural world - along with the social and economic circumstances of the era. Stephen’s well-researched book is no longer in print, but you can still find rare copies online. This book is 336 pages of fascinating history, showing Aimé Bonpland’s life in rich detail. You can get a used copy of A Life in Shadow by Stephen Bell and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $62   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart Today is National Trivia Day, and in honor of that, I thought I’d close today’s show with some Garden Trivia with you.   Questions: Are Almonds in the rose family? What is the world’s tallest tree? In the 1600s, what flower had the most value? Where was the Poinsettia discovered? What is the largest flower in the world?   Answers: Yes - along with apples, peaches, pears, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, and more   The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) The Tulip. In the 1600s in Holland, tulips were worth more than gold and caused the crash of the Dutch economy.  The craze was called tulip mania or tulipomania.   Mexico. In 1825, the first U.S. minister to Mexico, Joel Poinsett, introduced the plant to America. The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanium)   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the English poet who often wrote of the Natural World and the garden. We'll also learn about the man who coined the term “Landscape Architect.” We’ll read a letter written by a garden writer about the last flowers in her fall garden. We’ll learn about the Canadian botanist and writer who had a marvelous column called The Note Book. We’ll hear some relatable words about November from a gardener and writer. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that helps you learn to become a market gardener and more self-sufficient. And then we’ll wrap things up with a number one instrumental song about fall leaves.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: a personal update from me garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show and more... Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org.   Curated News How To Encourage A New Generation Of Gardeners | The News | Brian Kidd   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events November 19, 1850  Today is the anniversary of the death of the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. Alfred was the fourth of twelve children in his family, and he became one of the most well-loved Victorian poets. Today, Alfred’s walled garden on the Isle of Wight is still available for walk-throughs. Both Alfred’s home and the garden have been restored to their former glory, and the property gets top ratings on TripAdvisor. And, here's Tennyson’s most-quoted sentiment by gardeners: If I had a flower for every time I thought of you… I could walk through my garden forever. — Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet    November 19, 1895    Today is the anniversary of the death of the Landscape Architect Calvert Vaux ("Vox"), who died on this day in 1895. Calvert was born in England, but he came to the United States at the age of 24 to work on landscape projects with Andrew Jackson Downing. Together, they planned the grounds around the Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. After Downing's untimely death, Calvert named his second son Downing to honor his partner and friend. Calvert went on to work with many talented people during his career, including Jacob Weidenmann and George Radford. When Calvert Vaux came up with a public competition to design Central Park, he teamed up with Frederick Law Olmsted. While they worked on Central Park, Calvert coined the term “Landscape Architect” to describe what they were doing. Calvert said that his goal for Central Park was to, “translate democratic ideas into trees and dirt.” Since Frederick and Calvert worked so well together, they continued to work on joint park projects like Prospect Park in Brooklyn, South Park in Chicago, and the New York Reservation at Niagara Falls. In 1895, at the age of 70, Calvert was living with his son in Brooklyn. Calvert developed a morning walk ritual, and he often visited Prospect Park. On this day in 1895, the weather was foggy, and Calvert decided to walk the pier along Gravesend Bay. Two days later, after his kids reported him missing, newspapers shared this description: "Missing since Tuesday. Calvert Vaux... four feet ten inches; medium build; gray hair and full beard; ruddy complexion; wore a blue overcoat with velvet collar, blue trousers, dark mixed undercoat, no vest, black derby hat; wears gold-rimmed eyeglasses; shirt has a name on it." The following day, Calvert's body was found in Gravesend Bay. Like his dear friend Downing, Calvert had drowned. At the end of November, the Statesville Record And Landmark out of Statesville, North Carolina, ran a tribute to Calvert that read: "Calvert Vaux was… one of the most famous men in the world.... [He] created Central Park [and] people who have [visited it from] all over the world say that no park… is so beautiful. But, the Brooklyn folks say that… Prospect Park is handsomer. Yet that, too, was "created" by Calvert Vaux. [Calvert] soothed nature's rough places and... brightened her attractive features. In Prospect Park, nature left little for a man to do. But Central Park is almost wholly artificial, and it's beautiful vistas of hill and dale, lake and wood, are largely the work of [Calvert] Vaux.”   November 19, 1934 On this day, the garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence wrote to her sister: “...The first of the week I picked the last of your red and yellow zinnias, just before the frost finished up everything. But Ithink gardens are just as pretty in winter. The winter grass is so fresh when you rake the leaves off the beds weeded and covered with compost, and ivy very green, and some sweet alyssum still in the path and that nice raked-up look and the air full of smoke and leaves falling. Nothing is so beautiful and sad as leaves falling. “   November 19, 1937    Today is the anniversary of the death of the Canadian botanist and writer Julia Wilmotte Henshaw. Remembered as one of British Columbia‘s leading botanists, Julia studied for a bit with the botanist Charles Schaefer and his wife, Mary Schaefer Warren. This was a happy working relationship by all accounts until Julia published Mountain Flowers of America in 1906. The Schaefers felt Julia had profited from their work and beat them to publish it. But other perspectives point out that Julia was more driven, and she was an experienced author. Over time, Julia went on to publish two additional volumes on Canadian wildflowers. A founding member of the Canadian Alpine Club, Julia had a regular column in the Vancouver Sun newspaper called The Note Book. Her peers at the paper called her “Gentle Julia.” Julia's weekly column is a delight to read even today and I tried to find some experts from her November columns. On November 28, 1934, Julia wrote: “A friend who walked through my garden yesterday and who had read in the "Note Book" last Friday the list of plants in bloom there, arrived at the house in an indignant mood and abraided me for omitting to say that the following flowers were also to be gathered: White California Poppy, Pink and Blue Larkspur, Large White Heath, Fuchsia, Thyme, Lobelia And Nasturtiums. Taken altogether, the garden is making a brave showing when one remembers that today is November 28. One thing I am sorry to note, all my best nasturtiums whose seeds should have Iain dormant till the spring, are already turned into little plants three inches high.”   And here’s an excerpt from Julia's final column dated November 23, 1937 - just five days before her death: We have become so used to the "tame" mushrooms, grown in sheds and carefully reared for [year-round] sale, that October and November fail to any longer bring in their wake the old thrill of gathering wild mushrooms, the flavor of which so far surpasses that of the homegrown varieties, useful as the latter are in their steady procurableness. Fruits of the field have a flavor all their own, and one need not be a gourmet to appreciate the Wild Strawberry, Blackberry, Blueberry, Crabapple, and for their own special purposes the Sloe, Hip-haw, Wine-berry and Grape. Have you ever read these delightful lines from the "Heart of New England"? Oddly fashioned, quaintly dyed, In the woods, the mushrooms hide; Rich and meaty, full of flavor, Made for man's delicious savor. But he shudders and he shrinks At the piquant mauves and pinks, Who is brave enough to dare Curious shapes and colors rare? But the toadstools bright and yellow Tempt and poison many a fellow,' Nay! a little mushroom study Would not injure anybody.   Unearthed Words “Like a chain letter, I will take a plant from this garden to the next and from the next garden to the one after that, and so on, until someday I am an old woman nurturing along with a patchwork quilt of a garden, with cuttings and scraps from every garden I tended before.” – Amy Stewart, gardener, and writer, From the Ground Up   Grow That Garden Library Mini Farming by Brett L. Markham  This book came out in 2010, and the subtitle is Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre. Brett’s book is a #1 rated five-star bestseller on Amazon. His book is practical and evergreen with tips for how to, as Brett likes to say, “provide 85 percent of the food for a family of four and earn an income.” Brett covers garden basics like buying and saving seeds, starting seedlings, establishing raised beds, soil fertility practices, composting, dealing with pest and disease problems, and crop rotation. Brett also addresses self-sufficiency topics like raising backyard chickens and home canning. Brett is an engineer, a third-generation farmer, and a polymath in terms of his own experience. Brett runs a profitable, Certified Naturally Grown mini farm on less than half an acre in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. This book is 240 pages of DIY gardening and gardening for profit. I think it would make a wonderful gift for the holidays - especially if you need to find the perfect gift for someone interested in self-sufficiency. You can get a copy of Mini Farming by Brett L. Markham and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $7   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart November 19, 1955 On this day, Autumn Leaves by Roger Williams reached the top spot on the music charts. Autumn Leaves was Roger’s most successful song and the first instrumental song to reach number 1 on the Billboard charts during the rock era. As a performer, Roger Williams was less flamboyant than Liberace. He was, however, a lifelong friend of Ronald Reagan. Roger played for so many presidents that he became known as the pianist to the presidents.   For Roger’s 80th birthday, Steinway made a limited-edition, $285,000 golden piano. The piano features Roger’s signature and has an inscription: the lyrics and music for Autumn Leaves' first verse.  The falling leaves drift by the window The autumn leaves of red and gold I see your lips, the summer kisses The sunburned hand I used to hold. Since you went away the days grow long And soon I'll hear old winter's song But I miss you most of all, my darling When autumn leaves start to fall. After today’s episode, you should treat yourself and ask Alexa or Google to: “Play Roger Williams Autumn Leaves.” The arpeggio-laden song conjures the quintessential image of Autumn: leaves letting go of the tree branches and falling to the ground.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we will talk about journalism on campus in the pandemic with Jacob deCastro and Elizabeth Lawrence.Jacob deCastro is a senior journalism student at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the editor-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Student, an independent student newspaper covering IU and Bloomington. Prior to this role, he served as a managing editor of digital, design editor and reporter.Elizabeth Lawrence is a senior at the University of Michigan and editor in chief of The Michigan Daily, an independent student newspaper covering the University and Ann Arbor. She started her role in January of 2020 and will finish in December. She oversees the paper's coverage of COVID-19 and manages its remote operations."  

Republicans have all but abandoned the Affordable Care Act as a campaign cudgel, judging from their national convention, at least. Meanwhile, career scientists at the federal government’s preeminent health agencies — the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health — are all coming under increasing political pressure as the pandemic drags on. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Plus, Rovner interviews KHN’s Elizabeth Lawrence about the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment.

Today we celebrate the Patron Saint of Beekeepers We'll also revisit the letter Jefferson wrote about gardening - it contains one of his most-quoted lines. We remember the French Landscape Architect who designed ninety percent of the public spaces in Argentina. We’ll eavesdrop on another letter from Elizabeth Lawrence - the garden writer - who also wrote the most wonderful letters. We celebrate World Mosquito Day with some Mosquito poems. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that will help you create some Inspired Gatherings in your garden. And then we’ll wrap things up with one of my favorite light-hearted poets. But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around the world and today’s curated news.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Gardener Greetings To participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org And, to listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to play The Daily Gardener Podcast. It's that easy.   Curated News Get the Most from Your Potting Soil With These Tips | The Spruce | Jon VanZile Here's an excerpt: "Most soil mixes are peat-based, often made with reed or sedge peat, and pH adjusted with lime. They are rich and loamy fresh out of the bag, and often they are enhanced with fertilizer or water-retention crystals. If you've been gardening for a long time, though, you may notice that plants rarely thrive in these kinds of soils for too long. This happens because peat-based soils really aren't designed for long-term use. They're not actually designed for plants at all—they're made for your convenience. They're cheaper to produce, and they are lightweight and easy to bag and sell. As these soils decompose, a number of negative forces will affect your plants. Take these steps to ensure your plants have the soil they need: Improve your bagged soil. It's not a long-term fix, but you can improve on peat-based growing mixes by mixing in a few handfuls of perlite. It won't slow the decomposition rate of the peat, but it will increase aeration. Flush the soil thoroughly every month, at a minimum. Take the plant to the kitchen sink or outside and thoroughly flush the soil to wash out accumulated salts from fertilizer and deposits from tap water. Wick your pots. Insert a wick through the drainage hole in the bottom of the pot. This won't help with compaction, but it will wick away excess water in the pot and help drainage, thus reducing the chance of root rot. Make your own potting mix. Many growers mix up their own potting mixes based on composted bark, coconut coir, peat, perlite, vermiculite, pumice, and other soil additives. This is a more advanced option, but it is possible to build a soil that will last for two or more seasons if you make it yourself."   Pass-Along Plants "You don't have a garden just for yourself. You have it to share." — Augusta Carter, Master Gardener, Pound Ridge, Georgia Pass-along plants have the best stories, don't they? They have history. They have a personal history. One of my student gardeners had a grandmother who recently passed away from breast cancer. Her mom was no green thumb. But, when her daughter started working in my garden, she let me know that her mom had some plants, and her dad was looking for a place for them. Would I be willing to take one? Sure. Absolutely, I said. Next thing I knew, a few weeks later, Mom is walking up to my driveway, caring one of the largest Jade plants I’ve ever seen. The plant was in a container the size of a 5-gallon paint bucket, and the plant was just as tall. I took the plant from her with a promise to take good care of it. When she turned to leave, I asked her mom’s name. I like to name my pass-along plants after the people I get them from; and, that’s when the tears started. When she left, I brought it over to the potting bench and let it sit for a few days. Then, my student gardeners and I set about dividing it and taking care of it. It was a good thing we did it - because the minute we started to take it out of the pot, it became very apparent that this plant was severely waterlogged. It wouldn’t have made it have a knot rescued it from the pot. We removed as much potting soil as we could. We split the plant in half and put them into separate clay pots, which were very heavily perlited, which was just what the doctor ordered. It’s the perfect environment, and now it’s doing fantastic. But, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it had a little more special meaning to me than just your typical jade plant -because of the look on this woman’s face when she gave me this plant; passing on this little, living thing that her mom had nurtured.   Pick herbs for fresh use and also for drying. Most herbs have a more concentrated flavor if they are not allowed to bolt or flower. Frequent harvesting will also accomplish that. As a bonus, harvesting encourages fresh, vigorous growth and keeps them growing longer into the season.   Today is World Mosquito Day and so, today’s poems are all about the Mosquito; the Minnesota state bird. Here are a few interesting facts about mosquitos. First, only the female mosquitoes bite. The lady mosquitoes use blood protein and other compounds to help them produce and develop their eggs. Second, they are attracted to Carbon Dioxide. Mosquitos track CO2 to find their protein sources. Three, mosquitos are terrible fliers. Windy days keep mosquitos away. This is another reason why I drag a large fan around with me in the garden. The constant flow of air keeps the mosquitos at bay as well as any bug spray.   Alright, that’s it for today's gardening news. Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There’s no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events Today is Saint Bernard of Clairvaux‘s day; he was the patron saint of beekeepers. He's also the patron saint of bees and candlemakers St. Bernard was a doctor of the church and a French Abbot. He was apparently a fabulous preacher, with excellent speaking skills. He became known as the "honey-sweet" doctor for his honey-sweet language; he would draw people in. When he decided to become a part of the monastery, he had to give up and get up and give a testimony. History tells us that his testimony was so compelling that thirty members of his family and his friends decided to join the monastery. That’s how he became associated with bees; all that sweet talk. And it was Saint Bernard who said, "Believe me, for I know, you will find something far greater in the woods than in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you cannot learn from the masters."   1811  On this day Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the painter and naturalist Charles Willson Peale about his farming and gardening at Monticello ("MontiCHELLo”). Here's an excerpt: “I have heard that you have retired from the city to a farm and that you give your whole time to that. Does not the Museum suffer? and is the farm as interesting? I have often thought that if heaven had given me a choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well-watered, and near a good market for the [produce from]the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. Such a variety of subjects, someone always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year. Under a total want of demand, except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden. But though an old man, I am but a young gardener. Your application to whatever you are engaged in I know to be incessant. But Sundays and rainy days are always days of writing for the farmer.”   1849  Today is the birthday of the French-Argentine landscape architect Carlos Thays (“Tays”). Carlos Thays took a business trip to Argentina when he turned forty in 1889. His job was to design a park in Cordoba. The project was life-changing for Thays when Argentina unexpectedly captured his heart. He decided to move to Argentina and he spent the back half of his life in his adopted homeland. If you visit Argentina today, the green spaces in the capital city of Buenos Aires are all thanks to Carlos Thays - the tree-lined streets, the parks, the paths, and the promenades. Essentially Carlos brought the French Landscape to Argentina - one of the many reasons why the country has a strong European vibe. It’s hard to imagine a Buenos Aires without trees, and yet, that is the sight that greeted Carlos when he arrived in 1889. Carlos recognized the immediate need for trees. You know the old saying, the best time to plant a tree is thirty years ago and the second-best time is today? Well, that, essentially is a philosophy Carlos adopted. He knew that the quickest way to transform Argentina into the lush landscape we know today meant making a commitment to planting trees. Over his lifetime, Carlos planted over 1.2 million trees in the capital city. Now, the other smart decision Carlos made was to focus on native trees for his plantings. One of the most impressive trees in all of Buenos Aires is the oldest tree in the city - a massive rubber tree that the locals call El “Gran Gomero.” The crown of Gran Gomero is over 50 meters wide. In Buenos Aires alone, Carlos designed over ninety percent of the public spaces in and around the city. In addition, Carlos worked on hundreds of projects all across Argentina. But a project that was near to his heart was the creation of the Buenos Aires Botanical Garden that covers 8 hectares. The garden was established a decade after Carlos arrived in Argentina. Carlos considered the Botanical Garden to be his masterpiece. It was Charles Thays who said, “To achieve happiness, it’s better to live in a cabin in a forest, than in a palace without a garden.”   1940  On this day the garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence wrote to her sister: "I have finished [the chapter on] Summer, and I only have [the chapter on] Fall to do—which is short. I hope I can get it done quickly, and have time to rewrite after your reading. If you get back before I do [from a trip with Bessie and sister Ann], and can find time to look into my garden, will you see if Nerine undulata is in bloom? And if it is, pick it when all of the flowers are out, and put it in your refrigerator until I get back. It bloomed last year while I was gone, and I have never seen it, and it is the most exciting bulb I have. I enclose a map of where it is, and of other things that might bloom. Don’t bother about any of them—don’t look for Ridgeway [color chart]. I am taking it with me in case we get to any nurseries.…"   Nerine undulata an Amaryllis. It grows 18 inches tall and has umbels of 8-12 slender, crinkled pale pink flowers, and it blooms in autumn.   1948  Today is the birthday of the man with the last name all gardeners covet - the lead singer of Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant.   Unearthed Words Today is World Mosquito Day and so, today’s poems are all about the Mosquito Lovely mosquito, attacking my arm As quiet and still as a statue, Stay right where you are! I’ll do you no harm- I simply desire to pat you. Just puncture my veins and swallow your fill For, nobody’s going to swot you. Now, lovely mosquito, stay perfectly still - A SWIPE! And a SPLAT! And I GOT YOU! — Doug MacLeod, Australian author and poet, Lovely Mosquito Announcing your arrival In a high-pitch buzzing-tone. As a tactic for survival, You’re seldom on your own. Red lumps display where you have been Often felt, but rarely seen. But if I catch a glimpse of you, my little vampire chum, I’ll make sure you get what you’re due And crush you with my thumb! — David Sollis, English publisher and poet, Mosquito   Grow That Garden Library French Country Cottage Inspired Gatherings by Courtney Allison This book came out in May 2020. In case you didn't know, Courtney is the author of the blog French Country Cottage and she also has a floral line with Balsam Hill. She also works as a freelance photographer and stylist for magazines. So, in short, Courtney was the perfect person to write this book. And, the only bummer is that the book was released during the pandemic. Now, what gardeners will love about this book is that Courtney shares all of her secrets for creating beautiful gatherings. And, hey, nowadays we only entertain with the people we care the most about - so we might as well make it extra special. What I love about Courtney's book is that she shares all of her gorgeous tips and tricks for elevating gatherings. she shows how to add layer and depth to all of your entertaining and her flower arrangements really set the stage.  Here's what Courtney's editor wrote about this book: "Courtney provides the styling expertise to host your own French Country Cottage–inspired gathering, whether in the backyard, at the beach, under an old oak tree, or in a country barn. A simple picnic; coffee by the lake; a cheese board for friends outdoors; a bistro table for two; a long table for a formal meal―each setting exhibiting Allison’s dreamy style for you to emulate. The pièce de résistance in every venue, any setting, is the gorgeous arrangements of seasonal flowers; Courtney’s bouquets will take your breath away, from spring to fall, for outdoors and inside." This is definitely one of my favorite books for 2020. This book is 224 pages of French Country Cottage Style for gardeners. You can get a copy of French Country Cottage Inspired Gatherings by Courtney Allison and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $30   Today’s Botanic Spark 1881 Today we celebrate the birthday of the poet Edgar Albert Guest. Edgar was known as the People’s Poet during the first half of the 20th century. Edgar's poems were happy and hopeful, which is why people like them. Here’s his poem called To Plant a Garden: If your purse no longer bulges and you’ve lost your golden treasure, If at times you think you’re lonely and have hungry grown for pleasure, Don’t sit by your hearth and grumble, don’t let your mind and spirit harden. If it’s thrills of joy you wish for get to work and plant a garden! If it’s drama that you sigh for, plant a garden and you’ll get it You will know the thrill of battle fighting foes that will beset it. If you long for entertainment and for pageantry most glowing, Plant a garden and this summer spend your time with green things growing. If it’s comradeship you sight for, learn the fellowship of daisies. You will come to know your neighbor by the blossoms that he raises; If you’d get away from boredom and find new delights to look for, Learn the joy of budding pansies which you’ve kept a special nook for. If you ever think of dying and you fear to wake tomorrow, Plant a garden! It will cure you of your melancholy sorrow. Once you’ve learned to know peonies, petunias, and roses, You will find every morning some new happiness discloses

