Podcasts about Luther Burbank

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1244, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Bible Belts 1: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that if someone "smiteth" you here, "offer also the other". the cheek. 2: In this Bible book named for songs of praise, "Thou hast smitten all my enemies upon the cheek bone". Psalms. 3: Par-tay! "Song of" him says, "I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly". Solomon. 4: In Numbers 20, after the Israelites complained, Moses smote this object twice and water came out. the rock. 5: After a big Bible belt that kills his brother, he is marked and heads east of Eden. Cain. Round 2. Category: Avian Poetry 1: In this poem, Lewis Carroll warned us, "Beware the jubjub bird, and shun the frumious bandersnatch". "Jabberwocky". 2: "A wonderful bird is" this, "his bill will hold more than his belican". a pelican. 3: When first seen, this title bird was "perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door". the raven. 4: "And a good south wind sprung up behind"; it "did follow, and every day, for food or play, came to the mariner's hollo!". the albatross. 5: John Keats called this bird immortal; "Thou wast not born for death". a nightingale. Round 3. Category: Then You Get The Women 1: In 2005 her "Alias" changed to Mrs. Ben Affleck. Jennifer Garner. 2: On her divorce from her "Eyes Wide Shut" co-star, she quipped, "Well, I can wear heels now". Nicole Kidman. 3: This Emmy winner once had a tattoo that read "Property of Tom Arnold". Roseanne Barr. 4: Her voice was Lola, a fish in "Shark Tale", but some wondered if her life was the Pitts in 2005. Angelina Jolie. 5: Marriage to a star made this Kansas-born actress Shirley MacLaine's sister-in-law. Annette Bening. Round 4. Category: Brains 1: His writings include the 1920 publication "Relativity: The Special and General Theory". Albert Einstein. 2: Past winners of this annual event include Bob Verini and Bob Blake. Tournament of Champions on Jeopardy!. 3: "A Gardener Touched with Genius" is Peter Dreyer's book on this American hoticulturist. Luther Burbank. 4: Blaise Pascal is said to have mastered this Greek mathematician's "Elements" by age 12. Euclid. 5: After this coil inventor moved to America, he worked briefly with another genius⁠—Thomas Edison. Nikola Tesla. Round 5. Category: Clues Across America 1: (I'm Jim Gardner from 6ABC.) The Franklin Institute has the only intact Model B made by these 2 men; it was the first plane to carry air freight, live bombs and a U.S. president. Orville and Wilbur Wright. 2: (Hi, I'm Eric Perkins from KARE 11. [He presents from U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota.]) In the first sporting event at Minneapolis' U.S. Bank Stadium, Chelsea played AC Milan in this sport. soccer. 3: (Hi, I'm Shannon Hegy, from WPRI 12.) Waterfire is an art installation of more than 80 bonfires that float above the surface of 3 rivers in this capital of Rhode Island. Providence. 4: (I'm Ryan Chiaverini.) (And I'm Val Warner of Windy City Live.) Everyone knows Chicago is the Windy City some say it has to do with the way we brag about out town......But more likely it has to do with the stiff breezes that come off of this lake. Lake Michigan. 5: (Hi, I'm Liz Cho from ABC 7.) Mosaics in Ulysses S. Grant's New York City tomb depict the greatest moments in the general's career including the April 1865 surrender of Robert E. Lee at this Virgi

In this episode of Someone Lived Here, Kendra brings you to the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland, Washington. The home was built by Hulda's family, The Thiel's in 1889. Hulda Klager would purchase the home and move in in her 40s.She became interested in the work of Luther Burbank, a horticulturist and hybridized. She had been inspired by the book New Creations in Plant Life by William Sumner Harwood, which detailed Luther Burbanks process. Hulda Klager began her own experiments with hybridization: first with apples, then lilacs. Behind the house is a large garden filled with lilacs, many of which were Hulda's creations.This episode wouldn't be possible without the Hulda Klager Lilac Garden. Mari Ripp, the executive director, made this whole recording possible. Judy Card, Debbie Elliott, Barbara Harlan, and Mari Ripp guided us through the home and property. The historic talk was put on by the Hulda Klager Lilac Garden, the Woodland Historical Museum, and the Lelooska Foundation. It was moderated by Erin Thoeny and recorded by Keith Bellisle. Thank you to Mary Jo Kellar, Fran and Kirk Northcut, and Jon Drury for their stories.Images from the day of the interview were taken by Ada Horne. Tim Cahill created our music. You can find a full transcript of this episode below the photos.Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/kendragaylordYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kendragaylordTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kendragaylord

In his day, Luther Burbank was a horticultural rock star: everyone from opera singers to movie stars and European royalty to an Indian guru traveled to Santa Rosa, California, to meet him. Dubbed the "plant wizard," Burbank invented the plumcot and the stoneless plum, the white blackberry, and the potato variety used in every French fry you've ever eaten—as well as some 800 more new-and-improved plants, from walnuts to rhubarb. His fame as a plant inventor put him in the same league as Thomas Edison—but, while Edison patented his light bulb and phonograph, Burbank had no legal way to protect his crop creations. Listen now for the story of Luther Burbank, the most famous American you've never heard of, and how his struggles shaped what's on our supermarket shelves today, but also led to a world in which big companies like Monsanto can patent life. It's a wild ride that involves the death spiral of the Red Delicious and the rise of the Cosmic Crisp apple, as well as coded notebooks, detective agencies, rogue farmers, and a resistance movement led by former New York City mayor (and subsequent airport namesake) Fiorello La Guardia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week in history: the Boston Massacre, the first telephone patent, and a horticulturist whose contributions are both beloved - and not. The post History Matters: Thanks A Lot, Luther Burbank appeared first on Chapelboro.com.

Mad about the wall of thorns in you back yard? Want a name to curse when trying to destroy the giant bramble of blackberries near you? Luther Burbank! #htwwf #hyfwj #howyourfoodwasjunked #americanhistory #podcast #howthewestwasfucked #urineclownmouthracebaloon #ninja3thedomination #blackberry #lutherburbank

Introducing the latest episode of Travillian Next, featuring Dimitris Malisianos, Principal – Banking & Fintech Search at Travillian, and Simone Lagomarsino, President and CEO at Luther Burbank Savings Bank. Acquire invaluable perspectives into Simone's journey to leadership and explore the intricacies of Luther Burbank Savings Bank's Success story. At Luther Burbank Savings Bank, success is driven by people. The bank is committed to delivering a straightforward, human-centered banking experience through genuine relationships built on trust, respect, and personalized expertise. Introduction of Simone Lagomarsino 01:00 - 17:00 Culture: 17:00 - 20:32 Talent 21:27 - 31:49 Diversity and Inclusion: 30:54-35:44 California Banking 35:44 - 41:00 Insights on the current economic landscape and community banking: 41:00 - 50:05

Introducing the latest episode of Travillian Next, featuring Dimitris Malisianos, Principal – Banking & Fintech Search at Travillian, and Simone Lagomarsino, President and CEO at Luther Burbank Savings Bank. Acquire invaluable perspectives into Simone's journey to leadership and explore the intricacies of Luther Burbank Savings Bank's Success story. At Luther Burbank Savings Bank, success is driven by people. The bank is committed to delivering a straightforward, human-centered banking experience through genuine relationships built on trust, respect, and personalized expertise. Introduction of Simone Lagomarsino 01:00 - 17:00 Culture: 17:00 - 20:32 Talent 21:27 - 31:49 Diversity and Inclusion: 30:54-35:44 California Banking 35:44 - 41:00 Insights on the current economic landscape and community banking: 41:00 - 50:05

This week's Fresh From The Field Fridays from The Produce Industry Podcast It's all about The Crimson Rib! Fresh Field Rhubarb is what Dan The Produce Man is dishing up! From the ancient fields of Tibet to Luther Burbank to the fields of Washington, Oregon and Michigan to your Strawberry Rhubarb Pie! Tune in and Turn on! FANCY SPONSORS: Ag Tools, Inc.: https://www.agtechtools.com, Flavor Wave, LLC.: https://flavorwavefresh.com, Noble Citrus: https://noblecitrus.com, Buck Naked Onions/Owyhee Produce, Inc.: http://www.owyheeproduce.com and John Greene Logistics Company: https://www.jglc.com and Summer Citrus From South Africa; https://www.summercitrus.com  CHOICE SPONSORS: Indianapolis Fruit Company: https://indyfruit.com, Equifruit: https://equifruit.com Arctic® Apples: https://arcticapples.com Sev-Rend Corporation: https://www.sev-rend.com, Jac Vandenberg Inc.: https://www.jacvandenberg.com Dole Fresh Vegetables: https://www.dole.com/en/produce/vegetables WholesaleWare: https://www.grubmarket.com/hello/software/index.html Continental Fresh, LLC: https://www.continentalfresh.com Golden Star Citrus, Inc.: http://www.goldenstarcitrus.com STANDARD SPONSORS:  Freshway Produce: https://www.freshwayusa.com and Citrus America: https://citrusamerica.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theproduceindustrypodcast/support

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 652, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Fun With Country Names 1: It's the only country in the world with the name of its ruling family in the name of the country. Saudi Arabia (the House of Saud). 2: Besides East Timor, 2 of the 3 independent countries with compass directions in their English names. South Africa and/or North Korea and South Korea. 3: They're the 2 western European island countries whose names differ by only one letter. Iceland and Ireland. 4: Of the countries named for saints, the one that's completely surrounded by Italy. San Marino. 5: It's the only nation in the world with "name" in its English name. Suriname. Round 2. Category: Meat And Potatoes 1: The original version of this toy included facial pieces to attach to a real spud. Mr. Potato Head. 2: The fungus phytophthora infestans caused this historic Irish tragedy. Irish potato famine. 3: In Genesis, God told this man "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you". Noah. 4: A 23-inch by 14 1/2-inch one of these was produced in 1990 by a Pringle's plant in Tennessee. potato chip. 5: At 19, this future potato breeder read Darwin's "Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication". Luther Burbank. Round 3. Category: Be Afraid... 1: These items terrify pternophobics, so give them a pillow with artificial filling. feathers. 2: It's not a fear of actress Rene (unless she's from Moscow). russophobia. 3: Lucrezia Borgia may not be a good choice as a dinner guest if you're toxiphobic, afraid of this. poison. 4: Anthophobia is a fear of these, but don't let it vase you. flowers. 5: You won't feel the need for this, if you're tachophobic. speed. Round 4. Category: The Solar System 1: Using Newton's laws of motion, astronomer Edmund Halley determined that these travel in elliptical orbits. comets. 2: In the 1600s his findings like the phases of Venus made this Italian think maybe the sun is what stuff revolves around. Galileo. 3: In December 2006 NASA announced that water may have flowed on this planet's surface within the past decade. Mars. 4: Its moon Triton was first seen in 1846; a second satellite around this planet wasn't found until 1949. Neptune. 5: These solar discharges consisting of light, heat and cosmic rays may last up to an hour. solar flares. Round 5. Category: Denmark 1: As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark lost this country to Sweden in 1814. Norway. 2: Main farming activity of Danish-owned Greenland is not growing plants but raising these animals. sheep. 3: While Great Dane dogs originated in Germany, this pianist called "The Great Dane" is from Copenhagen. Victor Borge. 4: Between 1513 and 1972, all Danish kings were alternately name Frederik and this pious name. Christian. 5: Helle Thorning-Schmidt holds this post in Denmark; her father-in-law, Kinnock, once hoped to hold it in the United Kingdom. prime minister. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

Wine Road Podcast Episode 159 Sponsored by Ron Rubin Winery   Episode 159 | Lynn Fritz Owner, Lynmar Estate Winery   Lynn Fritz is living his passion and tells us about the many splendors of the Lynmar Estate, being a steward of the land, and his philosophy behind building a community around people and place. Plus he shares a bottle of the 2018 Lynmar Pinot Noir from Quail Hill Vineyard. Our Fast Five Recipe is Ahi Poke form Carole Shelton. Wine of the Day: 2018 Lynmar Pinot Noir, Quail Hill Vineyard Fast Five Recipe: Ahi Poke from Carol Shelton Podcast Sponsor: Ron Rubin Winery SHOW NOTES 1:00 Wine of the Day – 2018 Lynmar Pinot Noir form Quail Hill Vineyard. A great vintage made with14 clones of Pinot. It's Light and opulent with a dense fruity nose, and lingering finish. Like a chord! 5:22 Lynn's philosophy on the perfect size business and the growth or (non-growth) of Lynmar which is kept at a 12-15,000 case level to keep it optimal for quality and service. 7:28 Seeking harmony in all aspects of the business and the winery food and wine program. Beth feels it's a spiritual place at Lynmar. 9:30 Lynmar serving 4 course lunches and have expended the gardens that include the edible gardens with heirloom varieties used by the chefs for the food pairings. Carrying on the Luther Burbank torch. 13:40 Winery started after Lynn sought a peaceful getaway from San Francisco in the country and found the ideal spot in Sebastopol. Originally sold the grapes grown on the property then started making their own wine. 17:09 It's all about community at Lynmar-- the customers and the winery personnel and the extended community of families they encompass. 19:00 Sonoma County has a certain something, a vitality and abundance that makes the area special. 20:45 Lynmar making Balsamic vinegar now for over 22 years. 22:33 Beautiful guesthouse, The Bliss house on the property for use of Wine Club members and families. 24:20 Fast Five Recipe –Ahi Poke– From Carol Shelton of Carol Shelton Wines Ingredients: Fresh Sushi grade Ahi tuna, sesame oil, ponzu, brown sugar, ginger, (green onions, cilantro and lime) Directions: Cube the Ahi then add sesame oil one part to two parts of ponzu mixed together with brown sugar and table spoon of minced ginger add a little squeeze of lime and scallions serve with rice crackers add avocado on the side. Enjoy with Carol Shelton Rendezvous Rose. 27:27 All winery workers are full time employees which gives Lynmar great control over harvest and are ready to go when the pick date is chosen. Makes for a calm and orderly harvest. 30:00 ONE MORE THING—Wine and Food Affair tickets are now on sale! And No Reservations needed this year! Links Lynmar Estate Winery Carol Shelton Wines Ron Rubin Winery Credits:The Wine Road podcast is mixed and mastered at Threshold Studios Sebastopol, CA. http://thresholdstudios.info/

Broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1953, Cavalcade of America was an anthology drama series that documented historical events, often through dramatization. In addition, it occasionally presented musicals, such as an adaptation of Show Boat, and condensed biographies of popular composers. It was later on television from 1952 to 1957. GSMC Classics presents some of the greatest classic radio broadcasts, classic novels, dramas, comedies, mysteries, and theatrical presentations from a bygone era. The GSMC Classics collection is the embodiment of the best of the golden age of radio. Let Golden State Media Concepts take you on a ride through the classic age of radio, with this compiled collection of episodes from a wide variety of old programs. ***PLEASE NOTE*** GSMC Podcast Network presents these shows as historical content and have brought them to you unedited. Remember that times have changed and some shows might not reflect the standards of today's politically correct society. The shows do not necessarily reflect the views, standards, or beliefs of Golden State Media Concepts or the GSMC Podcast Network. Our goal is to entertain, educate give you a glimpse into the past.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 568, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Yangtze Doodle 1: The Grand Canal connects the Yangtze River to this other major river. the Yellow River. 2: The 2 rivers in the world that are longer than the Yangtze. the Amazon and the Nile. 3: The Yangtze flows through this province that's China's most populous and known for its spicy cuisine. Szechuan. 4: Native to the Yangtze river valley, this fruit is also known as a Chinese gooseberry. a kiwi. 5: This dam, one of the world's largest when completed, is being built on the Yangtze to control flooding. the Three Gorges Dam. Round 2. Category: Men And Women Of Science 1: In the 1930s this California transplant posthumously received plant patents No. 12-16. Luther Burbank. 2: In 1925 this American anthropologist first visited Samoa; she wrote a book about it 3 years later. Margaret Mead. 3: In 1909, after 7 years with the Swiss Patent Office, he became a professor at the University of Zurich. Albert Einstein. 4: In the 1870s this French chemist demonstrated that anthrax was caused by a particular bacillus. Pasteur. 5: The "Hans"-on work of this biochemist born in 1900 unraveled the mystery of the citric acid cycle. Hans Krebs. Round 3. Category: Medical Milestones 1: Louise Brown, the first human conceived by in vitro fertilization, is better known as the 1st this "baby". test tube baby. 2: In 1853 Charles Gerhardt buffered salicylic acid, creating acetylsalicylic acid, later marketed as this. aspirin. 3: This type of surgery introduced in 1961 uses extreme cold to perform a "bloodless" operation. cryogenic (or cryosurgery). 4: In 1977 the balloon type of this procedure was used for the first time to unblock clogged heart arteries. angioplasty. 5: In 1866 Dr. Thomas Allbutt was all brain when he invented a 6-inch one of these; safer fluids have replaced mercury. a thermometer. Round 4. Category: Music Of The '70s 1: In 1973 Bette Midler revived this Andrews Sisters hit, reaching the Top 10. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. 2: This "Diana" singer wrote Tom Jones' 1971 hit "She's A Lady". Paul Anka. 3: His "52nd Street" was the No. 1 album of 1979. Billy Joel. 4: This James Taylor hit is subtitled "To Be Loved by You". How Sweet It Is. 5: In 1973 he won a Grammy for Best Country Song for "Behind Closed Doors". Charlie Rich. Round 5. Category: Politics 1: Cities as big as L.A. and Dallas have this kind of mayoral election where there's no "D"' or "R" after the candidates' names. nonpartisan. 2: In 1913 James Hamilton Lewis became the first senator in this job of counting votes and rounding up members. whip. 3: Military-sounding term for a local leader who oversees a political party's activities in one precinct. a captain. 4: The rooster was symbol of this party before Thomas Nast drew their new one in 1870. the Democrats. 5: A contraction of "procuracy", it's a person you authorize to vote in your place. proxy. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

Orchards can be as small as 2, 5 or 10 trees. Get tips on how to manage a small scale orchard at CiderDays 2.0 with John Bunker on November 5th at 9am. Get updates and ticket information by following Cider Chat and signing up for the eCiderNews. Edith Walden is the Quince Queen On Guemes Island in Washington state, Edith Walden started her quince journey in 1995 and soon became known as the Quince Queen. The island is short ferry ride from Anacortes and the land itself where Edith has her orchard of quince, apples, pears and more fruit was once the homestead of the Mathew Brothers and dates back to 1858. As such there is a 160 year old Gravenstein apple tree that sits in the center of the orchard. Edith calls it the Mother Tree. The Quince Queen founded Willowrose Bay, Inc selling her magnificient quince to Whole Foods and regional cider makers Edith to the left with friend harvesting quince In this Chat How Edith became the Quince Queen Growing Quince She spaced her trees  9' and 12' apart Quince pests Varieties of Quince and their viability for retail and cider Aromatnaya Cooke's Jumbo -Golden and breed by California grower Havran, Havran II, Havran III (unknown true variety) Kuanching - Chinese Kuganskaya - Russian Meech's Prolific -bred by Mr Meech, tasty - has a black spot on it - good for cider Queen's - sweet by not prolific, maybe better grown in other areas Smyrna -  too small for retail - though sweet Tashkent - Turkish Van Deman - bred by Luther Burbank in California Zvezdnaia - Russian , Jerry Lehman out of Ohio, said great for cider - huge & apple shape The future of WillowRose Bay Inc. The quince orchard of Willowrose Bay Inc Quince Books Quince Culture: An Illustrated Hand-Book for the Propagation and Cultivation of the Quince  Author Willam Meech, named a quince variety after himself. This is the consummat book on growing Quince and dates back to the 1800's Simply Quince by the Queen of Quince, Barbara Ghazarian, a quince cookbook Contact for Willowrose Bay Inc eMail: willowrosebayinc@gmail.com Help Support Cider Chat Please donate today. Help keep the chat thriving! Find this episode and all episodes at the page for Cider Chat's podcasts. Listen also at iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher (for Android), iHeartRadio , Spotify and wherever you love to listen to podcasts. Follow on Cider Chat's blog, social media and podcast Twitter @ciderchat Instagram: @ciderchatciderville Cider Chat FaceBook Page Cider Chat YouTube  

Luther Burbank experimented with plants by cross breeding them in order to create disease resistant and tastier fruits and vegetable, most of which we still eat today.