Today we salute the English orphan girl who wrote her own destiny with science fiction writing. We also remember the English gardener who is still ghosting us after many decades. We revisit a letter from Elizabeth Lawrence to her sister Ann. We'll celebrate National Potato Day with some Potato Poems. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a gorgeous book about Dahlias. And then we'll wrap things up with the birthday of a beloved American creator of light verse. But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around the world and today's curated news.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Gardener Greetings To participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org And, to listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to play The Daily Gardener Podcast. It's that easy.   Curated News Behind the Winning Design: Q&A with Michael Drolet | FlowerMag Here's an excerpt: “When Michael Drolet submitted his vibrant vision for a Paris apartment for the Virtual Design Challenge, “we were all immediately impressed and drawn to his colorful and technically accurate proposal,” said Cass Key, creative director at Woodbridge Furniture, one of the contest sponsors along with Taylor King and KingsHaven. “He set the stage beautifully and let the story unfold like a professional, and the true plot twist came when we realized that he was a student, looking to start his career in the fall. He pushed the boundaries by using a Taylor King fabric as a wall covering and imagining the outdoor space, which is exactly the type of inventive creativity that should be rewarded today and always, said Key." Wallcovering: Taylor King's 'Secret Garden Passion' floral textile   Today is National Potato Day. Here are some fun Potato facts: The average American eats approximately 126 pounds of spuds each year. And, up until the 18th century, the French believed potatoes caused leprosy. To combat the belief, the agronomist Antoine Auguste Parmentier single-handedly changed the French perception of the Potato. How did Antoine get the French people to believe that the Potato was safe to eat? Good question. Antoine cleverly posted guards around his potato fields during the day and put the word out that he didn't want people stealing them. Then, he purposefully left them unguarded at night. As he suspected, people did what he thought they would do; steal the potatoes by the sackful by the light of the moon. Soon, they started eating them. And Marie Antoinette wore potato blossoms in her hair. The Idaho Potato, or the Russet Burbank, was developed by none other than Luther Burbank in 1871.   Today is also World Photography Day! So, head out to your garden and take some photos.   Alright, that's it for today's gardening news. Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1807  Today is the birthday of Jane Webb, who married the prolific writer of all things gardening: John Claudius Loudon. Together they became magnificent partners in the world of botanical writing and publishing. Jane was an extraordinary person. She was a fantastic writer in her own right, but she also possessed an inner determination; she was a survivor. When her father lost the family fortune and died penniless when Jane was only seventeen, it was the beginning of her career writing Science Fiction. Along with Mary Shelley, Jane was an early pioneer in science fiction writing. It's hard to believe, but this endeavor would set her on her life's path to garden writing. Jane's book The Mummy was published anonymously, in 1827, in three parts. In her writing, Jane incorporated predictable changes in technology and society. For instance, she predicted that women of the future would wear pants. And, Jane also featured something agricultural that she imagined would come to pass: a steam plow. Jane's vision of easier and less laborious farming is what attracted the attention of John Claudius Loudon - her future husband. Loudon wrote a favorable review of her book, but he also wanted to meet the author. Loudon didn't realize Jane had written the book using a nom de plume of Henry Colburn. Much to Loudon's delight, Henry was Jane; they fell in love and married a year later. If you enjoy Victorian illustrations, you'll positively swoon for the frontispiece of Jane's 1843 publication Gardening for ladies: with a calendar of operations and directions for every month in the year. It shows a mother and her young child standing on either side of a lush arbor, and they are both holding garden tools. Jane's garden books were very popular. She connected with her fans because she was always earnest and genuine. Jane wasn't raised as a gardener. She learned it as an adult. When it came to gardening, Jane was a conscious competent - and it made her an excellent gardening teacher. Jane was aware of this when she wrote, “I think books intended for professional gardeners, are seldom suitable to the wants of amateurs. It is so very difficult for a person who has been acquainted with a subject all his life, to imagine the state of ignorance in which a person is who knows nothing of it…Thus, though it might, at first sight, appear presumptuous in me to attempt to teach an art of which for three-fourths of my life I was perfectly ignorant, it is, in fact, that very circumstance which is one of my chief qualifications for the task.” Today, people often forget that Jane was not only a wife but a caretaker. John's arms stopped working as he grew older, after an attack of rheumatic fever. As a result, Jane became his arms, handling most of his writing. As with all of the trials she faced, Jane managed John's challenges head-on and with pragmatism. As for those who felt gardening wasn't ladylike, Jane wrote, “…a lady, with the assistance of a common laborer to level and prepare the ground, may turn a barren waste into a flower garden with her own hands.” Eventually, John's right arm got so bad that surgeons needed to amputate it. They found him in his garden when they came to perform the surgery. John replied he intended to return to the garden immediately after the operation. Two weeks before Christmas 1843, Jane was helping John write his last book called, A Self Instruction to Young Gardeners. Around midnight, he stopped dictating and suddenly collapsed into Jane's arms and died. True to form, Jane completed the book on her own. The orphan girl who never knew financial security, Jane Loudon, is remembered with affection to this day for her beautiful illustrations and garden writing for the people.   1858  Today is the birthday of Ellen Ann Willmott, who was an English horticulturalist who lived in Brentwood. Ellen was the oldest in her family of three daughters. In 1875, her parents moved to Warley Place, which was set on 33 acres of land in Essex. Ellen lived there for the rest of her life. Now, the entire each member of the Willmott family enjoyed gardening, and they often gardened together as a family. Ellen once wrote, “I had a passion for sowing seeds and was very proud when I found out the difference between beads and seeds and gave up sewing the former.” The Willmott's created an alpine garden complete with a gorge and rockery. They also created a cave for their ferns. This was an activity that Ellen's father had approved to commemorate her 21st birthday. When her godmother died, Ellen received some pretty significant money. And, when Ellen's father died, Warley Place went to her. With her large inheritance and no love interest save her garden, Ellen planted to her heart's content. It was a good thing that Ellen had so much money because she sure liked to spend it. She had three homes: one in France, Warley Place, and another in Italy. Given the size of Warley Place, it's no wonder that Ellen hired over 100 gardeners to help her tend it. Now, Ellen was no shrinking violet. She was very demanding and impatient. She had a reputation for firing any gardener who allowed a weed to grow in her beds. And, she only hired men - at least before the war, that is. There's a famous quote from her that is often cited, “Women would be a disaster in the border.” Ellen's gardeners worked very hard - putting in twelve hours a day. And, Ellen made them wear a uniform that included a frog-green silk tie, a hat with a green band, and a blue apron. She could easily spot them as they worked in the garden. Ellen's favorite flower was the narcissus, and she asked her gardeners to let their children scatter them all around the garden. With such a large staff and maniacal devotion, Ellen's garden at Warley Place was revered, and her guests included Queen Mary, Queen Alexandra, and Princess Victoria. Ellen delighted in novel plants, and to acquire them, and she also paid for plant hunting expeditions. As the financier of these ventures, the plants that were discovered on these expeditions were often named in her honor. For example, Ellen sponsored the great Ernest Henry Wilson. When he returned, he named three plants after her: blue plumbago (Certostigmata Willmottianum), a yellow Corylopsis (Corylopsis Willmottiae), and a pink rose (Rosa Willmottiae). When Ellen received the Victoria Medal of Honor in 1897, she was honored alongside Gertrude Jekyll. This was a significant accomplishment for both women during this time. Yet, at the end of her life, Ellen died penniless and heartbroken. She had spent her entire inheritance on her gardens. After Ellen died, the house at Warley Place was demolished, but Warley Place, along with its grand row of 17th-century chestnut trees, managed to stay protected and became a nature preserve. And, there's a little story about Ellen that I thought you would enjoy. Ellen always carried a handbag. Now, in this handbag, She allegedly always carried two items: a revolver and thistle seeds. Obviously, the former was for protection, but the latter was put to far more sinister use. Allegedly, when Ellen would go to other people's gardens, she discreetly scattered thistle seed about the garden during her visit. To this day, the giant prickly thistle has the common name Miss Willmott's ghost.   1934  On this day, Elizabeth Lawrence wrote a letter to her sister Ann. In the letter, she mentions their mom, Bessie, who shared both her daughters' love of the garden. "I am so happy to get back to my rickety Corona; Ellen’s elegant new typewriter made anything I had to say unworthy of its attention. The Zinnias you raised for us are magnificent. There are lots of those very pale salmon ones that are the loveliest of all, and some very pale yellow ones that Bessie puts in my room. The red ones are in front of Boltonia and astilbe (white). I knew how awful the garden would be. I have come back to it before, and I knew Bessie wasn’t going to do anything by herself. But that doesn’t mitigate the despair that you feel when you see it. I worked for two days and almost got the weeds out of the beds around the summer house. There isn’t much left. There has been so much rain that the growth of the weeds was tropical."   Unearthed WordsToday is National Potato Day. Here are some poems about the humble Potato. Three days into the journey I lost the Inca Trail and scrambled around the Andes in a growing panic when on a hillside below the snowline I met a farmer who pointed the way— Machu Picchu allá, he said. He knew where I wanted to go. From my pack, I pulled out an orange. It seemed to catch fire in that high blue Andean sky. I gave it to him. He had been digging in a garden, turning up clumps of earth, some odd, misshapen nuggets, some potatoes. He handed me one, a potato the size of the orange looking as if it had been in the ground a hundred years, a potato I carried with me until at last I stood gazing down on the Urubamba valley, peaks rising out of the jungle into clouds, and there among the mists was the Temple of the Sun and the Lost City of the Incas. Looking back now, all these years later, what I remember most, what matters to me most, was that farmer, alone on his hillside, who gave me a potato, a potato with its peasant's face, its lumps and lunar craters, a potato that fit perfectly in my hand, a potato that consoled me as I walked, told me not to fear, held me close to the earth, the Potato I put in a pot that night, the Potato I boiled above Machu Picchu, the patient, gnarled Potato I ate. — Joseph Stroud, American poet, The Potato   In haste one evening while making dinner I threw away a potato that was spoiled on one end. The rest would have been redeemable. In the yellow garbage pail, it became the consort of coffee grounds, banana skins, carrot peelings. I pitched it onto the compost where steaming scraps and leaves return, like bodies over time, to earth. When I flipped the fetid layers with a hay fork to air the pile, the Potato turned up unfailingly, as if to revile me— looking plumper, firmer, resurrected instead of disassembling. It seemed to grow until I might have made shepherd's pie for a whole hamlet, people who pass the day dropping trees, pumping gas, pinning hand-me-down clothes on the line. — Jane Kenyon, American poet, Potato   Grow That Garden Library Dahlias by Naomi Slade This book came out in 2018, and the subtitle is Beautiful Varieties for Home & Garden. The dahlia is a fabulous cutting flower for the home garden. Cut one bloom, and ten more appear on the plant. Blooming late summer to the first frost of autumn, this native of Mexico provides explosions of color in home gardens. Naomi Slade is a biologist by training, a naturalist by inclination, and she has a lifelong love of plants. Georgianna Lane is a leading garden photographer whose work has been widely published, and she's one of my favorites. This book is 240 pages of delicious dahlias - a gorgeous gift from Naomi and Georgianna. You can get a copy of Dahlias by Naomi Slade and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $10   Today's Botanic Spark 1902  Today is the birthday of Ogden Nash. Ogden is the American poet, who said, "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker." He also said, "Parsley is Gharsley." Ogden wrote several poems about gardening and flowers. His poem called My Victory Garden is a standout favorite with gardeners. Today, my friends, I beg your pardon, But I'd like to speak of my Victory Garden. With a hoe for a sword, and citronella for armor, I ventured forth to become a farmer. On bended knee, and perspiring clammily, I pecked at the soil to feed my family, A figure than which there was none more dramatic-er. Alone with the bug, and my faithful sciatica, I toiled with the patience of Job or Buddha, But nothing turned out the way it shudda. Would you like a description of my parsley? I can give it to you in one word--gharsley! They're making playshoes out of my celery, It's reclaimed rubber, and purplish yellery, Something crawly got into my chives, My lettuce has hookworm; my cabbage has hives, And I mixed the labels when sowing my carrots; I planted birdseed--it came up parrots. Do you wonder then, that my arteries harden Whenever I think of my Victory Garden? My farming will never make me famous, I'm an agricultural ignoramus, So don't ask me to tell a string bean from a soy bean. I can't even tell a girl bean from a boy bean.