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   1725 Birth of John Hope, botanist, professor, and founder of the Royal Garden in Edinburgh. John produced considerable work on plant classification and physiology. He was appointed the King's botanist for Scotland and superintendent of the Royal Garden in Edinburgh. At the time, Edinburgh was the place to study medicine, and all medical students had to take botany courses. John created a school for botanists after spinning off the school's materia medica (pharmacy) department, which allowed him to specialize exclusively in botany. John was a captivating instructor. He was one of the first two people to teach the Linnean system. He also taught the natural system. John was one of the first professors to use big teaching diagrams or visual aids to teach his lectures. John led over 1,700 students during his tenure. His students traveled from all over Europe, America, and India. John Hope Alumni include the likes of James Edward Smith, founder and first President of the Linnaean Society, Charles Drayton, and Benjamin Rush. A field botanist, John encouraged his students to go out and investigate the Flora of Scotland. He awarded a medal every year to the student who collected the best herbarium.   1818 Birth of Arthur Cleveland Coxe, American theologian and composer. Arthur served as the second Episcopal bishop of Western New York. He once wrote, Flowers are words, which even a baby can understand.   1891 Death of Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli, Swiss botanist. Although he studied cell division and pollination, Carl's claim to fame is being the guy who discouraged Gregor Mendel from pursuing his work on genetics. Gregor regarded Carl as a botanical expert and his professional hero. When Gregor sent Carl an overview of his work with pea plants in a letter, Carl dismissed the results out of hand, labeling them "only empirical, and impossible to prove rationally." Carl poo-pooed natural selection. Instead, he believed in orthogenesis, a now-defunct theory that living organisms have an internal driving force - a desire to perfect themselves- and evolve toward this goal. Over a seven-year period in the mid-1800s, Gregor Mendel grew nearly 30,000 pea plants - taking note of their height and shape and color - in his garden at the Augustinian monastery he lived in at Brno (pronounced "burr-no") in the Czech Republic. His work resulted in what we now know as the Laws of Heredity. Gregor came up with the genetic terms and terminology that we still use today, like dominant and recessive genes. Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli's dismissal prompted Gregor to give up his work with genetics. After his promotion to the abbot of the monastery, Gregor focused on his general duties and teaching. In 1884, Gregor died without ever knowing the impact his work would have on modern science. Fifteen years later, in 1899,  a friend sent the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries a copy of Gregor's work - calling it a paper on hybridization - not heredity. At the same time, Gregor's paper was uncovered by a student of Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli's - a man named Carl E. F. J. Correns. Hugo de Vries rushed to publish his first paper on genetics without mentioning Gregor Mendel. But he did have the nerve to use some of Gregor's data and terminology in his paper. Carl Correns threatened to expose De Vries, who then quickly drafted a new version of his paper, which gave proper credit to Gregor Mendel. Through his work with the humble pea plant, Gregor came up with many of the genetic terms still used today, like dominant and recessive genes.    1907 It was on this day that Francis Younghusband, British Army officer, explorer, and spiritual writer, documented the progression of spring in the Residency Garden in Kashmir. Francis shared his observations in a book called Kashmir(1909). The Residency Garden was an English country house that was built specifically for guests by the Maharajah, and so naturally, Francis loved staying there. Here's what Francis wrote in May of 1907 about the Residency Garden, which was just coming into full flower. Francis observed,  By May 1st ...The May trees were in full blossom. The bank on the south side of the garden was a mass of dark purple and white irises, and [the] evening [sun] caused each flower to [become] a blaze of glory. Stock was in full bloom. Pansies were out in masses. Both the English and Kashmir lilacs were in blossom, and the columbines were in perfection.  The first horse chestnuts came into blossom on May 10th, and on that date, the single pink rose, sinica anemone, on the trellis at the end of the garden, was in full bloom and of wondrous beauty; a summer-house covered with Fortune's yellow was a dream of golden loveliness;  I picked the first bloom of some English roses that a kind friend had sent out... and we had our first plateful of strawberries. A light mauve iris, a native of Kashmir, [is now in] bloom; ...and some lovely varieties of Shirley poppy... from Mr. Luther Burbank, the famous plant-breeder of California, began to blossom; and roses of every variety came [on] rapidly till the garden became a blaze of color.   Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation Lemon, Love & Olive Oil by Mina Stone This book came out in September of 2021. Now, if you're a cookbook lover, you know that Mina's debut cookbook called Cooking For Artists was a smash hit. It was also self-published. And in fact, right now, if you go on Amazon and you try to get a copy of that first cookbook, you'll pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $150. To me, Mina's story is fascinating. She actually went to school to be a designer, and then, on the side, she started cooking for families. And then she started cooking for special events. And then eventually, she started cooking for a gallery, and that's where she started cooking for artists. Thus, the name of her first book. The story behind the second book, Lemon Love and Olive Oil, stems from the fact that whenever people would ask MIna for ingredients to make something taste great, her answer was always lemon juice, olive oil, and a little bit of salt. So, those are her go-to ingredients. Mina contends that you can make anything taste good with a little bit of her favorite three ingredients: lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. So that became the name for the cookbook, except salt was replaced with love. When this cookbook was released, it met with rave reviews. In fact, the New York times rated it a best cookbook of the year, writing, Author of the cult-favorite Cooking for Artists, Mina Stone, returns with a collection of 80 new recipes inspired by her traditional Greek heritage and her years cooking for some of New York's most innovative artists.   I've watched a couple of interviews with Mina, and one thing she says over and over again was that when she was creating this cookbook is, she was constantly thinking about the love aspect of these recipes. By that, Mina was focusing on the comfort level and the coziness factor of the food. So that's what she was trying to capture with these 80 recipes. I found that so poignant, especially in light of the fact that she was putting this together during the pandemic while she's in lockdown in 2020. Mina is not the kind of person that comes up with a cookbook and then has to go out and create a bunch of recipes. That's not how Mina works. Instead, Mina pays attention to the recipes that she starts making again and again. So these are recipes that have staying power. They are the recipes that pass the Mina Test, and they rise to the top of her favorites because they are just naturally so good. Also, if you are a lover of reading cookbooks, you are going to really enjoy Mina's book. Before each section, there are essays from Mina that share stories about her family - and her grandmother, who is kind of the original Greek cook in Mina's life.  Mina has great insight, not only on these recipes and ingredients but also from her sheer personal experience.  I couldn't help, but think as I was reading this cookbook that Mina could write a memoir because her stories are so intriguing. In addition to the essays for each section of the book, every recipe gets a little personal introduction as well. For an excerpt, I selected a few little snippets from a section that Mina calls My Kitchen. This is a chapter about the key ingredients that Mina uses on repeat. She writes, I've always found pantry lists in cookbooks to be intimidating. Asa self-trained home cook, I never sought out hard-to-find ingredients. It never crossed my mind as an option. The ingredients in my recipes and the food found in my pantry reflect my surroundings touched with a dose of Greekness. (It can't be helped.) Here are some thoughts on how I approach cooking in my kitchen, what I like to keep in my cupboards, what I run out to the store for, and some clarification on how I wrote the recipes.   Salt Sea salt is more salty and kosher salt is less salty. Because kosher salt is less salty it gives you more control over the seasoning. For example, it is great for seasoning meat because you can use more and achieve a lovely salt crust as well as the right amount of seasoning without oversalting. It is the salt up using the most.   Extra-Virgin Olive Oil I like to use olive oil sparingly during cooking (this makes thedish lighter) and add the bulk of it at the end, once cooking is completed. use much more olive oil in the recipes than people are accustomed to using. suggest adding more than you would think when you're cooking from this book. That's a great little tidbit, especially if you're using olive oil for cooking with your garden harvest. There is so much that comes out of our garden that goes into the pan with a ton of olive oil. But now, maybe you can dial that back a little bit with this tip from Mina.   Lemons They add floral buoyancy but, above all, a fresh form of acid that I usually prefer to vinegar. When using lemons for zest, try to always use organic ones.    I've never thought about lemons that way, but I love how she describes that floral buoyancy. And, you know, she's exactly right. Personally, I also think that there's something just a little less harsh about lemon juice as compared to vinegar. So if you have a sensitive tummy, consider incorporating lemon juice instead of vinegar.   Green Herbs: Parsley, Mint, Cilantro, and Basil I like fresh herbs in abundance and can often find a place to incorporate them with relative ease. In the recipes, herbs are usually measured by the handful: 1 handful equals about 1/4 cup. It doesn't need to be exact, but that is a good place to start if you need it. This advice is helpful as well because if you're planning your kitchen garden, you need to think about how many plants you need to plant so that you can have an abundant harvest. Just to give you an idea of how much Basil I use in the summertime, I usually end up buying about four to five flats of Basil.   Dried Oregano Oregano is my number one dried herb. Greek oregano has a pronounced savory and earthy flavor to it, and it is my preference to use in more traditional Greek dishes. Better-quality dried oregano, which is milder in flavor, is great to use as a general seasoning for salad, fish, and meats.   This book is 272 pages of more than eighty Mediterranean-style dishes and the stories that inspired them. These recipes are uncomplicated, and they're Mina's go-to recipes. And, of course, they can always be enhanced with lemon, olive oil, and salt. You can get a copy of Lemon, Love & Olive Oil by Mina Stone and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $15.   Botanic Spark 2017 Death of Polly Park, American-Australian amateur gardener, speaker, and writer. Remembered as the designer of Boxford, a Canberra garden, Polly and her husband Peter created classic garden styles using their own creativity and gumption. On their half-acre suburban property, Boxford attracted visitors from across the world and featured six unique gardens: a modern garden inspired by Roberto Burle Marx, an English knot garden, a parterre garden with an Italien statue from Florence, a Chinese garden inspired by the Suzhou ("sue-joe") garden, an Indian garden, and a Japanese garden. Polly and Peter made a great garden team. Polly came up with the design ideas, and Peter was the muscle. Polly created the stone courtyard for the Indian garden and a mosaic inspired by the great 20th-century Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer ("Nee-myer") for the modern garden. Peter built the pond and meditation house for the Japanese garden. In 1988, Polly wrote a biography of their gardens in the book The World in My Garden. Although Boxford was identified as a National heritage site - after Peter and Polly sold the property in 2006 - the garden was destroyed. In 2011, Peter died. Polly followed him home six years later on this day at the age of 96. You can get a used copy of The World in My Garden by Polly Park and support the show for around $17.    Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.   John Hope, Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli, Francis Younghusband, Lemon, Love & Olive Oil by Mina Stone, Polly Park

The recent conjunction of Neptune and Jupiter in Pisces which occurred on April 12, 2022, opened galactic portals to spiritual light, and shifted consciousness for those who are ready to go to the next level! In this episode, enjoy inspiration from  a spiritual pioneer, Paramahamsa Yogananda, from his book “Autobiography of a Yogi", which  is relevant for these times.  It is very appropriate at this time of a major astrological conjunction of Neptune and Jupiter in Pisces, to share this information from a spiritual master who lead a revolution in consciousness over 100 years ago, and inspired so many of us to follow the spiritual path. His teachings are so profound and necessary at this time.Stay tuned until the end of the episode when Jill reads an excerpt from her favorite chapter of "Autobiography of a Yogi," entitled "Outwitting the Stars." Paramahansa Yogananda and his book “Autobiography of a Yogi," has had profound impact on many people's lives including famous people and spiritual seekers for almost a century.  Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple,  felt a deep heartfelt connection to Yogananda,because of the book Autobiography of Yogi.  The only book that Steve had downloaded on his Apple iPad 2 for regular reading was – Autobiography of a Yogi. It is an autobiography written by Paramahansa Yogananda  in 1946, in which he discusses his life story,and which introduced many Westerners to meditation and yoga. The book describes Yogananda's search for a guru, and his encounters with leading spiritual figures such as Therese Neumann, the Hindu saint Sri Anandamaya Ma, Mohandas Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir C. V. Raman, and noted American plant scientist Luther Burbank . There is the famous story of Steve Jobs discovering Autobiography of a Yogi at the age of 17 and reportedly read it every single year of his life until he passed away in 2011 at the age of fifty-six. So that's nearly forty times. Not only that, but he gifted it to every single person who came to his funeral services. Paramahansa Yogananda was an Indian Saint who was born January 5, 1893 and died on March 7, 1952.  He was labeled a “Prema avatar” or incarnation of love.  He is best known for his pivotal book, “The Autobiography of a Yogi,” which was published in 1946 and hailed as one of the most important spiritual books of modern times. He began the organization, SRF, Self Realization Fellowship in 1920.  Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) is a worldwide spiritual organization fo legally incorporated as a non-profit religious organization to serve as Yogananda's instrument for the preservation and worldwide dissemination of his writings and teachings.  SRF continues to educate many on his teachings, and Kriya Yoga, which were the yogic, breathing and meditation techniques taught by Yogananda. . Here are some inspiring quotes from Paramahansa Yogananda:“Live quietly in the moment and see the beauty of all before you. The future will take care of itself......”“Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become.”“You must not let your life run in the ordinary way; do something that nobody else has done, something that will dazzle the world. Show that God's creative“You have come to earth to entertain and to be entertained.“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.”“The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man's slavery”“forget the past, for it is gone from your domain! forget the future, for it is beyond your reach! control the present! Live supremely well now! This is the way of the wise...”www.jilljardineastrology.com

The Sacramento City Teachers Association has voted to authorize a strike. SCTA union members have voted to authorize a strike, highlighting their disapproval of the district's latest contract proposal. Luther Burbank teacher Kara Synhorst has been in the district for two-decades, and explains the vote doesn't mean they will strike, but points out they've been working without a contract for two years.

Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee   Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community   Friends of the Garden in Athens, Georgia Register Here   Historical Events 1849 Birth of Luther Burbank (books about this person), American botanist and horticulturist. During his 55-year career, Luther developed over 800 varieties of plants. He is remembered for many plants, including the Shasta daisy and the white blackberry. A russet-colored variant of a Luther potato became the world's predominant potato in food processing and was called the Russet Burbank Potato. Luther hoped the potato would help revive Ireland's potato production after late blight destroyed potatoes all across Europe. Luther once said, Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.   1858 On this day, Robert Fortune (books about this person) left for his fourth trip to China. Months earlier, he had sent thousands of tea seeds to the United States. The Americans didn't feel they required Fortune's oversight to cultivate the plants, although the distribution of the little seedlings wasn't very strategic. Most of the seeds and plants were distributed via members of congress from southern states who sent the plants home to their farming constituents. James Rion of South Carolina wrote, In the fall of 1859, I received from the Patent Office, Washington, a very tiny tea plant, which I placed in my flower garden as a curiosity. It has grown well, has always been free from any disease, has had full outdoor exposure, and attained a height of 5 feet, 8 inches There cannot be the least doubt but that the tea plant will flourish in South Carolina. Two years later, the start of the Civil War derailed those early hopes for tea production in the United States.   1865 On this day, Edmund Hope Verney received a letter. By this point, Edmund had been botanizing Vancouver Island for three years. All throughout his expedition, he was gobsmacked by the beauty of the landscape - especially during spring and had written, I cannot believe that any part of the world can show a greater variety and number of wildflowers than this. As much as he could, Edmund sent specimens back home to Claydon in England. Occasionally, he would get discouraged if he didn't hear back - sometimes not even a thank you. But on this day, 1865, Edmund's stepmother wrote with words of praise, Your seeds are excellent - just what we wanted - the Colony is celebrated for its Pines and Cypresses.  The Bishop says bulbs, too.  If [possible], perhaps you can bring some with you - all lilies are valuable.   Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation The Art and Science of William Bartram by Judith Magee This book came out in 2007, and it's one of the best authoritative books on William Bartram. William was an eminent artist and naturalist, and he was one of the first people to explore the flora and fauna of the American Southeast between 1773 and 1777. Bartram's work was sent to his patron back in London, and today the London Natural History Museum houses most of William Bartram's drawings. Judith's book showcased for the first time all sixty-eight Bartram drawings from the Natural History Museum, along with other pieces from his contemporaries. This book also shares some of Bartram's writings and letters, proving that Bartram was influential during his lifetime and a beacon for the next generation of American naturalists. Bartram's work had an impact beyond the world of science. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other writers found in the significance of Bartram's drawings and writing a source of inspiration. Bartram accomplished so much during his lifetime, especially because he was entirely self-taught. Bartram's humility and compassion made it possible for him to spend time with Native Americans during his explorations. He became an authority on the birds of North America. In 1773, William collected and propagated seeds from the Franklinia or the Franklin tree. The tree survives today, thanks to William Bartram. This book is 276 pages of William Bartram's life and contributions in the context of modern scientific thinking. You can get a copy of The Art and Science of William Bartram by Judith Magee and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for $46.   Botanic Spark 2001 On this day, The Baltimore Sun shared a story called Maryland's Mr. Grass Plantsman: Kurt Bluemel ("Blu-MEL") by Nancy Taylor Robson. Nurseryman and landscaper Kurt Bluemel had dealt with groundhogs, rabbits, and rapacious deer.  But nothing in his career prepared him for the destructive powers of elephants and giraffes.  "They are like organic lawnmowers!" he [said].  Kurt Bluemel (the company) is one of the largest, most extensive wholesale growers of ornamental grasses in the nation, which is why six years ago the Disney company asked him to help design, supply and plant the 125 acres of Savanna at its new Animal Kingdom in Florida.  He assumed the animals would graze the landscape, so he was careful to avoid poisonous plants.  But, he was unprepared for their voraciousness.  "We planted acacias they have very long thorns as part of the permanent landscape, but the giraffes ate them down to the ground. Thorns and all!"  Another surprise was the soil or lack of it.  "Florida only has sand," he says.  "It's like hydroponic growing. As soon as you stop giving things water and fertilizer, they stop growing.  But with food and water, in three months, the vegetation was unbelievable!  We miscalculated planting distances as a result."  Kurt died of cancer in 2014 at the age of 81. He was known as Mr. Grass and The King of Grasses after a lifetime spent championing ornamental grasses and perennials to bring nature, movement, and vibrancy to the landscape.   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   Friends of the Garden Meeting in Athens Georgia Register Here   Historical Events 1810 Birth of William Griffith, English botanist and naturalist. By the time a young William arrived at the botanical garden in Calcutta, he was eager to make his mark. But he clashed with the old ways of running the garden established by Nathaniel Wallich. When Nathaniel departed to tend to his deteriorating health, William was put in charge of the garden. In his youth and inexperience, he acted in haste and he executed a complete renovation of the garden. For instance, there was an avenue of gorgeous Cycas trees that was a signature element of the garden and beloved by visitors, but William had the entire avenue removed. And in his singular focus on organizing plants by classification, he sacrificed beauty and common sense. Plants that were happy 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. In a little over two years, the garden bore no resemblance of its former glory. In September of 1844, William married his brother's wife's sister - Emily Henderson. By the end of the year, William quit his post and left the Calcutta botanical garden for good. Together, William and Emily returned to Malacca in Southwestern Malaysia, but William got sick on the voyage. He had languished for ten days and then died from hepatitis. He was 34. Meanwhile, back at the Calcutta Botanical Garden, it's hard not to imagine the shock Nathaniel Wallich experienced when he returned to the garden in the summer of 1844 and saw the complete devastation in every bed and every planting in every corner of the garden. Nothing was untouched - it had all been changed. Nathaniel shared his grief 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.   1847 Birth of Henry Frederick Conrad Sander, German-English orchidologist and nurseryman. When he was 20, Conrad met the Czech plant collector Benedict Roezl. The two men struck up an idea for a business that left Benedict free to explore and collect plants and Conrad focused on selling the specimens. Conrad set up shop in St. Albans, and Benedict was soon sending shipments of orchids from Central and South America. After his successful arrangement with Benedict, Conrad expanded his operations. He soon had over twenty collectors gathering specimens and was growing orchids in over sixty greenhouses. Europe's top collectors and even royalty stopped by to examine Conrad's inventory. Soon known as the King of Orchids, Conrad wrote a two-volume masterpiece on every variety of orchid. He named his book Reichenbachia in honor of the legendary orchidologist Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach. In return, Reichenbach honored Sanders by naming the “Queen of Philippine Orchids” Vanda Sanderiana, which the locals called the waling-waling orchid. The waling-waling is considered one of the rarest, most beautiful, and most expensive orchids, and it is also one of the largest species of orchids in the world. Orchids are some of the world's oldest flowering plants, producing the world's tiniest seeds. A single Orchid seedpod can contain three million seeds! Orchids are also the largest family of flowering plants in the world. With over 25,000 species, Orchids represent about ten percent of all plant species on earth, and there are more orchids on earth than mammals and birds! Now, once they are germinated, Orchids can take five to seven years to produce a flower. And if you look at the orchid bloom closely, you'll see that the blossom, like the human face, is perfectly symmetrical, which only adds to their visual beauty. And, by the time you are buying that Orchid at Trader Joe's, it is likely already decades old. But never fear, Orchids are long-lived and can reach their 100th birthday. The vastness and complexity of orchids can be frustrating. Charles Darwin grew so discouraged writing his book about orchids that he wrote to a friend, I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.   1949 On this day, the Santa Cruz Sentinel out of California, published a lovely story about an upcoming Arbor Day celebration that would plant trees to honor Luther Burbank. In a bittersweet gesture, Nurseryman Joe Badger was personally planting a flowering plum tree. Joe's plum tree will be planted in Mrs. Burbank's garden at Santa Rosa, Calif, near the spot where her husband is buried. Burbank's widow said, “No, there will be no wreath-laying on Luther Burbank's grave... Laying a wreath is only a ceremony... It doesn't make things grow." she said. Instead, she and Nurseryman Joe Badger, who as a youngster stole plums from the Burbank experimental gardens, will plant a flowering plum tree adjoining the Redwood highway, where passersby can enjoy it. The flowering plum was developed by her husband. He gained world fame with his Burbank potato, his spineless cactus, and many other horticultural achievements. Her husband now lies buried under a huge Cedar of Lebanon tree in a simple unmarked grave. Beside him lies his white dog, Bonita, who was his constant companion until Burbank died in 1926. Burbank requested that no marking be placed above his burial place. Instead, he was buried beneath his Cedar of Lebanon. He, himself, had planted the seed sent by a friend in Palestine. He had said, "When I go, don't raise a monument to me; plant a tree."   Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation The Art of Outdoor Living by Scott Shrader This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Gardens for Entertaining Family and Friends. For anyone who wants to live well in their garden, here is a guide to creating stylish and livable outdoor spaces--for entertaining, playing, and relaxing. Scott Shrader is a California landscape designer who has an intuitive ability to connect his outdoor landscape creations with the heart of the home. His designs are known for their sense of flow, style, and serenity. Scott's specialty is creating lush outdoor rooms where meals and company can be enjoyed at your leisure. Scott's blending of the indoors and the outdoors can be seen in these twelve gorgeous properties highlighted in this book. Scott also shares his tips for keeping guests happy outdoors and he breaks down how planning ahead makes outdoor spaces comfortable, inviting places you don't want to leave. This book also features some essays where Scott shares in-depth observations on all aspects of outdoor living and gardens including topics like sustainability, lifestyle, and paths. This book is 240 pages of making outdoor spaces comfortable places for cooking, entertaining, playing, and relaxing. You can get a copy of The Art of Outdoor Living by Scott Shrader and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for $26.   Botanic Spark 1862 Birth of Norman Rowland Gale, English poet, storyteller, and reviewer. His best-known poem is The Country Faith, which ends with this verse: God comes down in the rain, And the crop grows tall— This is the country faith, And the best of all! In his book A Merry-Go-Round of Song, there is a poem about fairies. Norman wrote, If you could pierce with magic eyes The secrets of the lavender, You'd find a thousand Fairylings A-perching there, with folded wings. And pouring sweetness into her.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.

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

Luther Burbank's Birthday and Girl Scout Week

If you like this episode, check out https://otrpodcasts.com for even more classic radio shows! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vermont Quince Hosts the New England Quince Taste Test of 2020 Perhaps before you listen to this episode 266 you might like to go to episode 248 to hear the initial blind tasting to compare the notes with this episode. The Inspiration Behind Vermont Quince A mother and son trip to Spain, inspired Nan Stefanik to incorporate Vermont Quince Company was in 2012. Since that time her one person company has not only wowed the foodie market with her many quince marmalades and pastes, but she also secured a Specialty Crop Grant for the #GrowQuince Initiative. Nan notes that she is "Still amazed that even at her age, she knew so little about quince" which had first been introduce to New England in 1629. At the time quince became a staple as it is a great resource for pectin used in the making of jams. From New England, the quince traveled to Texas in 1850 and then California. The Golden State became a top producer of 90% of the commercial quince on the market. In the mid 20th century the producing artificial pectin led to the demise of quince production. Market Research and Vermont Quince Nan credits her son for encouraging her to do a bit of market research on Quince. She found that US chefs were sourcing their quince from overseas from Spain, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. The thought of importing this once beloved pomme fruit (in the same family as apples and pears) inspired her to start her business Vermont Quince which produces a lovely assortment of quince condiments and preserves....and she even plays at home with infusing quince to make a delightful liquor. The quince is listed below in the order that they were presented in this blind tasting. Aromatnaya A Russian variety that bears a very large, bright yellow, aromatic fruit with a delicious, lemony flavor. Aromatnaya fruit can be eaten fresh, when thinly sliced and used to make marmalade and jellies. ID: This variety is typically squat and with ridges like a pumpkin Kuganskaya Known to be from the region of the southern Caucasus, north of Turkey and Armenia.  ID: This variety has very smooth skin and doesn't tend to split Smyrna Extremely large fruit with light yellow flesh, bright yellow skin. Attractive tree (or multi-stemmed shrub) has dark green foliage & very showy bloom. Tolerates wet soil. ID: Described by Nan as being a "big honking' fruit that can appear bulbous van Deman - this quince variety was developed by Luther Burbank, (March 7, 1849 – April 11, 1926) who was an American botanist and horticulturist based in California. Van Deman bears good crops of large and delicious, bright yellow fruit. Expect a spicy flavored from this quince.  Orange Expect ripening to occur October through December and to also extend through February in some colder areas. The Orange Quince is a self fertile tree and requires 300 chill hours. ID: round and apple like Follow the #GrowQuince Initiative by going to the links below as Nan continues to make available more ID tools and info on this once forgotten fruit! Contact info for Vermont Quince Company Shop for all the products Nan discussed and more at  Vermont Quince email info@vermontquince.com Facebook page: GrowQuince. Mentions in this Chat Fermentis by Lesaffre - Q&A #14 - Can you explain a little bit about the difference between mineral and organic nutrient/nutrient additions? Quince Episodes on Cider Chat Episode 248 New England Quince Taste Test 2020 Episode 252 #GrowQuince  | Part 1 Episode 253 #GrowQuince |Part 2 - The Harvest Help Support Cider Chat Please donate today. Help keep the chat thriving! Find this episode and all episodes at the page for Cider Chat's podcasts. Listen also at iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher (for Android), iHeartRadio , Spotify and wherever you love to listen to podcasts. Follow on Cider Chat's blog, social media and podcast Twitter @ciderchat Instagram: @ciderchatciderville Cider Chat FaceBook Page Cider Chat YouTube

There are two seasons, Spring and Autumn, when I tend to wax most poetic. And whenever I read a well turned phrase I always want to share it with others. So here is a little mashup of thoughts on Spring from the minds of Rainier Rilke, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Charles Dickens, Pablo Neruda, Terri Guillemets, Audrey Hepburn, Gustav Mahler, Leo Tolstoy, Margaret Atwood, and Luther Burbank … with just a touch of House Whisperer thrown in for good measure …Say what you will about the first of January. For me, Spring is truly the beginning of the new year. Everything that comes before is but thought, hope and aspiration, but Spring … Spring is when finally the houselights dim, the audience is hushed, curtains open and a tingle runs through you as the stage begins to glow and the play begins.When Spring returns … “The Earth is like a child that knows poems.”Spring is “… the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine . . ."It is a time “… when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”It is “… bird chirping weather.”“Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.”A time to plant a garden and believe for, “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”Spring is the earth answering all your questions with, “Yes and yes and yes.”Spring is an unapologetic challenge to pessimism and cynicism. “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”Spring is the time of earth's renewal, and the earth is your home and you are its child, so Spring is your time too.So "Don't wait for someone to bring you flowers. Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul.”In other words, step outside your door, breathe deep, begin a new journey, and go build yourself a beautiful life.