Today we remember the busiest man in London. We'll also learn about the man honored by the Baobab tree. We salute a daughter of Winterthur, We also recognize a life cut short in the world of tropical botany. And we'll look back on a letter from one garden writer to another written on this day in 1961. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that puts your focus on the grill for preparing your garden harvest. And then we'll wrap things up with a story about Gallant Soldiers. But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around the world and today's curated news.   Subscribe Apple|Google|Spotify|Stitcher|iHeart   Gardener Greetings To participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org And, to listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to play The Daily Gardener Podcast. It's that easy.   Curated News 7 Best Tips for Growing Dahlias | Melissa J. Will Here's an excerpt: Melissa gathered these tips for growing dahlias from numerous sources, including books, research papers, my own experience, and advice from professional growers whose livelihood depends on their success. Melissa provides seven top tips and answered Frequently Asked Questions for an excellent overview of everything needed to grow dahlias. Dahlias take 90 to 120 days to flower after planting, depending on the variety you are growing. Generally, the larger the plant and flowers, the longer it takes. If you want flowers before late summer, consider starting your dahlia tubers indoors in pots 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost. Pinching back (the same as cutting off), the main stem encourages the plant to become bushier. Every enthusiastic dahlia grower will tell you their storage method works like a charm. And—they are right—for their specific conditions. The point is, it's the health of the tuber and the overall environment that counts. The optimum storage temperature is 40-45°F (4-7°C). We run into problems when the heating systems in our homes make the humidity level too low for the tubers. Consider using the plastic food wrap method where each tuber is wrapped individually to keep moisture in. Growers who use this method report a higher number of viable tubers each spring. Exposure to some cold is necessary for their development each year, so we wait until early frosts have blackened the foliage before digging up the tubers and storing them for the winter. Come spring, a handy rule is, if it's the right time to plant tomatoes, it's the right time to plant dahlias. On a brighter note, while not entirely deer-proof, dahlias are not their first food choice when other plants are available.   Alright, that's it for today's gardening news. Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1803  Today is the birthday of the English gardener, architect, and Member of Parliament, Joseph Paxton. Joseph Paxton was brilliant. It was Charles Dickens who dubbed him, "The Busiest Man in England." Joseph designed the Crystal Palace, aka the People's Palace, for the first World's Fair. The Crystal Place was a large exhibition hall. It was an extraordinary and revolutionary building. Joseph was the head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire in Chatsworth. Now, you might be wondering how Joseph's job as the head gardener had given him the experience he needed to create the Crystal Palace. Well, the answer is simple: he had built four massive greenhouses for the Duke over fifteen years from 1833 to 1848, and that made Joseph one of the top greenhouse experts in the world. And, English royalty knew it. Don't forget that the beautiful Crystal Palace was essentially a large greenhouse. Gardeners will appreciate that Joseph's iron and glass architectural plans were inspired by the "transverse girders & supports" of the giant water lily - which itself is an architectural wonder. Now Instead of creating a large empty building for exhibits, Joseph decided to build his greenhouse around and over the existing Hyde Park. The high central arch - the grand barrel vault you see in all the old postcards and images of the Crystal Palace - actually accommodated full-sized trees that were already in the park when Joseph began to build around them. Joseph's Crystal Palace was built in a very short amount of time, and this was due again to Joseph's expertise and connections. He had built relationships with various iron and glass companies in building greenhouses for the Duke, and he had even designed many of the components needed to create a greenhouse. For instance, the large beautiful columns also served a purpose: drainage. The Joseph Paxton biographer Kate Colquhoun wrote about the immensity of the Palace: "[Paxton's] design, initially doodled on a piece of blotting paper, was the architectural triumph of its time. Two thousand men worked for eight months to complete it. It was six times the size of St Paul's Cathedral, enclosed a space of 18 acres, and entertained six million visitors." The Crystal Palace was an enormous success and was open every day except Sundays all during the summer of 1851. Queen Victoria and Albert were there on the day it opened - May 1st. And by the closing day on October 11th, six million people had walked past the international exhibits at the Crystal Palace. For his work with the Crystal Palace, Joseph Paxton was knighted. Still, if I could knight Joseph Paxton, I would honor him for cultivating my favorite breakfast item: the Cavendish banana - the most consumed banana in the Western world. Naturally, Joseph cultivated the banana in the greenhouses he built for the 6th Duke of Devonshire - William Cavendish - who is honored with the name of the banana. Even with the perfect growing conditions, it took Joseph five years to get a banana harvest. But, in November 1835, Joseph's banana plant finally flowered. By the following May, the tree was loaded with more than 100 bananas - one of which won a medal at the Horticultural Society show in London. Today, bananas still grow on the Devonshire estate, and the Cavendish banana is the most-consumed banana in the western world. It replaced a tastier variety, which was wiped out by a fungal disease in the 1950s. Today, work is underway to create a Cavendish banana replacement. Without attention to this matter, we will someday see the extinction of the Cavendish banana. Now, if you'd like to read about Joseph Paxton - he's such a fascinating person - you should really check out the biographies written by Kate Colquhoun. Her first Joseph Paxton biography is called A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton (2003), and her second book is called The Busiest Man in England: The Life of Joseph Paxton, Gardener, Architect, and Victorian Visionary (2006). You can get a used copy of either of these books and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $10.   1806  Today is the anniversary of the death of the 18th-century Scottish-French botanist and naturalist Michel Adanson. Michel created the first natural classification of flowering plants. In fact, Jussieu ("Juice You") adopted Michel's methodology to create his masterpiece that defined plant groups called Genera Plantarum (1789). Although today we think mainly of Darwin and Linnaeus, they stood the shoulders of people like Michel Adanson. Michel was the first person to question the stability of species. When he saw breaks or deviations in nature, he came up with a word for it - and one we still use today - mutation. One of the most profound experiences in Michel's life was the five year period he spent living in Senegal, where he collected and described many new plants and animals. That experience provided the foundation for his most famous work - the two-part Familles des Plantes (1763). In the book, Michel classified plants by evaluating a variety of plant characteristics in contrast to Linnaeus' more straightforward sexual system. Again, Michel's perspective on this was revolutionary and was embraced by Jussieu and other botanists. Today, it is called the natural system of classification. Linnaeus recognized Michel's contribution by naming the genus Adansonia, which features the spectacularly unique Baobab ("BOW-bab") trees of Africa, Australia, and Madagascar. The Baobab tree is remarkable and memorable - it has a Seussical quality - and it is one of the most massive trees in the world. In Africa, they are called "The Queens of the Forest" or "The Roots of the Sky." The last name refers to a legend that tells how long ago, in a fit of anger, the devil pulled the Baobab tree out of the ground, only to shove it back into the earth upside down - leaving its roots shooting up into the air. Although they seldom grow taller than forty feet and they are generally sparsely branched, the trunks have astounding girth - and they can be almost thirty feet wide. In fact, some large Baobab cavities have served as jails, post offices, and even pubs. And there is a massive Baobab tree in Gonarezhou, Zimbabwe, that is called Shadreck's Office by the locals and was used as a safe by a famous poacher for keeping his ivory and rhinoceros horns. And inside those enormous trunks, they can store up to 32,000 gallons of water. The outer bark is about 6 inches thick, but inside, the cavity is spongy and vascular. This is why animals, like elephants, chew the bark during the dry seasons. The Baobab can grow to enormous sizes, and carbon dating indicates that they may live to be 3,000 years old. They go by many names, including boab, boa boa, Tebaldi, bottle tree, upside-down tree, monkey bread tree, and the dead-rat tree (referring to the appearance of the fruit). Finally, the flowers of the Baobab bloom at night, and they are bat-pollinated. The fruit of the Baobab looks like an oblong coconut with a brown velvety hard outer shell. But inside, the flesh is sweet and tastes a bit like yogurt. The Baobab fruit contains more vitamin C than oranges, more calcium than milk, more antioxidants than blueberries or cranberries, and more iron than steak. And here's a fun fact: the cooking ingredient Cream of Tartar was initially made from Baobab seed pulp. Today, it is mostly sourced as a by-product of making wine. In 1774, Michel Adanson wrote another masterpiece - an encyclopedic work covering all of the known plant families. Sadly, it was never published. But, that work was clearly meaningful to Michel, who requested that a garland for his Paris grave made up of flowers from each of the 58 plant families featured in his book. And Michel's work - his papers and herbarium - were clearly treasured by his surviving family. They privately held his entire collection for over a century before transferring everything to the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, in the early 1960s. The Hunt Institute was so energized and grateful for the gift that they republished Michel's Familles des Plantes in two volumes in 1963 and 1964.   1877  Today is the birthday of Louise du Pont Crowninshield, who was born on this day @WinterthurMuse. Louise spent her life working on projects related to ecological preservation, charity, and horticulture. Aside from her philanthropic efforts, Louise is remembered as the last du Pont to live in the residence at Winterthur ("Winner-TOUR") before it became a museum and library. The Winterthur estate covers 1,000 acres of rolling hills, streams, meadows, and forests. A love-long lover of nature and a natural designer, Henry Francis du Pont got his bachelor's in horticulture from Harvard. Henry thoughtfully developed Winterthur, and he planned for the gardens to be a showpiece. When it came to sourcing plants, du Pont spared no expense to source top plants from around the world. Today, you can visit Winterthur Garden and see for yourself the Quarry, Peony, and Sundial gardens as well as the Azalea Woods and the Enchanted Woods. You can get a lovely used copy of a book called Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur: A Daughter's Portrait and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for under $2.   1945  Today is the anniversary of the death of the American botanist Alwyn Howard Gentry. It's been 75 years since Alwyn's life was tragically cut short when his plane crashed in fog into a forested mountain during a treetop survey in Ecuador. At the time, Alwyn was just 48 years old, and he was at the peak of his career. Alwyn was regarded as a towering figure in tropical biology and ranked among the world's leading field biologists. He also was the senior curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Theodore Parker III was also on the plane with Alwyn. Parker was a world expert ornithologist. Parker's fiance survived the crash, and she told a reporter that both Alwyn and Parker had survived the crash as well. But sadly, they were both trapped in the wreckage of the plane, and without immediate medical attention, they passed away together the following morning. The only consolation for the many who knew and loved them was that Alwyn and Parker both died doing what they loved. Throughout his professional life, Alwyn had been in awe of the powerful pull of the rainforest, writing: "The Amazon is a world of lush green vegetation, and abundant waters has inspired naturalists, fortune hunters, dreamers, explorers, and exploiters." According to Conservation International, Alwyn had collected more specimens than any other living botanist of his time - a staggering 70,000 plants. To this day, botanists rely on Gentry's Guide to the Woody Plants of Peru for understanding and direction when it comes to neotropical and tropical plants.   1961 Today Katharine Stuart wrote to Elizabeth Lawrence. My dear Elizabeth, By now, you will have given me up entirely as a friend. It is shocking that I have not written to you in so long, and especially that I have never answered your letter offering me some of Mr. Krippendorf's hellebores.  Perhaps you can forgive me, though, when you hear all the things that have been happening to me since May 24th, the date of your letter. [Turns out, Katharine had an appendectomy.] I enclose some of Andy's snapshots of the garden in early spring. As you can see, it isn't a garden — no plan, no style, no proper arrangement of colors — but at least the pictures give you the feel of the land in a cold, late Maine spring.  Everything is very different now. The picket fence hardly shows for the flowers; the grey windbreak is covered with the blossoms of Mme. Baron Veillard, Jackmarie, and Mrs. Cholmondley, and on the little terrace, the hybrid roses are full of bloom.  We lost one of our big Balm of Gilead trees in a fierce wind and rain storm, and Andy has made a most ingenious birdbath from a section of its big trunk, into which he poured cement… yesterday, we could watch two song sparrows, and a yellow warbler take their baths [in it] under the pear tree.  Even if I can't garden, I can enjoy the flowers in a maddeningly remote way. My first water lily is in blossom in the pasture pond... Today, my first-ever hardy cyclamen is in bloom under the Persian lilac. It is enchanting and a triumph, as I have failed so often with them. I finally raised this one indoors last winter and set it out this spring. I don't even know the variety, for the tag is lost. It has pink blossoms and variegated leaves. Everything else is at sixes and sevens—iris needs separating; one long perennial bed is too crowded; one is too skimpy thanks to winter losses. It has been a year of frustration. Andy finally sold our beautiful Herefords, and there goes my source of manure. Oh, dear, we are crumbling badly! But just writing you gives me hope, and I am determined that I shall get back to normal again. We really feel encouraged.  Ever affectionately, Katharine    Unearthed Words Today is National Watermelon Day. Here are some words about Watermelon.   Go along, Mister Winter- Crawl into your frosty bed.  I'm longing like a lover For the watermelon red. — Frank Lebby Stanton, American lyricist   And the windows opened that night, A ceiling dripped the sweat Of a tin god,  And I sat eating a watermelon All false red, Water like slow running  Tears, And I spit out seeds And swallowed seeds, And I kept thinking I'm a fool I'm a fool To eat this Watermelon, But I kept eating  Anyhow. — Charles Bukowski, American-German poet and novelist, Watermelon   Green Buddhas On the fruit stand We eat the smile And spit out the teeth. — Charles Simic, American-Serbian Poet, Watermelons   Up from the South, by boat and train.  Now comes the King of Fruits again;  Lucious feast for judge or felon,  Glorious, sun-kissed Watermelon;  Green as emerald in its rind, But cutting through it thou shalt find  Sweetest mass of crimson beauty Tempting angels from their duty. — Ode to Watermelon, anonymous   It is pure water, distilled, and put up by nature herself,  who needs no government label  to certify to the cleanliness of her methods  and the innocence of her sun-kissed chemistry.  It is the tiniest trace of earth salts.  It has a delicate aroma.  It is slightly a food, generously a drink, and altogether poetry. Not altogether is it poetry.  Not in respect of price.  Not even the most hard-working of the poets  can afford to buy the early Watermelon.  — The Citizen-Republican, Scotland, South Dakota, Watermelon   On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of Watermelon. That night he had a stomach ache. — Eric Carle, American designer, illustrator, and writer of children's books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar   Grow That Garden Library From Garden to Grill by Elizabeth Orsini This book came out in 2017, and the subtitle is Over 250 Vegetable-based Recipes for Every Grill Master. From kebabs and salads to made-from-scratch sauces and seasonings, bring your garden to your grill with more than 250 mouthwatering vegetarian grilling recipes! Bring your garden harvest to the grill! Backyard barbecues aren't just for burgers and hotdogs. Delicious vegetables can be part of every diet with From Garden to Grill--featuring more than 250 mouthwatering, vegetable-based grilling recipes, variations to add meat, tips to make meals paleo, and changes to go gluten-free or vegan! With everything from sauces and salads to small plates and main courses, this book shows grill masters how to incorporate fresh produce into healthy and hearty meals: *Grilled Zucchini Salsa *Kale and Feta Pita Pizza *Caramelized Corn *Eggplant Ratatouille *Foil Pack Vegetables *Quinoa Veggie Wraps *Grilled Romaine Salad *Grilled Veggie Paninis *Butternut Squash Kebabs *Artichoke Pizza *Portobello Mozzarella Caps Whether you are dedicated to a lifetime of healthy living or just love bringing that freshly grilled char to seasonal veggies, this is the cookbook for you. This book is 320 pages of grilled garden goodness. You can get a copy of From Garden to Grill by Elizabeth Orsini and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $13   Today's Botanic Spark 1948 On this day, The Guardian posted a brief snippet about the Gallant Soldiers plant. Now before I read the post, here's a primer. Gallant Soldiers is loosely derived from its Latin name: Galinsoga parviflora (gal-in-SOH-guh), and it's also known as Quickweed. Gallant Soldiers is a herbaceous plant in the Asteraceae or Daisy family. Over a single summer, a single specimen of Gallant Soldiers can produce over 7,000 seeds - so they'll be marching on. Galinsoga was named for Mariano Galinsoga, who was a botanist and a Spanish doctor for royalty during the 1700s, and he famously observed that women who wore corsets had more health problems than peasant women who did not wear them. Now, Galinsoga is a trooper when it comes to medicinal uses. Galinsoga is a super coagulator, antibiotic agent, and a healer. And the next time you run into stinging nettle, grab some Galinsoga, and you'll be all smiles. Rich in iron, Galinsoga is also edible. In fact, every part of the plant, except the root, can be eaten. In the United States, foragers are beginning to add Galinsoga to their list, but in China and South America, Galinsoga is already regularly added to soups, stews, and salads. On the Forager Chef website, it says "Galinsoga can be used raw or cooked. Got a call from a farmer that the spinach was killed by hail?  Don't worry, just toss some Galinsoga in that pasta.  While you're at it, put it in the salad mix and on the fish entree, then throw the purchased microgreens in the compost where they belong, as fodder to grow interesting, edible weeds. Like so many other greens sans watercress, It's shelf life shames conventionally harvested salad greens.  I would regularly get two weeks of shelf life from what I picked or more... Galinsoga tastes mild and fades into the background; there's not even a hint of bitterness.  It's a blank canvas for whatever you like.  This also means from a health/diet perspective, you can consume mass quantities cooked, unlike other aggressive growers like garlic mustard, whose bitterness I tend to blend with other plants."   Great information there.   Now let's hear that post from The Guardian on Galinsoga from 1948: "In some gardens, near Kew and Richmond, there flourishes an unusual weed which nine out of ten people will call "Gallant Soldiers." It has escaped from Kew, where it was introduced some years ago from Peru under the name of Galinsoga parviflora. Local gardeners made the name easier to pronounce, but the corruption did not stop there. Sir Edward Salisbury, the director of Kew Gardens, tells how he found a gardener one day pulling out Galinsoga from his borders. He asked its name. The gardener replied, "I don't rightly know, but I have heard it called Soldiers of the Queen."

Today we remember the founding of a garden that inspired the book Alice in Wonderland. We'll also learn about the botanist remembered with the Forsythia genus. We'll salute the Lake poet who likened plant taxonomy to poetry. We also revisit a diary entry about a garden visitor and a letter from a gardener to her sister. Today's Unearthed Words feature an excerpt from a July Afternoon by Walt Whitman. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about the unloved flowers as they have been referred to Weeds. And then we'll wrap things up with an unforgettable story of flowers and a performance called "A Case of Floral Offerings" from 1874. But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around the world and today's curated news.   Subscribe Apple  | Google  | Spotify  | Stitcher | iHeart   Gardener Greetings To participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org And, to listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to play The Daily Gardener Podcast. It's that easy.   Curated News This L.A. music producer is obsessed with houseplants: See how they amplify his work | latimes.com | Micah Fluellen “Mark Redito (“Ra-DEE-toe”) is an L.A.-based electronic music producer who, it turns out, is also the proud plant parent to over 40 houseplants. He visually couples his earthy soothing sound with heavy plant imagery, from short snippets of him tenderly caring for plants to abstract videos of 3-D modeled flora. Redito’s aesthetic is the seamless marriage between the ambient digital world and a tangible natural ecosystem. You can find short teaser videos of thumping tracks playing over footage of sped-up plant growth and gardens, photographs of technology blended with nature, and updates of his own garden developments on his Instagram account @markredito. "My hope is that when people listen to my work, they would be inspired to go outside and experience nature or start their own garden. My upcoming album to be released this summer, “Natural Habitat,” is all about that — the interconnectedness and innate connection we have with nature and with plants. (What’s your best tip for gardeners and new plant parents?) Ease into it and remember to take it slow. When I started getting into plants, my collection grew from five plants to about 30 in a month. As much as I enjoyed having plants and taking care of them, it was a lot of work for one guy to water and tend to 30-plus plants on one Saturday morning.”   Are you growing, Cleome? My daughter just had her senior pictures taken, and I took some cuttings from the garden for her to hold during her photoshoot. For one of the images, I had her hold just one large white blossom in her hands. It looked like a giant puffball, and it had a very ethereal quality about it. Cleome is beautiful - but it is also sticky - so keep that in mind if you handle it. I know some gardeners have no trouble sowing cleome directly into their gardens, but some gardeners complain that it can be an inconsistent germinater. I like to sow cleome right now since the seeds like intense light to get going. Sometimes cleome can benefit from staking - so keep that in mind as well. And, if you are planning a cutting garden, it is hard to beat cleome. The blooms are a show-stealer in any arrangement.   Go to a local farmers market - not for the produce - for the knowledge.   The growers at the farmer's market have expertise in growing, which is often an untapped resource. Plus, the growers are so generous with Information. It's always a pleasure to talk to someone who has first-hand knowledge about growing plants.   Alright, that's it for today's gardening news. Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1621  The Botanic garden at Oxford, also known as the Physic Garden, was founded on this day in 1621 at precisely 2 pm. It was a Sunday. The garden is the oldest in England. When the garden was founded, its primary purpose was to be a medicinal garden. Henry Danvers, the first Earl of Danby, funded the garden by giving Oxford University 250 pounds. Unfortunately, the land they purchased was flood-prone. The 5-acre tract was mostly pasture land and lined the banks of the River Cherwell. So, to protect the garden from flooding, the ground for the garden was built up. Records show a Mr. Windiat brought in 4,000 loads of "mucke and dunge" to elevate the area that we now know as the Oxford Botanic Garden. During the founding ceremony, dignitaries of the University walked in a procession from St. Mary's church to the garden. Mr. Edward Dawson, a physician, and Dr. Clayton, the Regius Professor of Medicine, each gave a speech and a stone was placed in the garden gateway by the Vice-Chancellor himself. The Garden has a fascinating history, and there are at least two father-son connections to the Garden. Bobart the Elder and his son, Bobart the Younger, established the herbarium. Both William Baxter and his son served as curator. Lewis Carroll, who was a math professor at Oxford and he visited the garden with a young Alice Liddell, which inspired Alice in Wonderland. J.R.R. Tolkien, who also taught at Oxford, loved the gardens and could be found sitting beneath his favorite tree: an ornamental black pine. In 1941, after the discovery of the dawn redwood tree, a dawn redwood seed was planted in the garden. The tree still grows at the Oxford Botanic Garden. In 2019, Oxford University's gardens, libraries, and museums attracted over 3 million visitors. The Garden and Arboretum had a record-setting year with over 200,000 visitors, which was an increase of 23%. And, today, the garden is continuing to prepare for its 400th anniversary in 2021. Planting projects and garden redesigns are all being worked on to give visitors a stunning welcome next year. In addition, some of the beds are going through a bit of a time machine; they are being planted according to their 17th-century prescriptions so that visitors can glimpse how the garden looked when it was established four centuries ago.   1804  Today is the birthday of the Scottish botanist William Forsyth. William trained as a gardener at the Oxford Physic Garden and was an apprentice to Philip Miller, the chief gardener. In 1771, Forsyth himself took over the principal gardening position. Three years later, he built one of the very first rock gardens with over 40 tons of stone collected from the land around the Tower of London and even some pieces of lava imported from Iceland. The effort was noted for posterity; the garden was a bust. Forsyth was also the founding member of the Royal Horticultural Society. The genus, Forsythia, was named in his honor by Carl Peter Thunberg. There are several different varieties of Forsythia, which also goes by the common name golden bell. A member of the olive family, Forsythias are related to the Ash tree. And, the Forsythia is a vernal shrub. Vernal shrubs bloom in the spring.   1834  Today is the anniversary of the death of the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Along with his friend, William Wordsworth, he helped found the Romantic Movement in England and was a member of a group called the Lake Poets. As a poet, Coleridge recognized the inherent rhythm of taxonomy, and he likened it to poetry when he said that taxonomy was simply "the best words in the best order." In his poem called Youth and Age, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, Flowers are lovely. Love is flower-like. Friendship is a sheltering tree. Coleridge wrote a 54-line poem about a Mongolian emperor's summer garden at Xanadu. The emperor was  Kubla Kahn. Coleridge's Kubla Kahn is one of his most famous works. The poem begins by describing Kahn's palace and the garden contrasted with the setting of an ancient Mongolian forest. And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.   It was Samuel Taylor Coleridge who said: Summer has set in with its usual severity.   1938  On this day, the Canadian Naturalist Charles Joseph Sauriol ("Sar-ee-all") wrote about sharing his garden with a toad. He wrote, "One particular toad has taken quite a fancy to the Wild Flower garden. His den is alongside the Hepatica plant. There he sits half-buried, and blinks up at me while I shower water on him."   1946  On this day Elizabeth Lawrence wrote to her sister: Dear Ann, I am going to send you, as soon as they are ripe, some seeds of Campanula americana, which came to me from one of my delightful farm women correspondents. I asked Mr. Krippendorf if he knew it, and he said yes, it was his favorite weed. Scatter them as soon as you get them along the drive. Along the fence at the foot of the terrace, and on the other side near the tiger lilies. Then in the spring, I will send (or maybe fall) some roots of the day lily Margaret Perry. It will spread all along, and bloom with the campanula and the lilies. ...The campanula is an annual but it will self-sow, and the combination will make a mass of bloom for six weeks or more. Then I am going to send you seeds of Cassia marilandica (“The virtuous and beloved dead need neither cassia buds nor myrrh”) to scatter lower down on the driveway. ... I expect that you will have more lycoris. Mine are still coming, and I dash out very quickly to stake each one before Mr. Cayce can get to it. Mr. Krippendorf wrote that his were coming out fast, but that he did not expect them to last long as he was bringing out his granddaughter’s boxer to spend a week with his, and he thought the two of them would break off thousands. Mr. Krippendorf feels as I do about dogs. But Bessie does not. ... The summer has been so cool and green, and so many of the choice and difficult amaryllids have bloomed. So am I as the rich, whose blessed key Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, The which he will not every hour survey. For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. [Shakespeare sonnet 52]   Unearthed Words The fervent heat, but so much more endurable in this pure air — the white and pink pond-blossoms, with great heart-shaped leaves; the glassy waters of the creek, the banks, with dense bushery, and the picturesque beeches and shade and turf; the tremulous, reedy call of some bird from recesses, breaking the warm, indolent, half-voluptuous silence; an occasional wasp, hornet, honey-bee or bumble (they hover near my hands or face, yet annoy me not, nor I them, as they appear to examine, find nothing, and away they go) — the vast space of the sky overhead so clear, and the buzzard up there sailing his slow whirl in majestic spirals and discs; just over the surface of the pond, two large slate-colored dragon-flies, with wings of lace, circling and darting and occasionally balancing themselves quite still, their wings quivering all time, (are they not showing off for my amusement?)— the pond itself, with the sword-shaped calamus; the water snakes— occasionally a flitting blackbird, with red dabs on his shoulders, as he darts slantingly by— the sounds that bring out the solitude, warmth, light and shade— the squawk of some pond duck— (the crickets and grasshoppers are mute in the noon heat, but I hear the song of the first cicadas;)— then at some distance, the rattle and whirr of a reaping machine as the horses draw it on a rapid walk through a rye field on the opposite side of the creek— (what was the yellow or light brown bird, large as a young hen, with a short neck and long-stretched legs I just saw, in flapping and awkward flight over there through the trees?)— the prevailing delicate, yet palpable, spicy, grassy, clovery perfume to my nostrils; and over all, encircling all, to my sight and soul, and free space of the sky, transparent and blue— and hovering there in the west, a mass of white-gray fleecy clouds the sailors call "shoals of mackerel"— the sky, with silver swirls like locks of tossed hair, spreading, expanding— a vast voiceless, formless simulacrum— yet may-be the most real reality and formulator of everything— who knows? — Walt Whitman, American poet and the Father of Free Verse, A July Afternoon by the Pond   Grow That Garden Library Weeds by Richard Mabey This book came out in 2012, and the subtitle is In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants. The author Richard Holmes said, "[A] witty and beguiling meditation on weeds and their wily ways….You will never look at a weed, or flourish a garden fork, in the same way again." And, if you thought your garden was full of them, this book is chock-full of 336 pages of weeds. You can get a copy of Weeds by Richard Mabey and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $14.   Today's Botanic Spark 1874  On this day, the Opelousas Courier shared an incredible story called "A Case of Floral Offerings." The story was from Berlin, it told of an actress who was playing the role of a female Hamlet. She wanted to have bouquets and wreaths thrown to her at the end of her performance. When a man told her that the flowers would cost $20, the actress said that it was too much for one night. But, the gentleman had an idea. He said twenty dollars would be sufficient for two nights. And he explained how it would work. He said, "Today, I and my men will throw the bouquets to you from the first tier. After the performance is over, I shall take the flowers home with me in a basket [and] put them in the water... Tomorrow night [we will toss them at your feet again]. No one in the audience will know that the bouquets have been used before." The actress liked the man's ingenious plan, and she happily paid him the money.