Robert & Amy celebrate one year of Five Minutes With Robert Nasir ... and talk about why passion matters! Also, Robert Frost, Luther Burbank, and breakfast cereal!

Today we celebrate the woman who donated her entire orchid collection to begin the Belle Isle Conservatory. We'll also learn about a woman who Burpee honored with the naming of a Marigold. We hear an excerpt from a garden diary for this week of March. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a very delightful book that teaches how to make your own floral cocktails. And then we’ll wrap things up with a little story that shares five favorite perennials for country life.   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 4 Things You Can Plant in March, the Very Beginning of Outdoor Gardening Season | Apartment Therapy | Molly Williams 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 March 5, 1866 Today is the birthday of Anna Scripps Whitcomb. Anna was born to James and Harriet Scripps. Anna's father was an entrepreneur; he founded the Detroit News and helped found the Detroit Museum of Art. In 1891, Anna married Edgar Whitcomb and together they raised two children. The couple lived on a beautiful estate in Gross Pointe and along the way, Anna nurtured her passion for orchids. The Whitcomb property boasted two large greenhouses which were largely devoted to orchids. During the first half of the 1900s, Orchids were still very challenging to grow and they had a very poor germination rate. Anna’s success with orchids was in large part thanks to her longtime gardener and propagator William Crichton who worked for Anna for almost 30 years. William often had the help of a small staff of gardeners and the team worked together to show many of Anna’s orchids at the Detroit Flower Show. A charming article about Anna’s orchids highlighted William’s expertise this way, “With a fine brush, [William] transferred the pollen of one gorgeous flower to another. The seed pod of the fertilized flower would contain a quarter million seeds, a few hundred thousand of which would be planted and half of them would bloom nine years after spring. Because the modern orchid grower studies the ancestry of his plants... [William] can predict their possible forms and colorings and qualities. But exactly what will happen,  [William] must wait nine years to learn. Until recently the orchid breeder could count upon no more than five percent of selected seeds surviving to germinate. Now the famous Cornell University method has raised the life expectancy of orchid seeds to 50 percent. With this method seeds are sown in a propagating jelly, which looks like library paste. It is composed of chemicals, salts and nutrients made from seaweed. [Each year, William] will cross but one, possibly two, pair. [William] will save perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 seeds and plant half of them…  Five flasks filled with the Cornell agar jelly [are] sufficient to fill a small orchid house with bloom. [And] Each flask [is corked with cotton and covered with a glass and] hold[s] [between] 500 to 1,000 seeds, fine as star dust,  In ten months flecks of green appear on the thick, white gelatine within the flask. Minute seedlings are ready for the outside world, where, for eight or nine years more, they must face the hazards of life. Drafts, germs, insects, diseases, changes in temperature, careless hands would destroy them. Little pots filled with a special orchid moss, known as Osmunda fiber, are prepared, perhaps 10 or a dozen, for the benches of the private orchid house. The grower transfers the bits of green, washing off the jelly, scattering the thousands of seedlings, like chopped parsley, over the smooth, spongy surface of the moss. Years pass. The infant plants are moved from the nursery to less crowded quarters. Weak individuals are discarded. Finally, each survivor stands alone in a pot, guarded, sprayed, scrubbed with soap, watered and fed, by day and by night, in controlled degrees of heat and humidity.” Before Anna died, she made arrangements for her orchid collection in the event of her death. And in April of 1953, Anna’s entire orchid collection - all 600 of them - to the Belle Isle Conservatory owned by the city of Detroit. Built in 1904, the domed conservatory had gradually deteriorated. Without Anna’s gift and the commitment of 450,000 to renovate and improve the wooden structure with aluminum beams, the 50-year-old glass-domed building would have likely met its end. The very month Anna’s orchids were gifted, the conservatory was renamed as The Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory. Today the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory is the oldest continually-running conservatory in the United States - and people just refer to it as the Belle Isle Conservatory.   March 5, 2012 Today The Akron Beacon Journal shared a story about some of the wealthiest women in Akron Ohio during the Victorian era. One of the women profiled was the gardener, composer, songwriter, and philanthropist Idabelle Firestone. As you might have suspected, Idabelle was the wife of rubber baron Harvey Firestone. In 1929, Idabelle generously started the Idabelle Firestone School of Nursing at Akron City Hospital with a founding donation of $400,000. A lover of gardens and gardening, David Burpee of Burpee Seed fame even named a marigold in Idabelle’s honor. Idabelle incorporated gardens and nature into her musical compositions. Ida even wrote a song called “In My Garden,” which starts out with someone missing their sweetheart and then ends with this verse: A garden sweet, A garden small, Where rambler roses Creep along the wall. Where dainty phlox and columbine Are nodding to the trumpet vine. And now each flower is sweeter dear I know it’s just because at last you’re here. Idabelle was a kind woman and a reporter once wrote, “Idabelle Firestone doesn’t need a grand mansion to be a lady. She’d be a lady in a shack.”   Unearthed Words [March is] the watching month, the month in which to watch the ground for the bright spears of green of daffodil and iris, and for the bloom of species tulips; for the snowdrop, the earliest crocus, the color in the stem of shrub and tree. [And] the first injunction for every month of the year should really be this: keep a garden notebook. If this has not been started in January, then this is the time to buy the book and make the first entries. — Mrs. Francis King (aka Louisa Boyd Yeomans King), The Flower Garden Day by Day, March 1 and March 2   Grow That Garden Library Floral Cocktails by Lottie Muir This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is 40 fragrant and flavourful flower-powered drinks. In this book, Lottie helps us learn to take flowers from the edge of the glass as a garnish and make them the star of the show - the main focus for gorgeous and flavorful libations and beverages. Lottie’s recipes include a heady honeysuckle syrup, a fabulous raspberry and scented geranium drink, a lavender gin, a nasturtium rum, a gorse flower syrup, and a rose petal vodka, just to name a few. Lottie was the perfect author for this book because she is the creator of The Midnight Apothecary pop-up, a unique cocktail bar set in a roof garden in London. Lottie’s creativity with flowers has evolved into glorious cocktail creations for gardener mixologists. This book is 64 pages of plant-powered cocktails created to delight your senses and feature your favorite blossoms from your own home garden. You can get a copy of Floral Cocktails by Lottie Muirand support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $5   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart March 5, 2017 On this day The Herald-Palladium out of Saint Joseph, Michigan shared an article called “Flowers for the Country Border” by Maureen Gilmour. In this article Maureen shares a glimpse of farm life - a busy lifestyle where Maureen says, “With all the chores to do, few have time to sweat the details, seek perfection or create glossy magazine looks.” And so, the perennials that make it on the farm are tough and dependable and require little fuss. As Maureen says, “In early farms and ranches, the first perennials [were] the stalwart wildflowers of range and prairie. Planted from gathered seed, or roots transplanted to the yard from wild stands, these big bold perennials took hold and flourished. They have proven to take the worst conditions and survive, to bring color, wildlife, and flavor, without toxicity to pets, livestock or kids.” Next Maureen recommends five favorite perennials for country life: 1.Bee Balm “Monarda didyma is a vigorous North American native perennial ...  In the colonies, it’s foliage was an alternative to boycotted tea after the Boston Tea Party.”  2. Blanketflower “Gaillardia pulchella grows low and dense, producing flowers heavily, and then self sows for many new volunteers next year. This species is not as picky about soil quality for success” 3. Purple Coneflower “Echinacea purpurea is best known as a supplement, but this is the finest native for borders.” 4. Shasta Hybrids “This plant is … a curious hybrid invented a century ago by Luther Burbank. Snow white flowers of the original have many size variations, with the original proving as long-lived and resilient as many natives.” 5. Fennel “This popular kitchen garden herb produces tall plants with umbelliferous flower heads that fill the air with these delicate forms late into the winter. The plants will flourish so they grow together into a dense mass. This blocks sunlight to the soil beneath so weeds are less likely to sprout.”   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a man who wrote the book on growing and selling orchids. We'll also learn about a very special Arbor Day to honor Luther Burbank. We hear a touching excerpt about the final days of an incredible gardener, teacher, and friend. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about the beautiful flowers of Japan. And then we’ll wrap things up with a sweet little advertisement about the Gladiolus and Dahlias - two beautiful flowers that most gardeners are ordering and shopping for this month (if they haven’t already).   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 toJennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated News 5 Perennial Herbs You Should Grow | Hunker | Michelle Miley   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 March 4, 1847 Today is the birthday of the German-English orchidologist and nurseryman Henry Frederick Conrad Sander. As a young man of 20 years old, Conrad met the Czech plant collector Benedict Roezl. Benedict’s heart lay in exploration and acquisition; he did not enjoy the marketing and sales aspects of plant hunting. Instead, these skills were Conrad’s strengths. The two men struck up a business plan that left Benedict free to explore and collect and Conrad to sell, sell, sell. Conrad set up shop in St. Albans, and Benedict was soon sending shipments of orchids from Central and South America. Benedict collected for Sander for 40 years. Even though Benedict was 6'2" tall and had that imposing iron hook for a hand, Benedict was robbed 17 times and, once, even attacked by a jaguar during his collecting days. After his quick success with Benedict, Conrad expanded his operations. Soon Conrad was managing inventory from over twenty collectors, growing orchids in over sixty greenhouses, and entertaining visitors that included Europe’s top collectors and even royalty. As a result of his business success acquiring, breeding, and selling orchids, Conrad became known as the King of Orchids. Leveraging his incredible expertise, Conrad wrote a masterpiece in two volumes on every variety of orchid. The book was folio-sized, with text in three languages - English, French, and German - and the botanical drawing of orchids were life-sized. As a sign of great respect, Conrad named his book Reichenbachia in honor of the legendary orchidologist Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach. Reichenbach had named more orchids than any other person, and in his will, he asked that his herbarium be closed for 25 years to protect his work with orchids from his competitors. In turn, in 1882, Heinrich honored Sanders by naming the “Queen of Philippine Orchids” after Sanders - naming it the Vanda Sanderiana, which the locals called the waling-waling orchid. The waling-waling is considered one of the rarest, most beautiful, and most expensive orchid, and it is also one of the largest species of orchids in the world. Orchids are some of the world’s oldest flowering plants, producing the world’s tiniest seeds. A single Orchid seedpod can contain three million seeds! Orchids are also the largest family of flowering plants in the world. With over 25,000 species, Orchids represent about ten percent of all plant species on earth, and there are more orchids on earth than mammals and birds! Now, once they are germinated, Orchids can take five to seven years to produce a flower. And if you look at the orchid bloom closely, you’ll see that the blossom, like the human face, is perfectly symmetrical, which only adds to their visual beauty. And, by the time you are buying that Orchid at Trader Joe’s, it is likely already decades old. But never fear, Orchids are long-lived and can reach their 100th birthday. The vastness and complexity of orchids can be frustrating. Charles Darwin grew so discouraged writing his book about orchids that he wrote to a friend, “I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.”   March 4, 1949 On this day, the Santa Cruz Sentinel out of Santa Cruz, California, published a lovely story about the upcoming Arbor Day celebration. The story featured a wonderful photo of a tree being pruned with the caption, “Santa Rosa Citizens To Plant Trees In Commemoration Of Birth Of Famed Luther Burbank: Nurseryman Joe Badger, who in his youth used to steal fruit from Luther Burbank's trees, prunes a flowering plum tree as Burbank's widow looks on. On Arbor Day, which this year will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great horticulturist, this tree will be planted in Mrs. Burbank's garden at Santa Rosa, Calif, near the spot where her husband is buried. ”  Burbank’s widow said, “No, there will be no wreath-laying on Luther Burbank's grave... Laying a wreath is only a ceremony... It doesn't make things grow." she said.  Instead, she and Nurseryman Joe Badger, who as a youngster stole plums from the Burbank experimental gardens, will plant a flowering plum tree adjoining the Redwood highway, where passersby can enjoy it.  "That is the way he would have wanted it without ceremony. Mr. Burbank never liked fanfare. His interest was in things alive like a tree or a plant or a flower. Or a group of school children coming to sing to him on his birthday."  The flowering plum was developed by her husband. He gained world fame with his Burbank potato, his spineless cactus, and many other horticultural achievements. Her husband now lies buried under a huge Cedar of Lebanon tree in a simple unmarked grave. Beside him lies his white mongrel dog, Bonita, who was his constant companion until Burbank died in 1926. Burbank requested that no marking be placed above his burial place. Instead, he was buried beneath his Cedar of Lebanon. He, himself, had planted the seed sent by a friend in Palestine. He had said, "When I go, don't raise a monument to me; plant a tree,"   Unearthed Words We were not to live and practice with Alan Chadwick again until eight years later, when he returned to Green Gulch at the end of his life. Despite the unrelenting grip of his illness, Alan continued to rage against the dying of the light. He announced with dignity, “I intend to be in the garden tomorrow.” “We will welcome you,” I murmured… Alan never made it to the garden. Instead, we brought the garden to him. I cut armloads of fresh flowers for him every few days, winter jonquils and Korean lilac, wind-blown anemones and stiff Coral Quince that Alan recognized from his original gardens at Green Gulch, and a single blood-red poppy grown from seed gathered from the World War II battlefields of Flanders. During these months, the garden itself upwelled with a rare treasure trove of bloom, and Allen drank long draughts from the bottomless pool of flowers. — Wendy Johnson, Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate, Chapter 1: Valley of the Ancestors Grow That Garden Library Flora Japonica by Masumi Yamanaka This book came out in 2017, and Masumi is an award-winning botanical artist based at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. In this book, Masumi begins by revealing the history of Japanese botanical illustration with a lovely overview of the influential botanist and illustrator Tomitaro Makino's work. Next, Masumi shares beautiful artwork that showcases the indigenous plants of Japan. Flora Japonica showcases eighty specially-commissioned paintings from thirty-six of Japan’s best modern botanical artists. Daily Gardeners will love that each painting also shares detailed information about the plant’s habitat and history, as well as a botanical description. This book is 240 pages of botanical art that highlights Japan’s glorious and incomparable flora. You can get a copy of Flora Japonica by Masumi Yamanaka and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $4   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart March 4, 1956 It was on this day that the Chicago Tribune ran two advertisements for Gladiolus and Dahlias by R. H. Shumway. The Gladiolus were being sold as a rainbow mixture. 50 bulbs cost $1.00, 100 bulbs cost $1.75 and 200 bulbs cost $3.25. The Dahlias were the New Giant variety, and two bulbs cost 25 cents, and that also covered the cost of postage. Right about now is the perfect time to order Gladiolus and Dahlias. Gladiolus are the official flower of August. Gladiolus's etymology is Latin and means “little sword” in reference to the shape of the flowers. The corms have been used medicinally to help extract slivers or thorns. In cold climates, once you plant your gladiolus and enjoy their blooms in late summer, you can dig the bulbs up in the fall and store them until you can plant them again in the spring. And I’ll never forget what my friend Joel Karsten, the author of Straw Bale Gardening, told me about how easy it is to plant gladiolus in conditioned straw bales. Once the flowers are done blooming in the fall, you just kick the bale over, and all the corms fall out for easy gathering. As for the beautiful Dahlia, it was originally grown as a food crop. It turns out the tubers are edible and taste a little like other root vegetables: the potato and the carrot. The Dahlia is named to honor the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. Dahlias are in the same family as Common Daisies and Sunflowers. Dahlias come in all shapes and sizes, and some are as large as dinner plates. And, here’s a little fun fact about the Dahlia: it’s the official flower of the city of destiny and goodwill: Seattle.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate a botanist of the American West and the husband of Kate Brandegee. We'll also learn about the woman who created the legislation for the New Jersey State Flower, the Violet. We hear some words about the role of the botanist from one of our horticultural greats. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about transitioning from a beloved garden to something new… this story is special. And then we’ll wrap things up with a touching tribute to a gardener, a public servant, and a nursery owner.   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 How Selfish Are Plants? Let’s Do Some Root Analysis | The New York Times | Cara Giaimo   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 16, 1843 Today is the birthday of the American botanist Townshend Stith Brandegee. Townshend was born into one of America’s oldest and prominent families, and he was the oldest of twelve children. Townshend’s middle name, Stith, was his mother’s maiden name. Townshend was descended from three generations of men named Elishama. Townshend’s great grandfather, Elishama Brandegee I, had fought in the Revolutionary War. By 1778, Elishama bought a pretty piece of land in Berlin, Connecticut, known as the mulberry orchard. The History of Berlin tells a charming story of how Townshend’s great grandmother, Lucy, made a red silk gown with the silk from her silkworms. Apparently, she intended to give the dress to Martha Washington, but somehow she ended up wearing it and keeping it for herself. The Brandegee family continued to grow Mulberry (Morus) trees on the property. In fact, Townshend’s grandfather, Elishama Jr., founded the very first silk and cotton-thread company in Berlin. A successful entrepreneur, Elishama Jr, owned a mercantile store, which was the largest store between Hartford and New Haven, and people came from miles around to do their trading. His grandmother, Lucy, was a teacher and founded a private all-girls seminary, now a private prep school for girls known as the Emma Willard School. Townshend's father, Dr. Elishama Brandegee, became the town physician, and by all reports, he was beloved by all who knew him. Townshend and his dad shared a love of nature, and as a young boy, Townshend created his very own fern collection. Townshend came of age during the Civil War, and somehow he managed to live through two years of service in the union army. After his military service, like his father before him, Townshend attended Yale and graduated from Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School. He forged his own path as a young civil engineer, and he ended up working on much-needed railroad surveys in the American West. In his spare time, both as a student at Yale and as a young engineer, Townshend botanized, and he even made some discoveries and sent specimens to Harvard’s Asa Gray. Townshend’s unique combination of surveying experience and botanical work proved invaluable as he began creating maps of the western forests. In fact, it was his love of forests that brought him to the greatest love of his life: Katherine Layne Curran. When his father died in 1884, Townshend’s inheritance allowed him to pursue his interests without any financial worries. And in the late 1800s, if you were a young botanist with means and interested in West-coast botany, all roads lead to the California Academy of Sciences. In her early forties, Katharine Layne Curran was the curator of the Academy. She had been married to an alcoholic and then widowed in her twenties. She’d survived medical school when females were just breaking into the field of medicine, and she’d given up her career as a physician when it proved too difficult to set up a practice as a woman. By the time she met Townshend, the last thing Katharine had expected to find was love. And yet, these two middle-aged botanical experts did fall in love - “Insanely in love” to use Katharine’s words - and to the surprise of their friends, they married. Kate always referred to Townshend as “Townie.” Equally yoked, Townie and Kate’s happy honeymoon was a 500-mile nature walk - collecting plant specimens from San Diego to San Francisco. After their honeymoon, Townie and Kate moved to San Diego, where they created a herbarium, library, and garden praised as a botanical paradise. In 1899, the jeweler Frederick Arthur Walton, who was reported to have the largest private cactus collection in England, visited Kate and Townie in San Diego. Frederick shared a review of the Brandegee’s spectacular garden in his magazine called The Cactus Journal: “The garden of Mr. and Mrs. Brandegee… [is] a wild garden, being situated upon the mesa, or high land overlooking the sea.  Mr. and Mrs. Brandegee are enthusiastic botanists, and have built a magnificent herbarium, where they spend most of their time. The wild land round the herbarium is full of interesting plants that are growing in a state of nature, while being studied and described in all their various conditions. Mrs. Brandegee has preserved specimens of all the kinds she can get. In some cases where the plants are very rare, I asked how she could so destroy such beauties. She replied that her specimens would be there to refer to at any time, with all its descriptions and particulars, whereas if the plant had been left growing, or sent to some botanical gardens, it would probably have died some time, and all trace have been lost.” Townie and Kate continued botanizing - individually and together. During their lifetime, botanists could travel for free by train, and the Brandegees used these free passes regularly in their travels throughout California, Arizona, and Mexico. On one trip to Mexico, Kate left early, and she managed to survive a shipwreck. The story goes that Townsend asked about the fate of the specimens before asking about Kate. Yet, this anecdote shouldn’t discount their very loving marriage; they were both just maniacally focused on their botanical work. In 1906, when an earthquake destroyed the Berkeley herbarium, the Brandegees single-handedly restored it by donating their entire San Diego botanical library (including many rare volumes) and herbarium of over 80,000 plants. Keeping in mind that Townshend's substantial inheritance had funded all of their botanical efforts, Townie and Kate requested a modest stipend of $100 per month in exchange for their life’s work. Despite years of haggling, Berkeley never agreed to pay the Brandegees a cent for what was the richest private plant collection in the United States. Incredibly, the Brandegees continued to be selfless when it came to Berkely. They followed their plants and books to campus, where Townsend and Kate worked the rest of their lives pro bono. And while Townshend was honored with the title of curator of the herbarium, Kate was not given a title. In the early spring of 1920, a 75-year-old Kate was walking at Berkeley when she fell and broke her shoulder. Three weeks later, she died. On April 7, 1925, five years later - almost to the day - Townshend joined Kate on his final journey.   February 16, 1971 On this day, the New Jersey State Flower, the Violet, was officially adopted by the legislature after a proposal from Josephine S. Margetts. In 1967, when Josephine Margetts was elected to the New Jersey State Assembly in 1967, she became the first woman to represent Morris County, New Jersey, since 1938. Politics was in Josephine’s blood. Her grandfather, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice, ran for Governor of Pennsylvania. And Josephine’s late husband, Walter T. Margetts Jr., served as New Jersey’s state treasurer. A nursery and orchard owner, Josephine was environmentally conscious, and she introduced legislation to protect the land and waterways of New Jersey - even helping to ban the use of DDT. Long before Josephine was born, the violet was unofficially selected as the State Flower of New Jersey. By the late 1960s, New Jersey was the only state without legislation supporting an official state flower. And so, with the urging of local garden clubs, Josephine introduced legislation in February of 1971 to make the violet official State Flower of New Jersey. When it came time for Josephine’s bill to be debated in the legislature, Josephine’s peer Sen. Joseph J. Maraziti, R-Morris, read this poem: “Roses are red,  Violets are blue  If you vote for this bill Mrs. Margetts will love you.” Josephine’s legislation was passed 30-1. The sole dissenting vote was Sen. Frank J. Guarini, D-Hudson. He told the press, "I'm a marigold man." Two years later, in 1973, a newspaper called The Record out of Hackensack New Jersey, shared an Op-Ed titled, Consider the Lilies of the Field. “Conventional, chauvinist wisdom would have it that Mrs. Margetts introduced the bill because she's a woman and women are well, you know interested in growing things, flowers and plants and trees, the fruit of the earth. But Mrs. Margetts is not one of your everyday garden club ladies. She studied at the Ambler School of Horticulture, she operates a commercial apple and peach orchard in Pennsylvania, and she has a holly nursery on the grounds of her home in New Vernon. The house on the property is rather substantial for a Jersey farmhouse if memory serves, it has 14 bathrooms, but no matter.” As Josephine no doubt knew, Violets are spring flowers, and they’ve been around for a long time. The ancient Greeks enjoyed violets. If you enjoy floriography ("FLOOR-EE-ah-grah-FEE") or the symbolic meaning of plants, the heart-shaped leaves offer a clue to their meaning: affection, love, faith, and dignity. The color of violets can add another layer of meaning. Blue violets especially symbolize love and devotion. White violets symbolize purity and yellow violets symbolize goodness and high esteem.   Unearthed Words The chief work of the botanist of yesterday was the study and classification of dried, shriveled up mummy's whose souls had fled. They thought their classified species were more fixed and unchangeable than anything in heaven or earth that we can now imagine. We have learned that they are as plastic in our hands as clay in the hands of the potter or color on the artist canvas and can readily be molded into more beautiful forms and colors than any painter or sculptor can ever hope to bring forth. — Luther Burbank, Address to the Pacific States Floral Congress, 1901   Grow That Garden Library Uprooted by Page Dickey This book came out in 2020 (I bought my copy in November), and the subtitle is A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again. When Margaret Roach reviewed this book, she wrote, "An intimate, lesson-filled story of what happens when one of America’s best-known garden writers transplants herself, rooting into a deeper partnership with nature than ever before." If you’ve ever moved away from a beloved garden, or there is a move in your future, you’ll find Page’s book to be especially appealing. Uprooted is Page’s story about leaving her beloved iconic garden at Duck Hill - a landscape she molded and refined for thirty-four years. Set on 17 acres of rolling fields and woodland, Page’s new property is in northwestern Connecticut, and it surrounds a Methodist Church, which is how Page came to call her new space, Church House. What does it mean to be a seasoned gardener (at the age of 74) and to have to start again? How does a gardener handle the transition from a beloved home to the excitement of new possibilities? Uprooted gives us the chance to follow Page through all the major milestones as she finds her new homeplace. We get to hear about her search for a new place, how she establishes her new garden spaces, and her revelations as she learns to evolve as a gardener. If you’ve ever wondered how on earth you’ll ever leave your garden, Page will give you hope. And, if you’re thinking about revamping an old garden space or starting a new garden, you can learn from Page how to create a garden that will bring you joy. As an accomplished garden writer, Page’s book is a fabulous read, and the photography is top-notch. And although the move from Duck Hill marked a horticultural turning point in her life, Page found herself excited and reenergized by her brand new space at Church House. This book is 244 pages of the evolution of a gardener as she transitions from Duck Hill to Church House with a lifelong love of nature, gardens, and landscape possibilities. You can get a copy of Duck Hill Journal by Page Dickey and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $18   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart In researching Josephine Margetts — the woman who created the bill for the State Flower of New Jersey (the Violet), I came across her obituary. When Josephine Margetts died in March of 1989, Fran Wood wrote a touching tribute to her that was featured in The Daily Record out of Morristown, New Jersey: “Snow was falling on the day they remembered Josephine Margetts last week. It was gathering in little drifts on the trees outside her back door, collecting on the glossy leaves of some 15 varieties of holly… The fresh flakes formed in little peaks on the bird feeders just inches away from her breakfast table, covered the glass roof of the greenhouse where lantana, gardenias and scented geraniums had flowered for more winters than anyone could remember and accumulated along the fence rails next to the vegetable garden where she used to raise more produce than her family could eat in a summer. If the loving cultivation of these grounds, the perennials, the flowering shrubs and trees and all those hollies she planted and nurtured had been Mrs. Margetts' only accomplishment, it would have been worth remarking on. For gardening was a successful business as well as a private pleasure for her. Besides operating a licensed holly nursery on her home grounds, she and her family turned out some 10,000 bushels of peaches and apples each year at their Pennsylvania farm. Like all true gardeners, Mrs. Margetts got tremendous satisfaction from planting a seed and watching it grow. She considered herself no less rewarded by those things that grew on their own accord like the tiny white pine seedling that appeared in the middle of a flagstone path one spring. She hadn't the heart to pull it up, she said, and so it grew and grew until it rivaled the height of the tallest hollies and its expanding girth forced strollers to detour around it. Gardening was far from Mrs. Margetts' sole accomplishment, of course, but her inherent appreciation for the beauty of the land and the miracles of nature were at the root of her environmental legacies to New Jersey. As a state assemblywoman, she sponsored New Jersey's first "wetlands" legislation, the Wetlands Act of 1970, aimed at protecting some of our most vulnerable saltwater areas. She also sponsored the Pesticides Control Act, the Municipal Conservation Act, the National Lands Trust and the Appalachian Trail Easement all bills whose goals were the preservation of natural resources. The Environmental Quality Act, which she also sponsored, made it a law for state agencies seeking construction funds to first submit detailed project studies to the state Department of Environmental Protection for approval. She also supported equal opportunity for women long before the word "feminist" was coined. But it was the environment, the beauty of nature, that stirred this farm girl most deeply, and her passion for it didn't lessen even in her last year or so, when the plants nearest to her were Boston ferns, a Christmas cactus and pots of ivy, and the closest she got to the outdoors were the vistas of lawns and gardens and trees seen through the windows of her room. During those months, she kept a small library of books within arm's reach among them Gov. Tom Kean's The Politics of Inclusion, James Herriot's Dog Stories, The Fine Art of Political Wit and several volumes detailing the laws of New Jersey. And, in their midst, were Cam Cavanaugh's Saving the Great Swamp, the Directory of Certified N.J. Nurseries and Plant Dealers, New Jersey: A Photographic Journey, by John Cunningham and Walter Choroszewski and several well-worn (and, no doubt, well-loved) garden books. There was something symbolic about the snow that fell as Josephine Margetts was laid to rest last week. For as it covered the lawns and shrubs and gardens she knew and loved, it also blanketed every square inch of the state she knew and loved and whose natural beauty and precious resources she worked so devotedly to preserve.”   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the man who proved plants have a circadian rhythm. We'll also learn about the nurseryman who helped establish Rochester, New York, as a “City in a Forest.” We’ll remember the pioneer seedsman who started the largest mail-order seed company in the world. We celebrate Thanksgiving with some verses about this time of year. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a beautiful book of fruit prints. And then we’ll wrap things up with the story of a woman who discovered the importance of biological diversity to water health.   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 Are your plants wilting and dry despite regular watering? Keep tabs on these side effects of improper watering practices | Chicago Tribune | Tim Johnson   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 26, 1678   Today is the birthday of the French geophysicist, astronomer, and most notably, chronobiologist Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan. Mairan's job as a chronobiologist is a job one rarely hears about these days. In 1729, Mairan put together an experiment showing the existence of a circadian rhythm in plants. Mairan took a Mimosa pudica ("poo-DEE-cah")plant - the heliotrope commonly called the sensitive plant - and put it in constant darkness in a cupboard. All the while, he recorded the plant's behavior. And what do you know? The plant had a natural rhythm of opening and closing its leaves - even if it couldn't absorb sunlight. Now, Mairan didn't think that the plant had an internal clock, but he DID believe that it could attune itself to the sun - even if the plant was blocked from it. No matter the accuracy of Mairan's conclusions, his work was on to something, and it established the foundation for chronobiology or the internal circadian clock.   November 26, 1906  Today is the anniversary of the death of the German-American horticulturist and nurseryman George Ellwanger ("El-WANG-ur"). In the mid-1800s, George Ellwanger and his Irish business partner and experienced nurseryman, Patrick Barry, claimed their Rochester, New York nursery was the largest in the world. Built on 650 acres along Mount Hope Avenue, George started his business on land that boasted an old pear orchard. A renaissance man, George also started writing books on a variety of topics - from gardening and gastronomy to poetry. A perpetual seeker, George returned to Europe to hunt for fine trees to propagate in America. The fruit of George’s vision is evident throughout Rochester but perhaps no more so than in the grand European beeches that dot the city streets and parks. The beeches include several unique species like fern-leaved, copper, purple, and weeping beeches. Today, Rochester has 168 different trees within the city limits, and Charles Sprague Sargent dubbed Rochester the “City in a Forest.” George and Patrick were also known for their fruit trees. In 1900, Mount Hope Nursery exhibited 118 varieties of pears at the Paris Exhibition, which won them a gold medal diploma. In 1888, George and Patrick donated 20 acres of their Mount Hope Nursery along with hundreds of plants to the City of Rochester, which resulted in the creation of beautiful Highland Park. In a Noah’s-Ark-like gesture, George and Patrick donated two of every tree specimen in their nursery toward the effort to create Highland Park. Twelve years after George died on this day, The Mount Hope Nursery closed for good. Today, Highland Park is home to an annual Lilac Festival. Each year visitors stroll the grounds to smell the lilacs, visit Warner Castle and experience the Sunken Garden. Here are some words George wrote about beech trees from his lovely book called The Garden’s Story: “If we take yellow alone for the color-standard, the beech is without an equal. A beech, indeed, is always beautiful. Its colors still remain attractive in late November, varying from rich Roman ochre to deep-brown bronze and from pale rose-buff to lustrous, satiny gray. Its harmony is of marked loveliness in winter, a faded elegance clinging to it like a chastened autumnal memory.” And here’s a thought from George regarding mushrooms from his book called The Pleasures of the Table: "Mushrooms are like men - the bad most closely counterfeit the good."   November 26, 1915 Today is the anniversary of the death of the pioneer seedsman and founder of the Burpee seed company, W. Atlee Burpee - the “W” stood for Washington. Atlee died at 57; just two days after Thanksgiving in 1915. As a young boy, Atlee immigrated from England with his parents. The Burpees settled in Philadelphia, and when Burpee started his business, it was at 219 Church Street in the city of Brotherly Love. Although his father was disappointed that Atlee didn’t follow in his footsteps to become a doctor, Atlee’s mother was sympathetic to her son’s interests. The family loved to tell how Atlee started in business selling poultry with $1,000 seed money from his mother. Atlee handled every aspect of his seed business - from writing descriptions and creating the seed packaging to create a unique catalog every year. Before Atlee, sweet peas were imported from England. By WWI, Atlee sold more sweet peas than anyone else in the world, and he even outsold British seed companies in England. Overtime, Burpee became known for Atlee’s famous motto: Burpee Seeds Grow. As a result of his dedication to quality and innovation, Burpee became the world’s largest mail-order seed company. The spring of 2020 brought a new milestone to Burpee. As people worldwide experienced lockdowns due to COVID-19, Burpee sold more seed than any time in its 144-year history. And here’s a little-remembered fact about the founder of Burpee seeds: he was cousins on his mother’s side with the legendary American botanist, horticulturist, and pioneer Luther Burbank.   Unearthed Words It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon. — Sarah Addison Allen, American author   Chestnuts are delicacies for princes and a lusty and masculine food for rustics and make women well-complexioned. — John Evelyn, English writer, gardener, and diarist   T  Thanks for time to be together, turkey, talk, and tangy weather. H  for harvest stored away, home, and hearth, and holiday. A  for autumn's frosty art and abundance in the heart. N  for neighbors, and November, nice things, new things to remember. K  for kitchen, kettles' croon, kith, and kin expected soon. S  for sizzles, sights, and sounds, and something special that abounds.    That spells THANKS for joy in living and a jolly good Thanksgiving.                   —  Aileen Fisher, American writer, children’s book author, and poet, All in a Word   Grow That Garden Library Wall Art Made Easy by Barbara Ann Kirby This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Ready to Frame Vintage Redoute Fruit Prints: 30 Beautiful Illustrations to Transform Your Home. In this book, Barbara shares thirty beautiful fruit illustrations by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840), the renowned painter and botanist from the Southern Netherlands. The images feature grapefruit, plums, cherries, figs, raspberries, quince, pomegranate, and other fruits from France that were painted between 1801-1819. Each 7” x 10” image is ideal for framing and can be easily removed from the book by cutting along the lines. This book is 66 pages of vintage fruit illustrations by Redouté. You can get a copy of Wall Art Made Easy by Barbara Ann Kirby and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $15.   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart November 26, 1907   Today is the birthday of the botanist Ruth Myrtle Patrick. Ruth developed new methods for measuring the health of freshwater ecosystems. Today, the Patrick Principle measures the biological diversity of a stream; the greater the diversity, the greater the health of the water. Ruth learned much from her botanist father, Frank. Looking back on her childhood, Ruth said, “I collected everything: worms, mushrooms, plants, rocks. I remember the feeling I got when my father would roll back the top of his big desk in the library and roll out the microscope... it was miraculous, looking through a window at the whole other world."   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