Today we remember the beloved botanist who served on Captain Cook's third South Seas trip. We'll also learn about the Austrian botanist and monk who pioneered the study of heredity. We celebrate the usefulness of daylilies. We also honor the life of a young man who was killed paying his florist bill and the life of the garden writer who wrote for The New Yorker. We'll hear some poems that highlight the Garden as a sanctuary, a holy place to heal and be refreshed. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about Gardening in Your Front Yard - it's packed with ideas and projects for big and small spaces. It's an idea that is gaining popularity and acceptance thanks to stay-at-home orders and physical distancing - one of the positive effects of dealing with the pandemic. And then we'll wrap things up with remembering Katharine Stuart and the people who loved her the most. But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around the world and today's curated news.   Subscribe Apple|Google|Spotify|Stitcher|iHeart   Gardener Greetings To participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org And, to listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to play The Daily Gardener Podcast. It's that easy.   Curated News Unconventional Wisdom: 8 Revolutionary Ideas for Your Garden from Thomas Rainer - Gardenista "When you meet landscape architect Thomas Rainer he comes across as a pleasant, mild-mannered fellow… not at all the type to be traveling around the world, as he does, spouting revolutionary ideas calculated to upend years and years of conventional gardening wisdom. As he writes in his preface to Planting in a Post-Wild World, the 2015 book he wrote with Claudia West, his ideas come from his time as a boy in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, where he spent countless happy hours roaming a stretch of indigenous Piedmont forest near his home." This article reveals a list of Thomas's dos and don'ts for growing an earth-friendly garden that he says produces better results with less work. Here's a high-level overview - be sure to read the article for the full scoop. 1. Amending the Soil: Don't 2. Double Digging: Don't 3. Soil Testing: Do 4. Mulching: Don't 5. Planting Cover Crops: Do 6. Curbside Planting: Do 7. Buying A Lot of Plants: Do 8. Experimenting and Having Fun: Do   Alright, that's it for today's gardening news. Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1789  Today is the anniversary of the death of the British botanist David Nelson. David served as the botanist on Captain Cook's third South Seas trip; William Bligh was the Sailing Master. After gathering many new specimens, David spent the bulk of his time caring for over 500 breadfruit plants that Bligh was transporting to the West Indies. Breadfruit is a reference to the texture of the cooked fruit, which is similar to freshly baked bread. And, breadfruit tastes like potato. A likable fellow, David had traveled on another expedition with Captain Charles Clerke of the ship Discovery, who said David was "one of the quietest fellows in nature." As you might recall, the Captain Cook expedition suffered a mutiny on April 28, 1789. For his protection, David was kept below deck and under guard. David decided to go with William Bligh and his followers to Timor. The 3,500-mile voyage was grueling, and David died on this day, just 54 days after the mutiny. David's death was a blow to Bligh and his crew. To honor this mild man of botany, Bligh conferred full naval honors for his funeral service. Three years later, Captain Bligh visited Tasmania. He named "Nelson's Hill," the highest point on the island, in David's honor. Today Mount Nelson is the Hobart location of Tasmania University.   1822  Today is the birthday of the Austrian botanist and monk Gregor Mendel. Gregor discovered the basic principles of heredity through his experiments with peas in his garden at the Augustinian monastery that he lived in at Brno ("BURR-no") in the Czech Republic. Or, as I like to tell the kids, Gregor learned about heredity when he gave peas a chance. (Sorry, couldn't resist!) During a seven-year period in the mid-1800s, Gregor grew nearly 30,000 pea plants, and he took note of everything: their height and shape and color. And, his work resulted in what we now know as the Laws of Heredity, and to this day, most kids study this in school. And it was Gregor who came up with all of the genetic terms and terminology that we still use today, like dominant and recessive genes.   1960  On this day, the Chicago Tribune ran an article about the daylily, saying that they were "tops" in usefulness. Here are some highlights: "Because they combine exquisite charm with extreme hardiness, daylilies are without doubt nature's most useful flower... Their usefulness derives from their ability to thrive lustily under virtually any circumstances, which makes them particularly adaptable to so-called problem areas where the gardener may have experienced difficulty growing other flowers. For the weekend-gardener with a large tract to work, daylilies are the answer for far corners which ...never [get attended] to. The abundant foliage [of the daylily] will tend to keep the areas free from weeds, too."   1974  On this day, the IRA murdered Brian Shaw. Brian was just 21 years old when he was killed. A former soldier, Brian, had become a truck driver and had just married a girl from Belfast. Two weeks after their wedding, Brian disappeared when he went to pay the florist bill for flowers they had used at his wedding. And poignantly, the bill was still in his pocket when his body was found.   1977  Today is the anniversary of the death of the garden writer Katharine White. Now, Katharine was married to Andy - but most of us probably know him as E.B. White, the author of three beloved children's books, Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). In the early 1930s, Katharine and Andy bought a farmhouse in North Brooklin, Maine. By the end of the decade, they left their place in New York for good and moved to the farmhouse permanently. It was Katharine White who once wrote: "From December to March, there are for many of us three gardens - the garden outdoors, the garden of pots and bowls in the house, and the garden of the mind's eye." Katharine began writing garden pieces for The New Yorker in 1958. In 1979, Katharine's book Onward and Upward in the Garden was edited and published posthumously by her husband, Andy. Gardeners especially enjoy Andy's tenderly written preface to his gardener wife. Anatole Broyard gushed about Katharine's book in his review saying, "It is itself a bouquet; the final blooming of an extraordinary sensibility." Now, Katharine carried on a marvelous correspondence with another garden writer: Elizabeth Lawrence. And, their letters convey a warmth and curiosity that I thought you would find delightful: July 2, 1958 [Katharine to Elizabeth] Dear Miss Lawrence, I am in New York for the moment, so it was on my desk here at The New Yorker that I found today your book, "The Little Bulbs"... Already I have dipped into it with delight. I shall carry it back with me to Maine next week and study it and consult it ... for years...  The varieties [of bulbs] I have established ...are the obvious ones I'm afraid: the two colors of scylla, snowdrops, snowflakes, crocuses, white and blue grape hyacinths, and among the small tulips only Clusiana and Kaufmanniana. Your book will help me to expand, I hope…   June 15, 1959 Dear Elizabeth, Here I am back again with a question, in spite of my promises. ...Do you know the address of Jan de Graaff, and does de Graaff bring out a catalog? I have been studying the lily offerings for the autumn of this year and every one of them, both in specialists' catalogs and in those of the big nurseries, of course, brags of lilies from the great de Graaff.  P.S. It is 48 degrees here today and has been this for 48 hours. Discouraging. (Note the date!)   October 8, 1959 Dear Elizabeth, Speaking of gourds, for the first time, my small decorative gourds did not mature in time for me to wax and polish them while watching the World Series. I am a baseball fan; I hate to confess — and I have loved baseball since I was a child.   November 1959 Friday morning Dear Katharine, I don't know anything about modern flowers that have lost their fragrance. I think some hybrid roses are as sweet as old ones. At the fall flower show, I was intoxicated by the scent of one flower of Sutter's Gold... How in the world do you accomplish all you do? I have been interrupted five times since I came to my desk an hour ago, the last by a friend who wouldn't take the plants I offered on a day I was in the garden and would like to have them right now. I told her to come on. If she doesn't, she will choose a still worse time.   Aren't those letters magnificent? You can read all of Katharine and Elizabeth's letters in detail in a wonderful book called Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence--A Friendship in Letters by Emily Herring Wilson. After Katharine died, her husband Andy sent a little verse he had written to their close friends and family. It said simply: To all who loved my lovely wife. To all who spoke their sorrow,  I send this printed card of thanks  so l can face tomorrow. I'd hoped to write a full reply  To each, to say "I love you." But I'll reveal the sticky truth:  There's just too many of you.   Unearthed Words Here are some inspiring verses that highlight the Garden as a sanctuary, a holy place to heal, and be refreshed.   God made a beauteous garden With lovely flowers strown, But one straight, narrow pathway That was not overgrown. And to this beauteous garden He brought mankind to live, And said "To you, my children, These lovely flowers I give. Prune ye my vines and fig trees, With care my flowers tend, But keep the pathway open Your home is at the end. ― Robert Frost, American poet, God's Garden   If words are seeds,  let flowers grow  from your mouth, not weeds.  If hearts are gardens,  plant those flowers in the chest of the ones who exist around you.  — R.H. Swaney, American poet   For flowers that bloom about our feet;  For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;  For song of bird, and hum and bee;  For all things fair we hear or see;  Father in heaven, we thank Thee! — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and poet   Grow That Garden Library Shrubs by Andy McIndoe ("MAC-IN-doe") This book came out in February of 2019, and the subtitle is Discover the Perfect Plant for Every Place in Your Garden. Gardens Illustrated said this about Andy's book, "McIndoe is a devoted and knowledgeable ambassador for shrubs…His advice is clear, practical, and honest: the sort of counsel every gardener needs. The book will be an invaluable addition not only to the bookcases of gardeners but also those of garden designers seeking to broaden their plant palette." This is one of my favorite books on shrubs, and it's 337 pages of fabulous photos and detailed shrub profiles - all shared with today's gardener in mind. You can get a copy of Shrubs by Andy McIndoe and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $14.   Today's Botanic Spark After researching Katharine White, I discovered some touching correspondence that occurred between her husband, Andy, (the author of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web), and her friend and fellow garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence. In July 1979, Elizabeth wrote to Andy about Katharine's book (after Katharine died): Dear Andy, Thank you for having the publisher send me Onward and Upward (it really is). I have been re-reading and re-reading ever since, with great pleasure and great sorrow. I can't bear not [being] able to tell Katharine what a wonderful book [she wrote]… [I am writing] to ask for permission to quote a paragraph from a letter you wrote to me [a while ago. You wrote:] "Katharine just spent three days in bed, in pain, caused by aback injury brought on by leaning far out over a flower bed to pick one spring bloom— the daffodil Supreme. It seems a heavy price to pay for one small flower. But when she is in her garden, she is always out of control. I do not look for any change, despite her promises." I am not sure about your [species], whether it is the daffodil supreme, or the daffodil Supreme, Rijnveld, 1947, 3a. But I don't think it likely that any Observer will know the difference. I thought the paragraph fits in with your loving introduction [to Onward and Upward in the Garden]. [...] I am having a miserable time trying to say something worthy of the book in the space allotted to me. Aff, Elizabeth   On March 24, 1980, Andy concluded a letter back to Elizabeth with these words: Tired snow still lies about, here and there, in the brownfields, and my house will never look the same again since the death of the big elm that overhung it. Nevertheless, I manfully planted (as a replacement) a young elm. It is all of five-and-a-half feet high.  By Katharine's grave, I planted an oak. This is its second winter in the cemetery, her third. Yrs,  Andy   Five years later, Andy died at home in Maine. He is buried next to Katharine in the Brooklin Cemetery.  