The New England Quince Taste Test 2020 was hosted by Vermont Quince. Nan Stefanik founded Vermont Quince in 2012 and coined the hashtag #growquince Her passion for this pomme is contagious and her quince based products help to further showcase the versatility of the quince.  This year's New England Quince Taste Test was a virtual event. Boxes of quince juice, raw quince and poached quince were sent out to a group of tasters that included chefs and author of Simply Quince Barbara Ghazarian who is also known as the "Queen of Quince". A box was also sent to Cider Chat central where The Nose and Ria tasted and filled out the Taste sheet to be sent back to Vermont Quince. Do expect a follow up summary of the tasting results once the results are in. List of Quince varieties in the 2020 New England Quince Test Aromatnaya A Russian variety that bears a very large, bright yellow, aromatic fruit with a delicious, lemony flavor. Aromatnaya fruit can be eaten fresh, when thinly sliced and used to make marmalade and jellies. Kuganskaya Known to be from the region of the southern Caucasus, north of Turkey and Armenia.  Orange Expect ripening to occur October through December and to also extend through February in some colder areas. The Orange Quince is a self fertile tree and requires 300 chill hours. Smyrna Extremely large fruit with light yellow flesh, bright yellow skin. Attractive tree (or multi-stemmed shrub) has dark green foliage & very showy bloom. Tolerates wet soil. van Deman - this quince variety was developed by Luther Burbank, (March 7, 1849 – April 11, 1926) who was an American botanist and horticulturist based in California. Van Deman bears good crops of large and delicious, bright yellow fruit. Expect a spicy flavored from this quince.  Poached Quince Quinces are gritty, astringent, and hard even when ripe. The bitter astringency is as a result of the tannins. The tannins in the quinces are destroyed when cooked, while the delicate rich flowery aroma of a raw quince is maintained, turning the hard, tannic, astringent fruit into a softened and milder flavored fruit. The testers did not know what variety corresponded with the samples provided, making this a "blind tasting" This episode is a condensed version of the taste test conducted by The Nose and Ria. Help Support Cider Chat Please donate today. Help keep the chat thriving! Find this episode and all episodes at the page for Cider Chat's podcasts. Listen also at iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher (for Android), iHeartRadio , Spotify and wherever you love to listen to podcasts. Follow on Cider Chat's blog, social media and podcast Twitter @ciderchat Instagram: @ciderchatciderville Cider Chat FaceBook Page Cider Chat YouTube