We'll also learn about the botanical illustrator and collector who established a worldwide reputation for his incredible herbarium. We celebrate the great Himalayan and Alpine mountain climbing and writer - he was also a botanist. We also honor bees with today's poetry. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book gardening in a humane way - helping you create a garden that is healthy and harmonious for all living things. And then we'll wrap things up with an Ode to Basil - my favorite summer crop. But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around the world and today's curated news.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Gardener Greetings To participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org And, to listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to play The Daily Gardener Podcast. It's that easy.   Curated News The hidden gardens of lockdown | The Guardian "As some of the UK's best-loved gardens prepare to reopen to the public, we ask the head gardeners what has been happening behind their closed gates." Gardener Jess Evans: "I can't lie, it's been amazing, and so peaceful," she says. "It's very easy to stick your head down and just crack on and get things done, but this has given us an opportunity to take stock and look at the garden properly." She has also enjoyed the chance to get her hands dirty. "I'm doing more outdoor work than I have done in ages. Usually, I'd be in the office at least two or three days a week, and yet now I've had the perfect excuse not to be."   Hollyhocks | Gardenista "Hollyhocks are designed to give easy access to quantities of pollen, through the open funnels of the single varieties. Just watching a less svelte bee (like a bumblebee) climbing around a hollyhock illustrates how double flowers can be problematic. Aesthetically, the simple singles are very desirable but have been out-marketed by the doubles. The best way to procure singles, in the best colors, is through a generous friend."   What's Green and Sings?   (Click to read this original post)   Alright, that's it for today's gardening news.   Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1706  Today is the anniversary of the death of Leonard Plukenet, who had served as the botanist to Queen Mary II. When he died (like almost every plant-lover of his era), he left his collections and herbarium to Sir Hans Sloane, which is how his collections have become one of the oldest still existing at the Natural History Museum in England. As the royal botanist, Plukenet was an important part of botanical society during the 1600s. Along with George London and William Sherard, Plukenet assisted the zealous botanical aspirations of Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort. Her next-door neighbor was Sir Hans Sloane. When she died, she, too, left her herbarium and other valuable botanical items to Sir Hans Sloane. This is how Hans Sloane became a one-man botanical repository, and that repository ultimately became the Natural History Museum. Plukenet played an unforgettable role in the history of the sacred lotus. And in 2011, Corinne Hannah wrote an exceptional piece about Plukenet's name for the sacred lotus. Here's an excerpt from Corinne's marvelous article, which appeared in the Calgary Herald. "[The] English botanist Leonard Plukenet christened the sacred lotus in 1696 as: Nymphaea glandulifera indiae paludibus gardens foliis umbilicatis amplis pediculis spinosis flore rosea-pupureo, ("nim-fay-EE-ah-gland-you-LIFF-er-AH-in-die-EE-pall-ooh-duh-bus-gardens-fol-ee-ice-umb-Bill-ah-CAY-tis-AMP-YOU-lis-ped-DIC-YOU-lis-spin-OH-sis-flora-row-SAH-poo-PURR-EE-oh") or "the marsh-loving, nut-bearing Indian water lily with large, navel-centered leaves, prickly stalks, and rose-purple flowers. Thank heavens for Carl Linnaeus and his invention of binomial nomenclature, which decreed each plant could only be identified with two names! But Linnaeus was not infallible. He, too, initially identified the sacred lotus as being closely related to the water lily family (Nymphaea). Recent genetic testing has confirmed that sacred lotus belongs to a genus unto itself, Nelumbo nucifera. This aquatic plant is not even remotely related to water lilies. In fact, it is far more closely allied to woody plants such as plane trees or banksias. "   1785  Today is the birthday of the great Sir William Jackson Hooker. Hooker was both a botanist and a botanical illustrator, and he was a great friend of Joseph Banks. Thanks to his inheritance, Hooker was wealthy; he didn't need a patron to fund his work or expeditions. Hooker's first expedition was to Iceland in the summer of 1809. The trip was actually Bank's idea. Hooker came along in order to collect specimens, as well as to trial everything he discovered. Unfortunately, during their voyage home from Iceland, there was a terrible fire. Most people don't realize it, but Hooker nearly died. Sadly, all of Hooker's work was destroyed. But it turns out, Hooker's mind was a steel trap. In a remarkable accomplishment, Hooker was able to reconstruct his discoveries and publish an account of his adventure in a book called Tour in Iceland. Over his lifetime, Hooker established a global reputation for his world-class herbarium. By 1841, he was appointed the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Hooker elevated Kew to greatness. His leadership resulted in an expanding of the gardens from 10 to 75 acres as well as adding a 270-acre Arboretum and a museum for botany. In 1865, there was a virus going around at Kew. Everyone had sore throats. Soon, Hooker, too, became ill. He was 80 years old. The virus overpowered him, and he died. His son Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, and outstanding botanist in his own right succeeded him at Kew.   1900 Today is the birthday of the great Himalayan and Alpine mountain climber and mountaineering writer Frank Smythe. Frank had a diverse range of interests, which he mastered - including photography, collecting plants, botany, and gardening. He is most remembered for his mountaineering and for discovering and naming the Valley of Flowers in the Western Himalayas in India. During his lifetime, Frank would go on seven expeditions to the Himalayas, where he especially enjoyed botanizing and taking pictures. In 1931, Frank stumbled on the Valley of Flowers along with two other English mountaineers after they got lost. The climbers had just finished ascending Mount Kamet, and they were looking for a place to escape bad oncoming weather. The Valley enchanted them, and the flowers made it seem like they were in a fairyland. When Smyth returned to England, he wrote a book called Kamet Conquered, and in it, he named the area the Valley of Flowers. Well, the name Frank gave the Valley caused a sensation. In one of his later books, Frank wrote about the moment he discovered the Valley: "Within a few minutes, we were out of the wind, and in the rain, which became gradually warmer as we lost height. Dense mist shrouded the mountainside, and we paused, uncertain as to the route when I heard Holdsworth, who was a botanist as well as a climbing member of the Expedition, exclaim, "Look!"  I followed the directions of his outstretched hand. At first, I could see nothing but rocks. Then suddenly, my wandering gaze was arrested by a little splash of blue, and beyond it were other splashes of blue, a blue so intense it seemed to light the hillside. Holdsworth wrote: 'All of a sudden, I realized that I was simply surrounded by primulas. At once, the day seemed to brighten perceptibly. Forgotten were all the pains and cold and lost porters. And what a primula it was! Its leek-like habit proclaimed it a member of the nizalis section. All over the little shelves and terraces, it grew, often with its roots in running water. At the most, it stood six inches high, but it's flowers were enormous for its stature, and ample in number— sometimes as many as thirty to the beautifully proportioned umble and in the color of the most heavenly French blue [and] sweetly scented.' In all my mountain wanderings, I had not seen a more beautiful flower than this primula. The fine raindrops clung to its soft petals like galaxies of seed-pearls and frosted its leaves with silver. "   Now you can see how Frank's writing inspired so many people to make a pilgrimage to the Valley. For the people who make the trek, the Valley of Flowers is a seven-day trip from Delhi. It is now a protected national park. As the name implies, it is a lush area famous for the millions of alpine flowers that cover the hills and slopes and nestle along icy flowing streams. Through most of the year, the Valley of Flowers remains hidden, buried under several feet of snow throughout a seven-to-eight-month-long winter. In March, the melting snow and monsoon activate a new growing season. There is a brief 3-4 month window when the Valley of Flowers is accessible – generally during the months of July, August, and September. In 1937, Frank returned to the Valley, where he especially enjoyed botanizing. He gathered specimens and seeds and documented his discoveries. The Valley of Flowers is home to over 500 varieties of wildflowers, and many are still considered rare. Along with daisies, poppies, and marigolds, there are primulas and orchids growing wild. The rare Blue Poppy, commonly known as the Himalayan Queen, is the most coveted plant in the Valley.   Unearthed Words Today's poetry is all about the buzz of July: Bees.   The hum of bees is the voice of the garden. — Elizabeth Lawrence, garden writer   The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy Bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me. — James Russell Lowell, American Romantic poet   "And pray, who are you?" Said the Violet blue To the Bee, with surprise, At his wonderful size, In her eyeglass of dew. "I, madam," quoth he, "Am a publican, Bee, Collecting the tax Of honey and wax. Have you nothing for me?" — John Bannister Tabb, American poet and priest, The Violet and the Bee   Answer July— Where is the Bee— Where is the Blush— Where is the Hay? Ah, said July— Where is the Seed— Where is the Bud— Where is the May— Answer Thee—Me— ― Emily Dickinson, American poet   All day the bees have come to the garden. They hover, swivel in arcs and, whirling, light On stamens heavy with pollen, probe and revel Inside the yellow and red starbursts of dahlias Or cling to lobelia's blue-white mouths Or climb the speckled trumpets of foxgloves. My restless eyes follow their restlessness As they plunge bodily headfirst into treasure, Gold-fevered among these horns of plenty. They circle me, a flowerless patch With nothing to offer in the way of sweetness Or light against the first omens of evening. Some, even now, are dying at the end Of their few weeks, some being born in the dark, Some simply waiting for life, but some are dancing Deep in their hives, telling the hungry The sun will be that way, the garden this far: This is the way to the garden. They hum at my ear. And I wake up, startled, seeing the early Stars beginning to bud in constellations. The bees have gathered somewhere like petals closing For the coming of the cold. The silhouette Of a sphinx moth swerves to drink at a flowerhead. The night-blooming moon opens its pale corolla. — David Wagoner, American poet, Falling Asleep In The Garden   Grow That Garden Library The Humane Gardener by Nancy Lawson This book came out in 2017, and the subtitle is: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife (How to Create a Sustainable and Ethical Garden that Promotes Native Wildlife, Plants, and Biodiversity) In Nancy's words: "A humane gardener challenges herself to see the world through the eyes (and ears and noses and antennae) of other species, from the easy-to-love butterflies and birds to the more misunderstood moles and beetles and wasps and groundhogs. She appreciates all the creatures just trying to make a life outside her door, rather than applying compassion selectively to some species and not others." The book is 224 pages of valuable, inspirational, and critical information designed to help you create a garden that is healthy and harmonious for all living things. You can get a copy of The Humane Gardener by Nancy Lawson and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $16.   Today's Botanic Spark 2015 On this day, Leah Raup, over at the unboredhousewife.com, wrote an ode to Basil. It's a delight. Basil, sweet basil, you are a true summer treat. Straight from the plant is the only way to eat your tender green leaves on Caprese salad or penne, the uses for you are vast – they are many. In ice cream or cookies you're an unexpected flavor, you make me creative and cause me to savor the warm summer air and my bare feet in the grass. I'm pondering ways to store you when autumn comes to pass.

In this episode, we examine the 1933 lynching of a teacher in Jefferson County, Alabama.

Today we celebrate the amateur botanist who was a two-time governor of South Carolina and the birthday of a French modernist painter who left peonies. We'll learn about the man who brought European grapes to California and the most important Prussian garden-artist of the 19th century. Today’s Unearthed Words feature a poem about January. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that helps us truly see plants. I'll talk about a garden item that is absolutely adorable, and they come in a six-pack so you'll have plenty for gifts, and then we’ll wrap things up with a charming journal entry from one of my favorite garden writers. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Curated Articles Orchid and Tropical Bonsai Show: Out of This World | Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens | Pittsburgh PA Check out this post featuring a preview of the Orchid and Tropical Bonsai Show.   How to sow micro-leaves & sprouting seeds - The English Garden The English Garden @tegmagazine shared this great post about growing sprouts. Want a quick, tasty crop any time of year? Micro-leaves and sprouting seeds are the answer. You don’t even need any special equipment! This is an excellent introduction to microgreens from @tegmagazine.   Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There’s no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1822Today is the anniversary of the death of a two-time Governor of South Carolina, the founder of the University of South Carolina, a writer, and a botanist John Drayton. Drayton grew up in Charleston, a hub of botanical activity. He knew the French royal gardener Andre Michaux and his son, who had settled in the area. The Michaux's introduced the camellias and Indian azaleas; Joel Roberts Poinsett, the man who discovered the Poinsettia, was also a son of Charleston. And, the gardener Chancellor Waddy Thompson and Benjamin Perry also helped to shape the horticulture scene in the Greenville area. Drayton is remembered for his 1807 unpublished book “The Carolinian Florist.” Drayton listed almost a thousand plants, when they flowered, and where they could be found. Drayton presented his work to the South Carolina College library in 1807. The University South Carolina Society published it in 1943. Drayton explored Paris Mountain and the Greenville Area. He discovered the fragrant yellow honeysuckle (Lonicera flava Sims “Lah-NISS-er-ah FLAY-vah”) - commonly known as yellow honeysuckle - growing on the south side of Paris Mountain. The name Lonicera was derived from the name of the German herbalist Adam Lonitzer (1527-1586). The specific epithet "flava" and variations all reference the yellow ('flavus') or yellowish '(flavescens') color of the flowers. Honeysuckle is also known as woodbine or goat's leaf.   1832 Today is the birthday of the French modernist painter Édouard Manet (“Mah-nay”). His painting, 'Music in the Tuileries Gardens,' ("TWEE-luh-Reehs"), was his first significant work depicting modern city life. Manet grew peonies in his garden at Gennevilliers (“Jen-vill-EE-aye”). They were reportedly his favorite flower. Manet’s paintings of peonies were the perfect marriage of his skill and the subject. Manet’s loose brushwork was perfect for the petals and leaves. When the explorer Marco Polo saw peonies for the first time, he wrote that they were, “Roses as big as cabbages." In Chinese, the peony is known as the sho-yu, which means “most beautiful.” Traditionally, peonies are used to celebrate the 12th wedding anniversary. If you planted one on your Anniversary, the peony could outlive you. Peonies can live for over 100 years.   1862Today, the Hungarian vintner, Agoston Haraszthy, brought 1,400 varieties of grapevines from Europe to California and planted the first vineyard in the Sonoma Valley in California. Haraszthy's family was Hungarian nobility. Haraszthy had gotten hold of a book that reported the Wisconsin territory offered the finest land in America. So, in 1840, he immigrated to the United States. He quickly discovered Wisconsin was not the place for growing grapes. In short order, Haraszthy made his way to San Francisco during the Gold Rush. But San Francisco was not a fit with the grapes, either. It was foggy and cold. But then, in 1857, Haraszthy found the Sonoma Valley - called the "Valley of the Moon" by the writer Jack London. After a dozen years of searching, Haraszthy had found a place suitable for growing purple gold. The Sonoma Valley was the perfect place to grow European grapes - which were more delicate and finicky than North American wild grapes. Giddy with hope, Haraszthy built a white villa for his wife and six children on a property he named Buena Vista or “Good View.” Haraszthy also brought many European growing methods to his estate in California. First, he grew the grape plants closer together. This was something other growers found unwise. But Haraszthy knew that growing grapes near each other stressed the vines, which in turn, made better-tasting grapes. Second, Haraszthy was the first vinedresser to grow his grapes on the mountainsides in California. There is an old saying that the God of wine, Bacchus, loved the hills. Well, Haraszthy’s grapevines loved them, too. Finally, Haraszthy performed a green harvest - something no one had ever heard of - Least of all Haraszthy’s neighbors. Today the technique is known as dropping fruit; it merely means doing an initial early harvest of some of the grapes. The benefit of fewer grapes on the vine is that it improves the flavor of the remaining grapes. Haraszthy also brought in a team of Chinese laborers, and they worked to dig out the first wine caves in the state. The most impressive accomplishment included a 100-foot-deep stone wine cellar built on the side of a hill. In 1863, Haraszthy incorporated his vineyard as the Buena Vista Vinicultural Society. Thanks to investors, Haraszthy purchased an additional 4,000 acres making Buena Vista the second largest vineyard in the state. In 1866, a vine disease swept through the area. Haraszthy’s neighbors reactively blamed his unique growing methods for the small tasteless grapes and the brown, dying vines. In reality, the disease was Phylloxera, which is caused by an aphid that attacks vine roots. Phylloxera causes grapes to harden on the vine. It wiped out Buena Vista. Haraszthy filed for bankruptcy. With his vineyard and his reputation in tatters, Haraszthy went south to Nicaragua. He planted a massive sugar plantation, and he planned to make and sell a new beverage: rum. But, on July 6, 1869, as he was reaching for a vine while crossing a river on his property. He lost his balance, fell into the river, and was eaten by an alligator. Today, Haraszthy is remembered as “The Father of California Viticulture” (Wine-Making). In 1946, a plaque to Haraszthy was dedicated on the plaza of Sonoma. In March 2007, Haraszthy was inducted into the Vintners Hall of Fame by the Culinary Institute of America.   1866Today is the anniversary of the death of Prussian landscape architect and gardener Peter Joseph Lenné ("Linny"). Lenné is regarded as the most important Prussian garden-artist of the 19th century. He was the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Berlin and Potsdam. Peter came from a long line of gardeners. In many respects, his accomplishments mirror those of his younger colleague across the ocean, Frederick Law Olmsted. Lenné cofounded a Royal Horticultural Society in Germany. He worked tirelessly designing parks and landscape areas with green spaces. Lenné admired William Kent, whom he named “the father of the new landscape architecture.” Lenné established English landscape garden designs in Germany. Many of his designed spaces are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Lenné’s legacy includes over 100 designed spaces from including parks, gardens, canals, and avenues. Rauch memorialized Lenné with a large bust in the garden of the new palace in Potsdam. The Magnolia Lenne variety was named in his honor. Today, the Peter-Joseph-Lenné-Prize of Berlin awards fresh and creative ideas for design, planning, and use of plants in garden architecture and landscape planning.   2009The Denver Post reported that a retired English professor and amateur botanist named Al Schneider and a Colorado State University Botany student named Peggy Lyon discovered a new plant in the Asteraceae, or sunflower, family and it was called Gutierrezia elegans. ("Goo-tee-ah-REEZ-ee-ah") Al and Peggy named their variety “elegans” for its elegant qualities of symmetry. The common name of the plant that Al and Peggy discovered is the Lone Mesa snakeweed. The Spanish botanist Mariano La Gasca, who originated the Gutierrezia genus named in honor of the apothecary and professor Pedro Gutiérrez Bueno. Gutierrezia is a group of flowering plants native to western North America and western South America. Native peoples have regarded this plant family as an essential source of medicine, and plants of this genus are known generally as snakeweeds or match weeds.   Unearthed Words The days are short The sun a spark Hung thin between The dark and dark. Fat snowy footsteps Track the floor And parkas pile up Near the door. The river is A frozen place Held still beneath The trees' black lace The sky is low. The wind is gray. The radiator Purrs all day. — John Updike, January   Grow That Garden Library The Cabaret of Plants by Richard Mabey Richard Mabey has a passion for plants that come through in this beautiful book called The Cabaret of plants. As a naturalist, Richard says, he has written, "a story about plants as authors of their own lives and an argument that ignoring their vitality impoverishes our imaginations and our well-being.” Mabey is a naturalist with the voice of a poet. Mabey challenges ordinary perceptions of plants: that they are inactive, that they are background, or that they are simply props for the outdoors. Like Peter Wohlleben, Mabey sees these plants as having a self. "The Cabaret of Plants" is loaded with beautiful stories and tidbits from science, literature, and botany. It's engaging and challenging and inspiring. Mabey has been interacting with the natural world for over four decades. His 1972 book called “Food for Free” was revolutionary and taught readers how to forage. This book came out in 2015. You can get a used copy of The Cabaret of Plants by Richard Mabey and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for under $5.   Great Gifts for Gardeners 6 Pack Ceramic Succulent Planter Pots Set, Wirezoll 6 Cute Owl Bonsai Pots with 3 Gardening Hand Tools for Home and Office Desktop Decoration (6) $19.99 Great decor for desk, bookshelf, dining table, living room, hosting room, etc. Great gift idea for friends and family who love indoor gardening/succulents/cactus/cacti Mini unique succulent pots, they’re perfect for showing your lovely succulent. Adding a touch of animal forest accent to your house and create your own little urban jungle with these cute owl succulent planters. Meticulously handcrafted and glaze firing, smooth glaze, and bare clay create an interesting visual contrast. Due to handcrafted, every owl planter’s glaze is different, but overall is consistent The six pcs mini owl planters are made of superior quality and breathable ceramics baked in high temperatures, which are good for your plants Each mini plant pot has its own unique owl face. Those little button eyes and beaks will make you smile every time you see your adorable owl succulent pots.   Today’s Botanic Spark 1942Today the garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence wrote to her friend, the playwright, Ann Preston Bridgers: “We had thin toast and your wild strawberry jam for tea this afternoon by the fire in my studio... Bessie and I took a salad and a pan of rolls and went to have supper with your family last night. Mrs. B. insisted upon adding both ham and chicken. We had [Ann’s mountain friend] Blanche’s walnuts for dessert. And Robert and I made Cleopatras, not so good, somehow, like the ones at Christmas… I must put the puppy to bed before he chews up all the files of Gardening Illustrated.”

Movie Addict Headquarters presents an audio version of Chapter One from It Had To Be Us, a romantic memoir by Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence. This chapter deals with two important Christmases for a couple who were divorced and estranged from each other for almost 20 years.  How does Christmas help bring Harry and Elizabeth back together? Listen in and find out! Then stay for a medley of love songs that follows the Chapter One presentation and includes performances by Tony Babino, Alice Faye, Richard Vernon and Lucie Arnaz. This popular episode features lovely Lizette Amado-Bettinger and her late great husband George Bettinger reading “ remembrances” of Harry and Elizabeth in this beginning chapter of their romantic memoir. Host Betty Jo Tucker and her husband Larry co-wrote the award-winning E-book under the pen names of Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence, and it was adapted for the screen under the title CAKE: A Love Story. Directed and written by Misha Zubarev and Vera Ulea,  this movie won First Place in the Short Film category at the NSAEN Online Film Festival and is now available on Amazon Prime.  It stars Debra Lord Cooke, Richard Vernon, Nancy Lombardo and George Bettinger.   The multi-talented George, who won acclaim for his uncanny impressions including Groucho Marx, George Burns and the Three Stooges, made fans worldwide with his “Mom & Pop Shop” radio show.  Lizette is a versatile actress and soprano singer with experience at the Metropolitan Opera.  It Had To Be Us won first place in the Ebook category at the Hollywood Book Festival for its potential to be transferred to other mediums such as film, radio and TV.  

Today we celebrate a diary entry made by Columbus as well as the man who introduced the potato to England. We'll learn about the Botanical Painter, who served botanists and French Royalty and the garden writer who inspired many with his Lancashire garden diary. We'll hear some amusing garden prose. We Grow That Garden Library with a book that helps you make your vegetable gardens more beautiful by strategically adding cut flowers. I'll talk about the kind of coal gardeners will want in their stockings this Christmas, and then we'll wrap things up with some thoughts on flowers by the Impressionist painter we lost 100 years ago today.     But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. Grounding in the Garden: Fall Gardening Tips | LearningHerbs @learningherbs Great post from @learningherbs with five herbs that are great to start from seed or cuttings for your winter apothecary: rosemary, horehound, mullein, ground cherries, and common sage.       The Grateful Tree – A Thanksgiving story | @wwediting   Ya’ll need to stop and read this. There are still some sacred parts of nature that remain untouched by us - this is a story about that. Thanks for writing it @wwediting. It's a lovely read. The Grateful Tree – A Thanksgiving story     A Visit to Jupiterartland  | @EllenMaryGarden   Ellen Mary tweeted "Today I visited @jupiterartland in Edinburgh for a private tour of which I’m super thankful I’ve never been to a garden that has floored me quite like it! A mix of awe & terror, inspiration & confusion...the artwork & sculptures are quite something#art #landscape #garden https://pic.twitter.com/kE0rs2ARSY"   I replied: "Now THAT's a garden visit. It will be interesting to hear what your thoughts are about this place over time. It's always fascinating to me how a garden speaks to us long after a visit. Sometimes first impressions are shadows of a more profound understanding that comes later."   Now, if you'd like to check out these curated items for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There’s no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.     Brevities #OTD On this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus notes in his diary: "I climbed a mountain and came to level ground, which was sown with many different crops and with gourds." The gourds Columbus was referring to were squashes that were used for more than food.  After the skin had been cleaned and dried, the skins were used as utensils.   #OTD  On this Day in 1586, Sir Thomas Herriot introduced Colombian potatoes to England. Over fifty years earlier, the Spanish had been the first to discover potatoes - but Herriot's potatoes were the first to reach England. Harriot had spent time in Sir Walter Raleigh’s English colony on Roanoke Island in modern-day North Carolina. There, he studied not only wildlife but also potatoes from Columbia. Herriot was also an astronomer. In July of 1609, he created a drawing of the moon through a telescope over four months before Galileo.       #OTD  Today is the anniversary of the death of the French botanical painter for King Louis the XIV and XV, Claude Aubriet, who died on this day in 1742. When Aubriet was appointed "Painter to the King" after the death of his master Jean Joubert in 1707, he technically didn't have the right credentials because he didn't belong to the Academy of painting and sculpture. But, the King approved Aubriet's appointment anyway, and he lived at the Royal Garden until he died. Aubriet was sponsored by the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort to create over a thousand illustrations for his acclaimed book - Elements of Botany. Other botanists, including Sebastien Vaillant and Antoine Jussieu also hired Aubriet to do their illustrations. During his time at court, Aubriet painted twenty-four miniatures a year for 35 years resulting in nearly 600 vellums for the royal collection. Today, they are preserved at the Museum national d’Histoire Naturelle of Paris. What distinguishes Aubriet’s work was his desire to paint all the known species in both the animal and plant kingdoms. Aubriet painted fish and insects and birds and mammals - in addition to plants. In 1722, Aubriet changed his will. His most prized possession was a cabinet he had inherited from his former master Jean Joubert. Aubriet left the cabinet to his friend, the botanist Bernard Jussieu. The cabinet was described this way: “In a wood veneer, exquisite paintings of parrots... ornamented the panels ... with their golden border.”   As you might have already suspected, the genus Aubrieta (“Aubreesha”) was named for Claude Aubriet by the French Botanist Michel Adanson. Aubrieta is an ornamental plant, and it grows well in rock gardens. The leaves resemble succulents, and after flowering, a light clip will encourage new shoots.     #OTD On this day in 1873, the gardener and writer Henry Arthur Bright began a diary, which would become known as the book "A Year in a Lancashire Garden" - one of the most beloved garden biographies of the nineteenth century. Bright's book would inspire future garden writers like Eleanor Vere Gorden Boyle, Henry Nicholson Ellacombe, Maria Theresa Earle, and Elizabeth Lawrence. Here are some excerpts from Bright's journal entry for this day in 1873. At the very end, he talks about making a potent tincture with petals from a Madonna Lily: "These notes are written for those who love gardens as I do... and they are written ... to convey to others some little of the delight, which grows (more certainly than any bud or flower) from the possession and management of a garden.  Lancashire is not the best possible place for a garden, and to be within five miles of a large town is certainly no advantage. We get smoke on one side, and salt breezes on another, and, worst of all, there comes down upon us every now and then a blast, laden with heavy chemical odors, which is more deadly than either smoke or salt. Still, we are tolerably open, and in the country.  These are certainly what the American poet Bryant calls “the melancholy days, the saddest in the year.” The late autumn flowers are over; —the early spring ones are still buried under the soil. I could only find this morning a single blighted monthly Rose, a Wallflower or two, an uneasy-looking Polyanthus, and some yellow Jasmine against the house—and that was all. Two days of early frost had killed the rest.  Lastly, the Chrysanthemums are in flower. The Chrysanthemum has three merits above almost every flower. It comes in the shortest and darkest days; it blooms abundantly in the smoke of the largest cities; it lasts longer than any flower when cut and put into water. If flowers have virtues, the virtue of the Chrysanthemum is its unselfish kindliness.  In the hybrid beds, I shall plant a number of roots of the Lilium candidum—the dear old white Lily of cottage gardens. And as I write I am told of a recipe [using] the firm white petals. You must gather them while still fresh, place them unbroken in a wide-necked bottle, packed closely and firmly together, and then pour in what brandy there is room for. In case of cut or bruise, no remedy is more efficacious and certainly none more simple."       Unearthed Words “There are many in this old world of ours who hold that things break about even for all of us. I have observed, for example, that we all get the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summertime, and the poor get it in the winter.” - Bat Masterson - who had a Daylily named in his honor   "An onion can make people cry, but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh." - Will Rogers   It's Time to Grow That Garden Library with Today's Book: Vegetables Love Flowers by Lisa Mason Ziegler   The subtitle for this book is Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty. As the description of this book reminds us, "Planting vegetables and flowers together is one of the oldest ways to create a healthy, bountiful garden, but there's more to the method than you might think. Vegetables Love Flowers will walk you through the ins and outs of companion planting, from how it works to which plants go together and how to grow the best garden for your climate." Lisa provides excellent guidance on how to incorporate flowers into a vegetable garden. She offers helpful tips and ideas for stunning vegetable gardens that are full of color - btw, the images in this book are beautiful. If you've ever wondered how you can enjoy a year of beauty in your garden - growing both healthy veggies and gorgeous flowers to boot, this book will be an Inspiration.       Today's Recommended Holiday Gift for Gardeners: Hoffman 17502 Charcoal Soil Conditioner, 24-Ounce  $5.99 Charcoal soil conditioner Improves drainage and absorbs impurities Horticultural charcoal is an additional item recommended by garden writers for custom mixing potting Will not burn releases nitrogen slowly, feeding plants over a long period, pelletized for easy application This is the kind of coal a gardener would love to find in their stocking.       Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart Today is the 100th anniversary of the death of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir who died on this day in 1919. There's a little-known story about Renoir. For many years, he hung a sign on his garden gate which read, "No Renoirs sold here. Beware the dog." Pierre-Auguste Renoir said, when he was painting flowers, he was able to paint  “freely and boldly without the mental effort he made with a model.”  He said “If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves,” he said. “But Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. … The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.”  It was Renoir who said, “The pain passes but the beauty remains.” “What seems most significant to me about our movement [Impressionism] is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story.”       Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Dee and Carol talk about the little bulbs, growing pumpkins, and some of their favorite older gardening books by Elizabeth Lawrence and Allen Lacy.Sources for little bulbs include:Brent And Becky's BulbsJohn Scheeper's Beauty from BulbsSources for pumpkin seeds include:Botanical InterestsBurpee Seed Co.Books we enjoy: The Little Bulbs: A Tale of Two Gardens by Elizabeth LawrenceThe Gardener's Eye by Allen LacyVisit Carol's website for more info about her books.Visit Dee's website for more info about her book.Email us anytime at TheGardenangelists@gmail.com(Some links are affiliate links. If you click on one of those links and make a purchase, we might receive a tiny bit of compensation. It does not affect the price you pay!)

Today we celebrate the impressionist Landscape painter who included kitchen gardens as a subject and the botanist who gave a speech in 1916 about his four rules of home landscaping. We'll learn about the English botanist who saved many varieties of Japanese cherry from extinction and the botanist who braved the destruction of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to save plant specimens. We'll hear the Poem called "A Song of October" that debuted in 1890. We Grow That Garden Library with THE book on She Sheds. I'll talk about making a simple leaf compost bin, and then we'll wrap things up with a poignant diary entry by the quintessential southern gardener Elizabeth Lawrence.   But first, let's catch up on a few recent events.   Mother Earth News recently shared a post called When Age and Illness Invade the Homestead. The article asks this question: "How do you cope when long-term illness or a  chronic health condition, even just aging, becomes a factor?" Gardeners need to consider: Reassessing and prioritizing their space. Maybe you don’t need such a big garden space at this point in your life. Is it time to consider going small? Adapt and compensate with new ideas like elevated beds.  Take more breaks when you are working. Farm it out - get help, so you don't overdo it.     The Guardian just shared the results of research that shows that a healthy diet means a healthy planet. The research showed that, "fruit, vegetables, beans, and whole grains were best for both avoiding disease and protecting the climate and water resources." Michael Clark at the University of Oxford, who led the study, said: “Choosing better, more sustainable diets is one of the main ways people can improve their health and help protect the environment.” So there you go: growing your own food, gardening, is not only good for you - it's better for the planet.     Finally, Gardenista just shared an excellent article called 10 Perennial Gardens Inspired by Piet Oudolf. Oudolf's signature look includes soft drifts of grasses combined with striking perennials that look good even in winter. Oudolf's goal is getting all of it to work together to create dream landscapes that evoke a natural look. Gardenista did a great job of sharing ten images of different gardens that understand the Oudolf formula, and they created installations inspired by his work. When it comes to picking which perennials to include in the garden, Oudolf sees perennials through a lens that is focused on architectural elements. He's looking at the shape and the lines of the plant - but he's also incorporating the full life cycle of the plant. He wants to incorporate the way perennials look not only in early spring and summer but also in the fall and even in the winter. Seed heads, pods, dried blossoms, and stems; these are all embraced and part of the plan. So don't be too quick to tidy everything up in the garden. Especially when it comes to winter gardens, you've got to leave enough standing so that you have something to look at.     If you'd like to learn more about Oudolf, I shared a great video in the Facebook Group from PBS that was featured in April of this year. The reporter, Jeffrey Brown, met with Oudolf at his home in the Netherlands to discuss his work.        Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So there’s no need to take notes or track down links - just head on over to the group the next time you're on Facebook, just search for:  The Daily Gardener Community and request to join.        Brevities #OTD  Today is the birthday of Alfred Sisley, who was born on this day in 1839. Sisley was an impressionist landscape painter. He painted landscapes almost exclusively, and he especially loved natural, untouched scenes. Gardeners enjoy his paintings called A Garden Path and The Kitchen Garden.     #OTD   Today is the birthday of the botanist George Plummer Burns who was born on this day in 1871. Burns was the chairman of the UVM botany department. He also had served as the superintendent of the park department for Burlington, Vermont. When I was researching Burns, I stumbled on a newspaper clipping from 1916, which shared a speech he gave to the Rutland Woman's Club called  Landscape Gardening for the Home.    He gave four rules for landscaping: "1.Avoid straight lines;  2. Keep open spaces;  3. Plant in mass;  4. Use common sense.   Burns gave this advice about shrubs: Do not use a shrub simply because a man wants to sell it to you.  Do not use a shrub or tree simply because your neighbor has one, and if you do, do not use it in the same way. After the house is built shrubs should be planted around the base to soften the lines. Next, a hedge should be placed around the' lot so that the owner, in looking from his place, can see the skyline and have the immediate surroundings hidden. In that way, a person owns as far as he can see.   And, we get a little glimpse into Burns' personal preferences when he said: Never spoil a lawn by cutting a circular bed and filling it in with cannas. Such art is like putting a da  ub of paint on a beautiful picture. Cannas are all right in their place but not in beds on a lawn. Shrubs should always be planted in mass and never should a single root be set; not one rosebush but 20 should be set out."     #OTD   Today is the birthday of the British botanist Collingwood "Cherry" Ingram, who was born on this day in 1880. Since he was a child, Ingram was obsessed with cherry blossoms. He spent most of his adult life devoted to their cultivation and preservation. In 1926, Ingram traveled to Japan, hoping to find new varieties of cherry trees. Instead, Ingram witnessed a sharp decline in cherry diversity. The usual suspects played a role: loss of habitat and a lack of attention. But there was also a more significant danger posed by a new, pervasive ideology. As it turned out, the Imperial stance had changed, and the emperor wanted his people to grow just one variety of cherry ina symbolic way to unite the nation of Japan. At the time, the preferred cherry blossom was the pink Somei-yoshino. The emperor had outlawed all white-blossomed cherry trees. The new law was especially tragic to Ingram, who was partial to the white-blossomed cherry tree. In response to Japan's declining cherry diversity, Ingram personally cultivated and grew 50 varieties of cherry that were slowly phasing out on the Island of Japan.  Wisely, Ingram brought specimens home with him to the island of England, where Ingram's work with cherries made him a world expert.  Thanks to Ingram's foresight and preservation efforts, he was able to reintroduce the Great White Cherry Tree to Japan.     #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the Canadian American self-taught botanist Alice Eastwood who died on this day in 1953.    Eastwood is remembered for saving almost 1500 specimens from a burning building following the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.  Afterward, she wrote about the specimens that didn't make it:   “I do not feel the loss to be mine, but it is a  great loss to the scientific world and an irreparable loss to California. My own destroyed work I do not lament, for it was a joy to me while I did it, and I can still have the same joy in starting it again.”   An account of Eastwood's heroics was recorded by Carola DeRooy, who wrote  :   "On the day of the 1906 earthquake, Alice Eastwood, curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences, rushed straight into the ruins of downtown San Francisco as a firestorm swept toward her beloved Academy building. Arriving to find the stone steps dangerously crumbled, she and a friend nevertheless climbed the metal spiral staircase to the 6th floor with a single-minded mission: to rescue what she could of the largest botanical collection in the Western United States, her life's work.     Eastwood saved 1,497 plant type specimens from the Academy but lost the remainder of the collections to the all-consuming fire. Just three days later, she joined Geologist GK Gilbert to inspect a fault trace resulting from the earthquake, north of Olema, within what is now the Point Reyes National Seashore." That moment with Gilbert at the fault line was memorialized forever in a captivating photo featuring Alice standing next to the surface ruption of the fault line. Eastwood was 47 years old when the quake hit in 1906.   After the fire, Eastwood set her mind to rebuilding the herbarium, and over the next four decades, she collected 300,000 specimens. She retired as the curator at the age of 90. Eastwood was the protégée of the botanist Kate Brandegee.         Unearthed Words The alder wears its scarlet beads, The clematis its downy seeds, The sumach's deepening ruby gleams, The birch in hues of topaz beams;   In golden bars through leafy doors The sunshine falls on forest floors, While the warm air with balsam breathes A spicy odor from the trees. The softened light, the veiling haze, The calm repose of autumn days, Steal gently o'er the troubled breast, Soothing life's weary cares to rest   ~Phebe A. Holder, "A Song of October," in The Queries Magazine, October 1890     It's time to Grow That Garden Library with today's book recommendation: She Sheds Style by Erika Kotite The subtitle of this book is Make Your Space Your Own, and it came out a year ago on October 2nd. Erika's book is eye-candy and ideas and inspiration for anyone who has ever wanted their own little place in the garden. You could say, Erika shed’s light on the topic of She Sheds. :) Whether you already have a shed or are still dreaming of one, this book is a total charmer. It's filled with incredible photos of outbuildings that women have turned into the ultimate garden space, a She Shed. The decorating ideas are perfect for those gardeners looking to brighten up their workspace or increase the functionality of their She Shed. Erika shares how to incorporate architectural details and style. She shares ideas for color palettes. There are dozens of projects in this book as well - from repurposing old furniture to installing personalized art for your shed. Another fantastic feature of the book is that Ericka has gathered hundreds of tips from She Shed owners from around the country.  Best of all, Erika is a former editor for Romantic Homes/Victorian Homes. So, her photos have that floral, romantic quality to them. She Sheds are notoriously creative and intelligent spaces - often serving multiple purposes - and always evolving. How lovely it is, to have a book like this, that shares some of the best ideas and She Shed spaces from around the country.         Today's Garden Chore If you have extra leaves, make a simple leaf compost bin. Leaf mold is an excellent way to improve your soil. It is also an excellent weed suppressant and mulch. To make your bin, simply place four tall garden stakes in the ground and then use netting or burlap to wrap around the outside of the stakes. As you add leaves into the bin, make sure to layer in some moisture by watering the leaves. Watering the leaves helps stimulate decomposition. You can also add some coffee grounds while you're at it - if you feel so inclined. Then, in the spring, you'll have wonderful compost for your garden.      Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart   Bonaro Overstreet once wrote, "Autumn asks that we prepare for the future —that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go—to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness." This little saying had me thinking of the gardener Elizabeth Lawrence. In late October of 1935, Elizabeth was visiting her father in the hospital. She wrote the following poem in her notebook during her visit:     My father lies dying, And all that he has said Begins to sprout, Begins to grow. Is branching overhead.   My father lies dying, And all that he has said Will bud and blossom and bear fruit Long after he is dead.   Samuel Lawrence lived another nine months after Elizabeth wrote these words. He passed away on July 16, 1936.   Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

"You don't have a garden just for yourself.  You have it to share." -  Augusta Carter, Master Gardener, Pound Ridge, Georgia Pass-along plants have the best stories, don't they?   They have history.   They have personal history.   One of my student gardeners had a grandmother who recently passed away from breast cancer.   Her mom was no green thumb. But, when her daughter started working in my garden, she let me know that her mom had some plants and her dad was looking for a place for them. Would I be willing to take one?   Sure. Absolutely, I said.   Next thing I knew, a few weeks later, Mom is walking up my driveway caring one of the largest Jade plants I’ve ever seen. The plant was in a container the size of a 5 gallon paint bucket and the plant was just as tall.   I took the plant from her with a promise to take good care of it.   When she turned to leave, I asked her mom’s name. I like to name my pass-along plants after the people I get them from; and, that’s when the tears started.   When she left, I brought it over to the potting bench and let it sit for a few days. Then, my student gardeners and I   set about dividing it and taking care of it. It was a good thing we did it - because the minute we started to take it out of the pot it became very apparent that this plant was severely waterlogged. It wouldn’t of made it have a knot rescued it from the pot. We removed as much potting soil as we could. We split the plant in half and put them into separate clay pots which were very heavily perlited; which was just what the doctor ordered. It’s the perfect environment and now it’s doing fantastic.   But, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it had a little more special meaning to me than just your typical jade plant -because of the look on this woman’s face when she gave me this plant; passing on this little, living thing that her mom had nurtured.   Brevities #OTD Today is Saint Bernard of Clairvaux‘s day; he was the patron saint of beekeepers.   He's also the patron saint of bees and candlemakers.   St. Bernard was a doctor of the church and a French Abbot.  He was apparently a fabulous preacher, with excellent speaking skills. He became known as the "honey sweet" doctor for his honey sweet language; he would draw people in.   When he decided to become a part of the monastery, he had to give up and get up and give a testimony. History tells us that his testimony was so compelling that thirty members of his family and his friends decided to join the monastery. That’s how he became associated with bees; all that sweet talk.   And it was Saint Bernard who said,   "Believe me, for I know, you will find something far greater in the woods than in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you cannot learn from the masters."     #OTD   Today is the birthday of Edward Lee Green; who was born on this day in 1843. Green performed yeoman's work when it came to the plants of the American West; naming or describing or even re-describing over 4,400 species.   Before Green made his way west, he reached out to Asa Gray of Cambridge and George Englemann of St. Louis at the Missouri Botanic Garden. They gave him good counsel and in 1870, he started traveling to Colorado, California, Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona. He eventually settled in Berkeley as a church rector.   In the early 1880s, an interesting thing happened: he left the episcopal church and he became a Catholic.   While he was becoming Catholic, Green began lecturing at the University of California, where he became the curator of the herbarium.   When he and the University's President didn’t agree on nomenclature for the plants, he ended up accepting a job at Catholic University in Washington DC, where he worked until 1904.    At that point, he ended up going to the Smithsonian. When he was there, he transferred his herbarium and published his masterpiece called Landmarks of Botanical History Part One.   Part Two was never completed.     #OTD  It was on this day in 1863 that a botanist preserved a specimen of milkweed about 15 days after the battle of Gettysburg.   Drexel University shared this story back in 2018.   A curatorial assistant at the botany department named Elana Benamy was digitizing plant images. She came across an image of milkweed - which is pretty common - but what made her take a double take was the date and location of the plant specimen.   The plant was labeled "Battlefield of Gettysburg, August 20, 1863."   The battle in Gettysburg had occurred during the first three days of July. So this specimen had been gathered about seven weeks after the battle, and about five weeks after Frederick Law Olmsted had walked the field.   Elana asked,    "Can you imagine why on earth would someone be out plant collecting [there]?"   As it turns out, the reason made perfect sense.   The collector was a man named Thomas Meehan. Meehan  had worked for Andrew Eastwick who was the owner of Bartrum‘s garden in Philadelphia. Afterward, Meehan opened up his own nursery in Germantown.   In 1853, his younger brother, Joseph, had come to the United States from England. The younger Meehan brother was working in the greenhouses for his brother when he enlisted to fight in the Civil War.   As the battle of Gettysburg began, the younger Meehan was taken prisoner; but with the defeat of the army he was given battlefield parole on July 4th.   Historians now speculate that Thomas' brother, Joseph, might still of been at Gettysburg or Thomas might’ve gone out with him on a botanizing trip there.   In either case, 33 years later, Joseph would write a beautiful account of the landscape in an article for a gardening magazine called, Battlefield Flowers: Floral Treasures of Gettysburg.    Apparently, both brothers had inherited a love of plants.     #OTD    It was on this day in 1912 that the Plant Quarantine Act was enacted. It gave the Health Inspection Office the authority to regulate, the importation and interstate movement of, nursery stock and other plants that may carry pests or disease. This is why if you’ve been stopped in the airport with a plant - it’s thanks to the Plant Quarantine Act. The Act is thanks, in part, to the work of David Fairchild. When he brought that first shipment in of Cherry trees from Japan, to be placed along tidal basin in Washington DC, they were infected with disease and insects. So that in part, lead to the Plant Quarantine Act - so that something like that would not happen again.       #OTD Today we wish a happy birthday to the man with a last name all gardeners covet:the lead singer of Led Zeppelin,  Robert Plant, who was born on this day in 1948.      Unearthed Words Today we celebrate the birthday of the poet Edgar Albert Guest.   Guest was known as the People’s Poet during the first half of the 20th century. His poems were happy and hopeful; which is why people like them.   Here’s his poem called To Plant a Garden:   If your purse no longer bulges and you’ve lost your golden treasure, If at times you think you’re lonely and have hungry grown for pleasure, Don’t sit by your hearth and grumble, don’t let mind and spirit harden. If it’s thrills of joy you wish for get to work and plant a garden! If it’s drama that you sigh for, plant a garden and you’ll get it You will know the thrill of battle fighting foes that will beset it. If you long for entertainment and for pageantry most glowing, Plant a garden and this summer spend your time with green things growing. If it’s comradeship you sight for, learn the fellowship of daisies. You will come to know your neighbor by the blossoms that he raises; If you’d get away from boredom and find new delights to look for, Learn the joy of budding pansies which you’ve kept a special nook for. If you ever think of dying and you fear to wake tomorrow, Plant a garden! It will cure you of your melancholy sorrow. Once you’ve learned to know peonies, petunias, and roses, You will find every morning some new happiness discloses.   Today's book recommendation: Rose Recipes from Olden Times by Eleanor Sinclair Rhode   This is an oldie but goodie and it was published back in 1973.   The author teaches many applications for working with roses including how to crystallize the petals and preserve the buds, how to use the rose leaves to flavor wines and vinegar, and how to use roses in medicinal ways.   So much rose wisdom has been lost to time. It’s wonderful to have resources like this still available. This book offers 83 recipes all together thanks to the herbalist Eleanor Sinclair Rhode, who gathered her information from a number of legendary herbalists, such as Sir Hugh Platt, Gervase Markham. Today's Garden Chore Pick herbs for fresh use and also for drying. Most herbs have a more concentrated flavor if they are not allowed to bolt or flower. Frequent harvesting will also accomplish that. As a bonus, harvesting encourages fresh, vigorous growth and keeps them growing longer into the season.     Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart   Here’s another excerpt from a letter that Elizabeth Lawrence wrote to her sister on August 20, 1940: "I have finished [the chapter on] Summer, and I only have [the chapter on] Fall to do—which is short. I hope I can get it done quickly, and have time to rewrite after your reading.   If you get back before I do [from a trip with Bessie and sister Ann], and can find time to look into my garden, will you see if Nerine undulata is in bloom? And if it is, pick it when all of the flowers are out, and put it in your refrigerator until I get back.   It bloomed last year while I was gone, and I have never seen it, and it is the most exciting bulb I have. I enclose a map of where it is, and of other things that might bloom.   Don’t bother about any of them—don’t look for Ridgeway [color chart]. I am taking it with me in case we get to any nurseries.…"   Nerine undulata is an Amaryllis.  It grows 18 inches tall and has umbels of 8-12 slender, crinkled pale pink flowers and it blooms in autumn.   Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today is National Potato Day. Here are some fun potato facts: The average American eats approximately 126 pounds of spuds each year. And, up until the 18th century, the French believed potatoes called leprosy. To combat the belief, the agronomist Antoine Auguste Parmentier became a one-man PR person for the potato. How did Parmentier get the French people to believe that the potato is safe to eat? Good question. Parmentier cleverly posted guards around his potato fields during the day and put the word out that he didn’t want people stealing them. Then, he purposefully left them unguarded at night. As he suspected, people did what he thought they would do; steal the potatoes by the sackful by the light of the moon and they started eating them. Later, Marie Antoinette wore potato blossoms in her hair. The Idaho Potato, or the Russet Burbank, was developed by none other than Luther Burbank in 1871.     Brevities #OTD    Today is the birth of Jane Webb who married the prolific writer of all things gardening: John Claudius Loudon. Jane was special. She was an amazing writer in her own right but she also possessed an inner determination; she was a survivor. When her father lost the family fortune and died penniless when Jane was only seventeen, it was the beginning of her career writing Science Fiction.  For her times, Jane wrote Science Fiction in a unique way. She incorporated predictable changes in technology and society. For instance, the women in her books wear pants. In any case, her book The Mummy was published anonymously, in 1827, in three parts.  In her book, Jane featured something she imagined would come to pass: a steam plow. That’s what attracted the attention of John Claudius Loudon - her future husband. Loudon wrote a favorable review of her book but he also wanted to meet the author.  Loudon didn’t realize Jane had written the book using a nom de plume of Henry Colburn. Much to Loudon’s delight, Henry was Jane; they fell in love and married a year later.  The Loudons were considered high society and their friends included Charles Dickens. John’s arms stopped working as he grew older, after an attack of rheumatic fever. As a result, Jane became his arms; handling most of his writing. When his arms got so bad that surgeons needed to amputate his right arm, they found him in his garden which he said he intended to return to immediately after the operation. Two weeks before Christmas 1843, John was dictating his last book called, A Self Instruction to Young Gardeners. Around midnight, he suddenly collapsed into Jane’s arms and died. Jane completed the book on her own.     #OTD    It was on this day in 1843, that the Massachusetts Horticultural Society held their exhibition of flowers.  They kicked things off by writing about their phlox.  Here’s what they said: “The Phloxes were very splendid, and it gives us great pleasure to see that our friends are engaged in raising seedlings of this beautiful class of plants. Instead of importing Phloxes from England, as we have heretofore done, we hazard but little when we state that it will not be many years (if our friends persevere in raising seedlings) before we shall be able to send our English friends varieties, that will surprise them for their beautiful form and richness of color.”     #OTD   Today is the birthday of Ellen Ann Willmott who was an English horticulturalist who was born in 1858.  Ellen was the oldest in her family of three daughters. In 1875, her parents moved to Warley Place,  which was set on 33 acres of land in Essex. Ellen lived there for the rest of her life. All of the Willmott’s were gardeners and they often gardened as a family. They created an alpine garden complete with a gorge and rockery. This was something that Ellen’s father allowed her to do to commemorate her 21st birthday. When her godmother died she received some pretty significant money. When her father died, Warley Place went to her. Ellen planted to her hearts content; and given the size of the property, it’s no wonder that she hired over 100 gardeners to help her tend it. Ellen was no shrinking violet. She had a reputation for firing any gardener who allowed a weed to grow in her beds. And, she only hired men. There’s a famous quote from her that is often cited, “Women would be a disaster in the border.” It was a good thing that Ellen had so much money, because she sure liked to spend it. She had three homes: one in France, Warley Place, and another in Italy.  Ellen also paid for plant hunting expeditions. Since she paid for them, the plants that were discovered on those expeditions were often named in her honor. And, Ellen hired some pretty impressive people to do her plant collecting. For example, Ellen even sponsored Ernest Henry Wilson. When Ellen receive the Victoria Medal of Honor in 1897, she was honored alongside Gertrude Jekyll. In the end, Ellen died penniless and heartbroken. Warley Place became a nature preserve.       #OTD   Today is the birthday of The Botany Man - Willis Linn Jepson - who was born on this day in 1867. Carved on his tombstone are the following words: “Profound Scholar, Inspiring Teacher, Indefatigable Botanical Explorer, ... In the ordered beauty of nature he found enduring communion.” Jepson attended college at Berkeley. During his junior year, he decided to start a diary. He collected everything, too - not just dates, but as much as he could. It was a practice Jepson never abandoned and resulted in over fifty Jepson field books. In 1894, Jepson begin to think seriously about creating a Flora of California. As long as he was working on the flora, Jepson thought he might as well create a herbarium, which he considered to be his legacy. Although Jepson often said he disliked common names, he came up with many on his own. He once named a plant Mountain Misery after suffering the after effects of walking through it. By the early 1900s, automobiles were becoming mainstream but Jepson warned, “You must still go afoot if a real botanist. No field botanist should become soft and travel only in an auto.“  Jepson had started numbering plants for his flora in 1899. His last specimen was No. 27,571 - the Salsola kali - a little plant commonly known as Prickly Russian Thistle. Jepson collected it on October 28,1945.  Earlier that year, Jepson suffered a heart attack when he attempted to cut down a dead Almond tree on his ranch. He never fully recovered from it. Jepson passed away her November 7, 1946.       #OTD   Today is the birthday of Henderina Victoria Scott who shared her images of time lapse photography of plants in 1904.   Scott exhibited her pictures at the British Association for the Advancement of Science.  She described her set up and her method for taking the pictures.  Then, she proceeded to show animated photographs of flowers opening and closing their buds, and expanding and developing into flowers. She also showed the movements of climbing plants and of insects visiting flowers. None of her films or plates are known to exist. Scott’s work allowed botanists and horticulturalists to see the changes that happen slowly over time in the plant world.     Unearthed Words   Today is the birthday of Ogden Nash, the American poet, who said, "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker." He also wrote a number of poems about gardening and flowers. MY VICTORY GARDEN by Ogden Nash Today, my friends, I beg your pardon, But I'd like to speak of my Victory Garden. With a hoe for a sword, and citronella for armor, I ventured forth to become a farmer. On bended knee, and perspiring clammily, I pecked at the soil to feed my family, A figure than which there was none more dramatic-er. Alone with the bug, and my faithful sciatica, I toiled with the patience of Job or Buddha, But nothing turned out the way it shudda. Would you like a description of my parsley? I can give it to you in one word--gharsley! They're making playshoes out of my celery, It's reclaimed rubber, and purplish yellery, Something crawly got into my chives, My lettuce has hookworm, my cabbage has hives, And I mixed the labels when sowing my carrots; I planted birdseed--it came up parrots. Do you wonder then, that my arteries harden Whenever I think of my Victory Garden? My farming will never make me famous, I'm an agricultural ignoramus, So don't ask me to tell a string bean from a soy bean. I can't even tell a girl bean from a boy bean.     Today's book recommendation: Healing Herbs by Michael Castleman The Healing Herbs provides an easy-to-use A-to-Z herb encyclopedia. It explains where to find the herbs, how to use them, store them, work with them, and  how to grow them.   Today's Garden Chore It’s never too late to plan a fall herb garden. Here are some herbs that don’t mind the cold and they’re easily grown from seed; I’m talking about dill, parsley, spinach, lettuce, and cilantro. I always include lettuces among my herbs - wherever I’ve got a spot.  Now, when I make my salads, I love to include little snippets of dill. I get a little perturbed when I forget to clip some - it's ruined me. I can hardly make a salad at home without including dill. Since my son John loves Chipotle, I can’t make rice anymore without incorporating cilantro. Parsley is included in so many things I cook, I always like to have Parsley around and it's wonderful that it can hang out in the garden until the bitter end.     Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart   Today, in 1934, Elizabeth Lawrence and wrote a letter to her sister Ann: "I am so happy to get back to my rickety Corona; Ellen’s elegant new typewriter made anything I had to say unworthy of its attention. The Zinnias you raised for us are magnificent. There are lots of those very pale salmon ones that are the loveliest of all, and some very pale yellow ones that Bessie puts in my room. The red ones are in front of boltonia and astilbe (white). I knew how awful the garden would be. I have come back to it before, and I knew Bessie wasn’t going to do anything by herself. But that doesn’t mitigate the despair that you feel when you see it. I worked two days and almost got the weeds out of the beds around the summer house. There isn’t much left. There has been so much rain that the growth of the weeds was tropical." (Bessie was Elizabeth's widowed mother who shared her love of the garden.)     Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Have you tried growing the herb chervil? Chervil tastes similar to tarragon - it's sometimes called gourmet parsley. It has a wonderful fern-like leaf which turns red in the fall which is another plus.  August is a wonderful time to sow chervil - so keep that in mind. The 1884 Dictionary of English Names of Plants lists chervil as “the shepherd’s clock’’ because the blossoms open at five in the morning and then close up around eight in the evening.   The word chervil is derived from a Greek word meaning “the herb of rejoicing’’ or “the cheer leaf."      Brevities #OTD  It's the birthday of the English naturalist, Gilbert White, who was born on this day in 1720. White kept a journal for almost three decades where he recorded observations of his garden.  It was eventually published as a Calendar of Flora and the Garden, followed by the Naturalist’s Journal. People immediately recognized White had a gift for observation and for describing with vivid clarity the goings-on in the natural world.  Here's a little of what he wrote in his journal on this day in 1781; his 61st birthday:  "Farmers complain that their wheat is blited.  In the garden at Dowland’s,...  stands a large Liriodendrum tulipifera, or tulip-tree, which was in flower. The soil is poor sand; but produces beautiful pendulous Larches.  Mr R’s garden, ... abounds in fruit, & in all manner of good & forward kitchen-crops.  Many China-asters this spring seeded themselves there... some cucumber-plants also grew-up of themselves from the seeds of a rejected cucumber thrown aside last autumn.  Mr R’s garden is at an average a fortnight before mine."   #OTD  Today is the anniversary of the death of the author and gardener Jane Austen. Austen loved gardens. She had a heart for ornamentals, herbs, and kitchen gardening.  Her family always had a garden - growing their own food and beautifying their homes with flowers. In every single one of her books, Austen included gardens. We know from Austen's letters to her sister, Cassandra, that gardens brought her joy and they were also regulating. In 1807, she wrote about the redesign of her garden:  "I could not do without a syringa... We talk also of a laburnum. The border under the terrace wall is clearing away to receive currants and gooseberry bushes, and a spot is found very proper for raspberries." In 1814, she wrote about the garden outside her rented room, "The garden is quite a love... I live in the room downstairs, it is particularly pleasant...opening upon the garden.  I go and refresh myself every now and then, and then come back to Solitary Coolness."   #OTD   It was on this day in 1863 that the father of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted, walked the battlefield of Gettysburg, just 15 days after the battle. Olmsted was the General Secretary of the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) - overseeing the support of sick and wounded soldiers of the United States Army during the Civil War. At times, Olmsted personally treated the battlefield wounds of soldiers.  Olmsted was handpicked for the job thanks to his success in designing and overseeing New York City's Central Park, one of the country's largest public works projects. A week after the battle at Gettysburg, Olmsted arranged for 40 tons of supplies to flow into Gettysburg every day - bringing in items like surgeon’s silk, fans, butter, shoes, and crutches.   By July 18, the scene had settled down enough that Olmsted could walk the fields of Gettysburg. In Martin's biography of Olmsted, he shared that Olmsted, "was struck by the scale of the place; everything had happened across distances far greater than he had supposed."  Ever attuned to the landscape, Olmsted also noted that, "The hills were gentle and rolling, so very out of kilter with the carnage that was everywhere still in evidence... Olmsted came across spent shells and twisted bayonets, broken-down wagons and half-buried dead horses. Particularly touching, to Olmsted, was the random strew of Union and Confederate caps, often together on the ground, shot through with bullet holes."   Unearthed Words Recently, I've started collecting cuttings from my garden to make my own potpourris and sachets. Here's a quote from Eleanor Sinclair-Rhode about this lovely garden pastime: "No bought potpourri is so pleasant as that made from ones own garden, for the petals of the flowers one has gathered at home hold the sunshine and memories of summer, and of past summers only the sunny days should be remembered."     Today's book recommendation: A Southern Garden by Elizabeth Lawrence As much as I love to garden, there are days when it's just too hot or humid to go out there. I draw the line when sweat starts to trickle into my eyeballs - then it's time to call it a day. Lawrence's Southern Garden is a classic. This is Lawrence's personal experience with gardening - my favorite kind of gardening book. Although Lawrence's growing zone isn't always applicable to where you might be gardening, I guarantee you'll learn something. Her writing about gardens and gardening is conversational, thoughtful and charming.     Today's Garden Chore Do a summer check of all your irrigation systems and repair anything broken. I sooo wish I would have done this last summer.  By the time I discovered a leak, we had a big water problem to address. In the garden, too much water can be just as harmful as too little. Throw in temperature extremes, and you have a perfect storm - inviting many other problems.      Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart On this day in 1908, Maxfield Parrish Print, called The Botanist, appeared on the cover of Colliers Magazine. The image shows a full-length profile of a man wearing a long botanical green coat. In his raised right hand he is holding a plant and in his left hand he is clutching a magnifying glass while a few open reference books are tucked under his arm. He has a specimen case slung over his back. The classic image was made into poster-sized prints in the 1970's.     Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

País Estados Unidos Dirección M. Night Shyamalan Guion M. Night Shyamalan Música James Newton Howard Fotografía Eduardo Serra Reparto Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright, Spencer Treat Clark, Eamonn Walker, Charlayne Woodard, Leslie Stefanson, Johnny Hiram Jamison, M. Night Shyamalan, Julia Yorks, James Handy, Davis Duffield, Bostin Christopher, Elizabeth Lawrence, Laura Regan, Chance Kelly, Michael Kelly, Firdous Bamji, Johanna Day, Richard Council, Damian Young, Sasha Neulinger, Ukee Washington, Susan Wilder, Greg Horos, Anthony Lawton, John Patrick Amedori, Simms Thomas, Andrea Havens, Jose L. Rodriguez, Whitney Sugarman, Sherman Roberts Sinopsis Tras un accidente de tren, todos los pasajeros resultan muertos, excepto David Dunn (Bruce Willis). Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), un misterioso desconocido, le plantea una extraña hipótesis que explicaría por qué David ha salido indemne del accidente, pero esta explicación, de ser cierta, podría cambiar para siempre la vida de David y la de su familia.

Why do we garden?   This was a question that was posted in a Facebook group I belong to, and it received over 1400 responses.   The most popular were: its calming to bring beauty into my life to connect with nature healthy food There's another benefit that many people often overlook: staying physically active. If you take a look at your Fitbit after spending time in your garden, you'll realize it's a workout.       Brevities #OTD It's the birthday of Charles McIlvaine born in Chester County Pennsylvania.   He was a captain in the Civil War, an author and a mycologist. He was born on this day in 1840.   When he was 40 years old, McIlvaine moved to West Virginia. He started writing for magazines like Centuryand Harpers.   However, McIlvaine is best known for his study of mushrooms. He took copious notes which he compiled into his book called, 1,000 American Fungi.   What most distinguished McIlvaine, is the fact that he experimented on himself; eating hundreds of mushrooms and toadstools. This is how McIlvaine came to be known as Old Iron Guts.    Since McIlvaine had a love for writing before he had a love for mushrooms, when he wrote about mushrooms his language was often very flowery.   Consider what McIlvaine wrote about the Oyster Mushroom: "The camel is gratefully called the ship of the desert. The oyster mushroom is the shellfish of the forest. When the tender parts are dipped in egg, rolled in bread crumbs, and fried as an oyster, they're not excelled buy any vegetable and are worth of place on the daintiest menu." Here's the Vomiting Russella: "Most are sweet and nutty to the taste. Some are as hot as the fiercest cayenne, but this they lose upon cooking. Their caps make the most palatable dishes when stewed, baked, roasted or escalloped.” Finally, I have to share a poem that McIlvaine wrote called Our Church Fight.   "I'm that nigh near disgusted with the fight in our old church, Where one halfs 'g'in the t'other, an' the Lord's left in the lurch, That I went an' told the parson if he'd jine me in a prayer, We'd slip out 'mong the daisies and' put one up from there." #OTD On this day in1920, Virginia Woolf was gardening with her husband, Leonard, at the new home they had bought the previous year.    She wrote about it in her diary:   "The first pure joy of the garden... Weeding all day to finish the beds in a queers sort of enthusiasm which made me say this is happiness. Gladioli standing in troops; the mock orange out. We were out till 9 at night, though the evening was cold. Both stiff and scratched all over today, with chocolate earth in our nails."     #OTD It's the death day of naturalist, artist, and taxidermist, Martha Ann Maxwell who died on this day in 1881.   She helped found modern taxidermy.   At just 5 feet tall Maxwell became an accomplished hunter.   One historian wrote, "What distinguished Martha from other taxidermists of the day was that Martha Maxwell always attempted to place stuffed animals in natural poses and amongst natural surroundings. This talent was what would separate her work from others and make her animals so popular with exhibitors and viewers alike.”  People who saw Martha's exhibits of Colorado wildlife, doubted that a woman had actually done the work.   Martha had heard these comments over and over. At one point, she wrote the words "Woman's Work" on a small sign and placed it in front of her exhibit.         Unearthed Words  #OTD Today is the birthday of Walt Whitman who was born on this day in 1819. When Whitman was 54 years old, he suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed. He spent the next two years immersed in nature and he believed that nature head help to heal him. "How it all nourishes, lulls me, in the way most needed; the open air, the rye-fields, the apple orchards.”   Here's an excerpt from Whitman's Poem called This Compost: "Now I am terrified at the earth! it is that calm and  patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such  endless successions of diseased corpses, It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused  fetor, It renews with such unwitting looks, its prodigal,  annual, sumptuous crops, It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts  such leavings from them at last."     Today's book recommendation: No One Gardens Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence by Emily Herring Wilson Lawrence was one of the premier gardeners and garden writers of the 20th Century. Little is known about her personal life until this book - which took the author over 10 years to complete. You can get a copy of this book on Amazon using the link above for a little over $3.     Today's Garden Chore It's another Photo Friday in the Garden. It's time to take a hosta inventory, recording the hostas that you've forgotten you even had in your garden.       Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart   In May 1979, Dr. Calvin Lamborn bread snow peas and shelling English peas together to create the Sugar Snap Pea at Magic Seed Farm in Twin Falls Idaho   Today, the farm is owned by Rod Lamborn, Dr. Lamborn's son.   When Dr. Lamborn passed away in 2017, Rod took over the farm. He said,   "I miss my father.  I remember the night he died, I came in from the field and I was talking about the peas, and for the first time, he wasn’t interested. It was a peaceful moment because he knew it was all right. He was like, ‘You got this.’ ”       Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

“In my early childhood I had some kind of vague yearning to Save the World from something or other; now all I ask is to save a small part of it from over-working in the effort to produce things that are good to eat or are lovely to see.” Ruth Stout  Ruth Stout got people to stop double-digging their gardens, which is hard work. Her books included The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book: Secrets of the Famous Year-Round Mulch Method and How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back: A New Method of Mulch Gardening.)Flower: Salvia, both perennial and annul. Commonly called sages. Where to begin?  Dee and Carol grow quite a few between their two gardens including:S. farinacea, ‘Victoria Blue' ‘Evolution,' S. nemerosa,'Cardonna,' ‘Rose Marvel,' ‘Blue Marvel' (new for 2019) and ‘Blue Hill,' S. guaranitica 'Black and Blue,' S. viridis, clary sage, Salvia officinalis (culinary sage)' 'Purpurascens' is a purple variety, 'Icterina' is the yellow variegated one, 'Tricolor' is the white variegated one. Salvia pratensis ‘Madeline' - White and Purple bloomsSalvia x sylvestris ‘May Night' - Dee doesn't like this one. Carol grows it because it has “May” in it.Salvia leucantha, Mexican bush sageSalvia pratensis ‘Sweet Petite' Fashionista seriesSalvia elegans 'Golden Delicious' Really pretty!Salvia greggii 'Wendy's Wish' - Hard to find!Sages are in the plant family Lamiaceae, the mint family or dead nettle familyPerennial salvias generally have one big burst of bloom in mid-late spring. Get them to bloom again but cutting them back hard after their first bloom.Annual salvias should be dead-headed regularly to keep them blooming. Dee cuts ‘Victoria' salvia way back once it starts to look ratty.  Veggie: Corn, including Sweet, Popcorn (Glass Gem), Strawberry Popcorn, Field Corn, and Decorative CornThe story of Glass Gem Corn and its Oklahoma roots!So many varieties of Sweet Corn to choose from:  All-American Selections would be a good place to start. The varieties listed there have been tested so it is a good source of info and you can avoid the hype of marketing. Carol grew 'Sweet American Dream' sweet corn last year and will be growing it again.Burpee also has corn for container gardeners called ‘On Deck'. Don't expect to grow enough corn to freeze it for the winter but it is fun to grow in a container.Corn is basically a large grass so some gardeners like to grow it for the height and fall decorations. It's good in the back of a border, for example. There are even varieties with variegated foliage like ‘Field of Dreams' from Select Seeds. Dirt: Who's the best garden sage from the past? A gardener you can refer back to over and over again when you are seeking good old-fashioned know-how and garden sentiment. We can think of several…Elizabeth Lawrence  J.I. Rodale (organic gardening)  Liberty Hyde BaileyCassandra Danz, Mrs. GreenthumbsThomas JeffersonRuth Stout, sister of Rex StoutDr. Griffith Buck“There is a place in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.” ― Elizabeth Lawrence

Do you like old gardening books?  Dee and Carol share just a few of their favorite old gardening book authors for flowers and for veggies.  Then they take a twist into some British history and talk about the perils of wanting to grow old plants.  Fans of books by Elizabeth Lawrence, Cynthia Westcott, Charles Dudley Warner, William Paul Winchester and Buckner Hollingsworth will enjoy this episode! 

We are joined by podcast host extraordinaire and multi-creative Heidi Bennett to discuss her pick Four Friends (1981). Rather than the sex comedies prevalent in the early 80s, Heidi found and connected to a more serious coming of age story. Polina and Diana were unfamiliar with the movie, but found the elements that would have attracted our younger sensibilities. Find Heidi's podcast Vibrant Visionaries at: http://vibrantvisionaries.com/ Support her work at: https://www.patreon.com/VibrantVisionaries Find her on Twitter @HeidiMBennett @vibrantviscast @spinaltapminute & @cabinminutecast The semi-autobiographical movie written by Steve Tesich (Breaking Away) follows the path of the title characters from high school to college during the often turbulent 1960s and beyond. Stars Craig Wasson, Jodi Thelen, Michael Huddleston, Jim Metzler, Miklos Simon, Elizabeth Lawrence, Julia Murray, Reed Birney, James Leo Herlihy, Lois Smith, and Glenne Headly and is directed by Arthur Penn. (from wikipedia.org) The novel Polina mentions is The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County and her Pinterest page about it is: https://pin.it/2phldxjgkkqgwu Spinal Tap Minute episode with “Viv Savage” David Kaffinetti can be found at http://spinaltapminute.com/podcast/bonus-episode-viv-savage-in-studio/ Heidi's conversation with Amber Karnes including Body Positive Yoga can be found: http://spinaltapminute.com/podcast/preview-episode-heidis-upcoming-podcast-project/ Find other amazing podcasts by searching #ladypodsquad on Twitter, Facebook, and all the social media platforms. Tweet us @HEAMCast, like us on Facebook @HappilyEverAftermath, and e-mail us at contact@heamcast.com.

During this unusual episode, the fearless Movie Addict Players poke fun at three movies in skits performed on past Movie Addict Headquarters shows. Films receiving attention are: EAT PRAY LOVE, starring Julia Roberts and released in 2010; THE MUPPETS, which opened back in 2011; and THE LITTLE MERMAID, one of Disney’s most beloved animated musicals. Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Sebastian the Crab, Harry Lawrence, and Elizabeth Lawrence are the characters focused on during these short skits. Movie Addict Players providing their excellent voice talents include A.J. Hakari, Larry Tucker, Danielle Honeycutt, and Morgan Lawrence. Host Betty Jo Tucker and producer Nikki Starr join in the fun. 

This episode of Movie Addict Headquarters focuses on the remarkable journey of a true romance from page to screen. George Bettinger -- the popular actor, comedian, impressionist and radio host -- has given his permission to replay his recent Dream Stream Radio interview with Betty Jo Tucker about how It Had To Be Us -- a romantic memoir she and her husband wrote under the pen names of Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence -- became the inspiration for filmmaker Misha Zubarev’s award-winning short film titled CAKE: A Love Story. Included in this fun recorded conversation is actor/musician Richard Vernon’s moving rendition of “Remember the Day,” Zubarev’s original song for the movie. As an added attraction, a medley of favorite film love songs will be played, including: You and the Night and the Music (from The Band Wagon) performed by Lucie Arnaz; You Made Me Love You (from The Jazz Singer) belted out by Tony Babino; and You’ll Never Know (from Hello, Frisco, Hello) sung by Alice Faye.

Filmmaker Misha Zubarev and cast members discuss CAKE: A Love Story, the award-winning short film based on It Had To Be Us, a romantic memoir Betty Jo Tucker and her husband Larry wrote under the pen names of Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence. Zubarev, co-director/writer of the movie plans to reveal why he undertook this particular project and how the film differs from the book. Debra Lord Cooke and Richard Vernon, who play Elizabeth and Harry, talk about what it was like bringing these characters to life on screen. Plus, George Bettinger and Nancy Lombardo, who portray Elizabeth’s friends, join in the lively discussion. The film’s plot focuses on how two people rediscover their lost love after being divorced and estranged from each other for almost 20 years. Although this is a serious theme, the movie includes humor – and, of course, lots of romance!   CAKE: A Love Story earned First Place in the Short Film category at the NSAEN International Film Festival and an Award of Merit from IndieFest (for being a notable artistic and technical production). It was also an Official Selection at the Toronto International Short Film Festival. CAKE: A Love Story is available on Amazon Prime, and It Had To Be Us  can be ordered from Amazon's Kindle Store. 

Elizabeth Lawrence was one of the grand dames of American horticulture in the 1900s. She was not only an avid gardener, but the first trained and licensed woman landscape architect out of the landscape architecture program at University of North Carolina, Raleigh. She designed, gardened and experimented with planting zones enthusiastically in her Charlotte, North Carolina, home and garden from the late 1940s through the mid 1980s. Perhaps most importantly, she shared her experiences and knowledge widely through her beautiful and plentiful garden writing in books, articles and correspondence with other gardeners and horticulturists around the globe. This week on Cultivating Place we're joined by Andrea Sprott, Curator since 2010 of the Elizabeth Lawrence House and Garden in Charlotte, NC, to hear more about the garden and an upcoming celebration of the garden, Elizabeth Lawrence and her legacy of garden writing. Join us!

Luke 18:8-14

Movie Addict Headquarters celebrates Valentine’s Day early with this special episode. Noted actors/comedians George Bettinger and Nancy Lombardo have been invited to drop by for a discussion of their experiences as cast members in the upcoming short film based on IT HAD TO BE US, an award-winning romantic memoir co-written by host Betty Jo Tucker and her husband under the pen names of Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence. Filming of CAKE: A LOVE STORY was completed in late December, and the project is now in postproduction. It co-stars Debra Lord Cooke and Richard Vernon as Elizabeth and Harry. Co-writers/directors Misha Zubarev and Vera Zubarev report that Nancy and George, who portray Elizabeth’s friends, kept everyone in stitches on the set!  A clip about It Had To Be Us from George’s YOU TELL, YOU SELL show will also be played during this episode.

From Matthew 11 and Revelation 5

As a special holiday treat, showbiz stars George and Lizette Bettinger are featured again on Movie Addict Headquarters reading the first chapter of IT HAD TOBE US, an award-winning romantic memoir which has been adapted for the screen by Misha Zubarev and Vera Ulea. They play co-authors Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence in this audio version of Chapter One, which deals with two important Christmases for the estranged Lawrences. How does Christmas help bring these two together after being divorced for almost twenty years? Listen in and find out! Also, host Betty Jo Tucker (aka Elizabeth Lawrence) will give an update of the filming progress.The Bettingers are a fun couple with a passion for bringing back the Golden Era of radio on their popular Mom & Pop Shop Show. George is an actor, comedian, producer, writer and director. He’s won acclaim for his uncanny impressions including Groucho Marx, George Burns and the Three Stooges but may be best known as the voice of the red M&M. Lizette is a versatile actress and soprano singer with experience at the Metropolitan Opera. 

8.14.16 - Why Do You Call Me Good? - Joy Elizabeth Lawrence by Hinsdale Covenant

I'm talking to Elizabeth Lawrence & Ashley McLaughlin, creators of, and driving forces behind The Jacksonville Documentary Film Festival!! Runs 4/16 -4/17

Showbiz stars George and Lizette Bettinger make two Christmases from the past come to life again in this popular holiday episode. Portraying co-authors Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence, George and Lizette read the first chapter of IT HAD TO BE US, an award-winning romantic memoir now in the early stages of film development. Chapter One explains how two Christmases helped start the estranged Lawrences on a journey back to each other after being divorced for almost twenty years. IT HAD TO BE US won first place in the Ebook category at the Hollywood Book Festival for its potential to be transferred to other mediums such as film, radio and TV. The Bettingers display their passion for bringing back the Golden Era of radio on their popular Mom & Pop Shop Show which airs on Dreamstream Radio each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. George is an actor, comedian, producer, writer and director. He’s won acclaim for his uncanny impressions including Groucho Marx, George Burns and the Three Stooges. Lizette is a versatile actress and soprano singer with experience at the Metropolitan Opera. 

FILM CRITIC | EDITOR | AUTHOR - Betty Jo Tucker serves as Editor, Lead Film Critic for ReelTalk Movie Reviews, writes film commentary for the Colorado Senior Beacon, is the award-winning author of "Confessions of a Movie Addict and Susan Sarandon: A True Maverick" and hosts a weekly radio show, "Movie Addict Headquarters," on BlogTalkRadio. Using the pen names of Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence, Betty Jo and her husband Larry co-wrote "It Had To Be Us," an award-winning romantic memoir now in the early stages of film adaptation. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS INCLUDE: Is there really such a thing as objective film criticism? Why aren't there more female movie reviewers? How do you collect information while you're watching a film? Do you take notes? If so, doesn't that affect your experience of the film? If not, how do you recollect factual details when you sit down to write your review? WEBSITE: BlogTalkRadio.com/MovieAddictHeadquarters

FILM CRITIC | EDITOR | AUTHOR - Betty Jo Tucker serves as Editor, Lead Film Critic for ReelTalk Movie Reviews, writes film commentary for the Colorado Senior Beacon, is the award-winning author of "Confessions of a Movie Addict and Susan Sarandon: A True Maverick" and hosts a weekly radio show, "Movie Addict Headquarters," on BlogTalkRadio. Using the pen names of Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence, Betty Jo and her husband Larry co-wrote "It Had To Be Us," an award-winning romantic memoir now in the early stages of film adaptation. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS INCLUDE: Is there really such a thing as objective film criticism? Why aren't there more female movie reviewers? How do you collect information while you're watching a film? Do you take notes? If so, doesn't that affect your experience of the film? If not, how do you recollect factual details when you sit down to write your review? WEBSITE: BlogTalkRadio.com/MovieAddictHeadquarters

Misha Zubarev returns to Movie Addict HQ for a discussion of his diverse filmmaking experience and to bring listeners up to date on the It Had To Be Us movie project. Denise Cassino, publisher of It Had To Be Us, joins in to introduce new readers to this award-winning romantic memoir by Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence. Film historian James Colt Harrison will co-host. Diana Saenger, founder of Classic Movie Guide, also plans to call in. Misha Zubarev has worked in various capacities on such films as Shooter, Loneliness, Annapolis, Four Funny Families and Synedoche, New York. His film 18 and Out was chosen to be included in NBC's The Screening Room. He also directed an award-winning TV series titled "The Wisdom Tree" and was highlighted in MovieMaker Magazine. After reading It Had To Be Us, Zubarev became interested in adapting it for the screen. He completed the screenplay last year and plans to direct the film. Denise Cassino heads up the Long Story Short Publishing Company and also offers impressive promotional services through her Wizardly Web Designs site. As the publisher of the Kindle version of It Had To Be Us, she organized a successful launch for the book four years ago, which led to a #1 ranking in an important Amazon category. She has now created an Anniversary Re-Launch, complete with the same bonus items from the original launch. James Colt Harrison, a founding member of the San Diego Film Critics Society, has written a history of Hollywood studios and contributed film commentary to Classic Movie Guide, Review Express, The La Jolla Village News, Rage Monthly, No Cover Music Magazine and San Diego Metro Weekly.. 

Movie Addict HQ presents a special pre-Valentine’s Day episode focusing on romantic films mentioned in “It Had To Be Us,” an award-winning romantic memoir by Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence. Filmmaker Misha Zubarev, publisher Denise Cassino, Movie Mom Nell Minow and comedian Nancy Lombardo have been invited to join the discussion, and a book giveaway is also scheduled. Movies to be covered include such films as "Return to Me," "Original Sin," "Tristan and Isolde," "Music and Lyrics," and "Moulin Rouge!"