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 celebrate the man who named the lipstick tree and was known as Florida's Burbank. We'll also learn about the incredible work of an extraordinary Russian botanist who was tragically sentenced to death on this day in 1941. And we honor the life of the "Father of Hybrid Corn." Today's poetry is all about a favorite summer crop: tomatoes. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a witty and poetic book about Gardening and Life. And then we'll wrap things up with the story of a Marvel character near and dear to gardener's hearts. 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 What is Cottage Garden Style? And How to Achieve It... | The Middle-Sized Garden "And, as for garden plants – well, it has been difficult to source exactly the plants we want. We have had to compromise on color and style. Friends have been saying things like ‘I wouldn’t normally buy scarlet pelargoniums, but they were the only ones I could find.’ In theory, cottage garden style started when low paid farm workers filled their gardens with vegetables, herbs and fruit trees for their own use. What are the rules of cottage garden style? There aren't any. That's the whole point. There's no need to plant in threes and fives, or in drifts or to think about color combinations – unless you want to."  The Middle-Sized Garden: if your garden is bigger than a courtyard but smaller than an acre.   Sowing Biennial Flower Seeds In June And July | Higgledy Garden "The biennials in the Higgledy Seed Emporium have all be chosen to be admirable in the vase. We also have a strong leaning to the old fashioned. *Honesty (Common name) or Lunaria (so named because it's pale seed pod discs resemble the moon).  *Sweet William. Sweet Williams just rock! That's all there is to it. They smell amazing…look amazing and are all-round good eggs. Like all biennials, they are a piece of cake to grow from seed. *Foxgloves. Once again, a white foxglove 'Alba 'is a pretty essential bit of kit for the home florist... Don't be without it.  *Hesperis. I love this flower…one of my favorites of all the flowers I have ever grown. Simple…pretty…easy to grow…"    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 1926 The Green Bay Press-Gazette posted an article titled, "Ice Cream Grown on Vine in the yard of Former Kentuckian." The article was about the fabulous Colonel Henry Wallace Johnston, who, until the age of 50, had operated a hardware store in Lebanon, Kentucky. At midlife, he moved to Homestead, Florida. And, in 1912, Henry created a 20-acre estate he called Palm Lodge Tropical Grove. Henry was a character. He enjoyed dressing the part of a tropical explorer, wearing a tropical outfit complete with a white helmet, and looking as if he had just finished playing Jumanji. Henry became known as the Wizard of Palm Lodge or Florida's Burbank (a nod to California's Luther Burbank), and he added over 8,000 incredible specimens of tropical fruits and flowers - many not found anywhere else in America. Truly, Palm Lodge gained Henry worldwide recognition. And, although Henry never traveled outside the United States, he was a natural marketer, and Palm Lodge's impressive reputation brought the plants to him. Henry's story includes the following spectacular facts: He grew almost all of his plants from seed. He coined the name "lipstick tree". He grew a rare flower that produces a perfume called the "Scent of Lilith." He grew the Dumb Cane tree or dieffenbachia from Cambodia. He would tell folks that if they bit into the leaves, their tongue would be paralyzed for six weeks. He successfully cultivated rubber plants. Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford brought back rubber plants from Madagascar, but only Henry's plants had survived. He grew the Palestine Tree, and he wrapped the fruit in cellophane while on the tree to protect against insects. The fruit was used in religious rituals by rabbis, and Henry would send it to them. He grew the Gingerbread Palm, and the palm's fruit tasted of gingerbread. He furnished almost all of the plants for the State of Florida's tropical exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair. He produced nearly 300 different types of fruits and jellies and packaged all of them at Palm Lodge. He was a master of the aloe vera plant, and he planted a 15-acre aloe field. By 1920, Henry was regularly harvesting the leaves and bringing them to Miami, and each one had to be individually wrapped to stop the spines from making the jelly ooze out. He loved to tell about a plant he called "the ice cream vine," botanically known as the Monstera Deliciosa. The fruit resembles a giant ear of corn minus the husk and tastes like a combination of banana, strawberry, and pineapple. Henry's Palm Lodge of Florida was a showplace, and there was no charge for admission. Homestead Florida's chamber of commerce advertised that 30,000 people, including botanists, visited the Lodge every year. And, one day, after 2,000 or so guests had passed through the gardens, the register revealed that Henry Ford had visited, unnoticed in the crowd.   1941 Today a Soviet court sentenced the extraordinary twentieth-century Russian botanist Nikolay Vavilov to death by firing squad. Worried about the world's plant biodiversity, Vavilov became a dedicated plant collector, and he had the foresight to build the world's first seed bank in St. Petersburg. Nikolay's life's mission was something he called a "mission for all humanity" and it was tied directly to his drive to build the seed bank: Vavilov wanted to end world hunger and famine, and he planned to accomplish this ambitious goal through science. And he hoped to breed super plants that would be both nutritious and hardy so that they could be grown even in the most challenging locations on the planet. During his life, Vavilov had enjoyed Lenin's support. Vavilov's big ideas knit perfectly together with Lenin's desire for a socialist utopia. But after Lenin died, Vavilov was on the outs. His family was made up of accomplished scientists, and they were considered part of the bourgeoisie and scorned. The events that lead to Vavilov's sentencing and ultimate death had to do with Vavilov's critique of a fellow scientist. Vavilov had publicly criticized a geneticist named Lysenko, who had Stalin's backing. And so, on this day in 1941, Vavilov was sentenced to die. But Vavilov never faced the firing squad. Instead, he died of starvation two years after receiving his sentence. Today, the Vavilov Institute houses over a quarter of a million specimens and is a living monument to Nikolay Vavilov ― the scientist who wanted food security for all of humanity, yet ironically died of starvation in the basement of a Soviet prison.   1942 Today newspapers announced the retirement of the "father of hybrid corn," George Shull. An Ohio farm kid, George was a noted botanist who taught at Princeton University for 27 years. George's work resulted in a one hundred and fifty million-dollar increase in the value of US corn as a result of his crossing pure line varieties with self-fertilized corn. George's uber-productive hybrid yielded ten to forty percent more than ordinary corn. Like many plant breeders, George never made a penny from his creation.   Unearthed Words Today's poetry features a favorite summer plant: the Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum)   You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook's year. I get more excited by that than anything else. — Mario Batali, American chef and writer   It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. — Lewis Grizzard, American writer and humorist   Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes Only two things that money can't buy That's true love and homegrown tomatoes. — John Denver, American singer and songwriter, Home Grown Tomatoes   Now, you see, the poetry I like is... experimental.  'Doesn't have the rhyme' kind of stuff.  Like this famous poem by Walter Charles Walter.  The poem is called: 'They Were Delicious'. (Mr. Simmons begins reciting the poem while Harold steals Mr. Simmon's lunch and starts to eat it.) I have eaten the tomatoes, that were on the window sill were you saving them for a special occasion I apologize they were delicious so juicy so red — Walter Charles Walter, They Were Delicious From Hey Arnold by Craig Bartlett. Read by Mr. Simmons (This Walter Charles Walter poem is a parody of William Carlos Williams' poem This is Just to Say)   Grow That Garden Library The Backyard Parables by Margaret Roach This book came out in 2013, and the subtitle is Lessons on Gardening and Life. And one of my favorite cookbook authors, Anna Thomas, said, "As I read this witty, revealing, sometimes poetic confessional I felt I understood for the first time what a garden could be - a work of art, a source of pleasure and solace, an object of beauty, a provider of nourishment. And why Margaret calls the plot she tends 'my monster.' This is the story of a real relationship: Margaret and her garden, a love story." This book is 288 pages of Margaret's stories about gardening - culled from thirty seasons of growing and learning what works and what does not. You can get a copy of The Backyard Parables by Margaret Roach and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $3.   Today's Botanic Spark 1963 Today the Marvel comic botanist Samuel Smithers became Plantman when lightning struck his plant raygun, giving it the power to control and animate all plant life. After losing his duel with the Human Torch in the botanical garden, Plantman was taken to prison. In his last storyline, Plantman transformed into a giant plant monster and attacked the city of Los Angeles in retaliation for humans polluting the world. In his final moments, Plantman was defeated by Ironman. Here's one of Plantman's more famous lines: "Do not speak to the Plant Man of power! Mine was the genius that gave the semblance of life to unthinking plant tissue! There can be no greater power than that!"

The Plant Patent Act of 1930 is cited in a landmark Supreme Court case that extended patent rights to genetically engineered plants, animals, and bacteria. But it all started with Luther Burbank, aka the “Wizard of Horticulture.” Burbank rose to fame in the early 20th century for his plant inventions like the Russet Burbank Potato. But, unlike his friends Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, Burbank was never able to patent his creations. After Burbank’s death, his supporters would push a controversial bill through Congress legalizing patents on plants. But have these laws had unintended consequences in the modern age?

Learn about Luther Burbank, a horticulturalist from the turn of the 20th century, who developed hundreds of plants that we still have in our edible gardens today.

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."

Here's a little primer on mulch placement. Keep mulch away from the bases of plants and trees. Trees can be harmed or killed by mulching too heavily around the trunk. Perennials and other plants can be smothered or damaged by heavy mulch around the crown as well. Mulch is a wonderful tool in the garden, but it pays to pay attention to placement.   Brevities #OTD Today in 1926, the Green Bay Press-Gazette posted an article titled, "Ice Cream Grown on Vine in yard of Former Kentuckian." The article was about the fabulous Colonel Henry Wallace Johnston who, until the age of 50, had operated a hardware store in Lebanon, Kentucky. At midlife, he moved to Homestead Florida. And, in 1912, Johnston created a 20 acre estate called Palm Lodge Tropical Grove. He even liked to dress the part; wearing a tropical outfit complete with a white helmet and looking as if he had just finished playing Jumanji. Known as the Wizard of Palm Lodge or Florida's Burbank (a nod to California's Luther Burbank ), Johnston began adding over 8,000 incredible specimens of tropical fruits and flowers, many of them not found anywhere else in America. Palm Lodge gained him widespread recognition. And, although Johnston never traveled outside the US, he was a natural marketer. Stories about Johnston include the following: He coined the name "lipstick tree". Rarest among his plants was a flower that produces a perfume called the "Scent of Lilith." Johnston grew the Dumb Cane tree or dieffenbachia from Cambodia. He would tell folks that if they bit into the leaves, their tongue would be paralyzed for six weeks. Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford brought back rubber plants from Madagascar, but only Colonel Johnston's plants survived. Johnston's Palestine tree fruit was wrapped in cellophane while on the tree to protect against insects. The fruit was used in religious rituals by rabbis. Johnston's gingerbread palm's fruit tasted of gingerbread. Johnston furnished almost all of the tropical exhibit for the state of Florida at the Chicago World's Fair. All of Johnston's plants were grown from seed. Johnston also produced nearly 300 different types of fruits and jellies all packaged on site. One of Johnston's specialties was the cultivation of the aloe vera plant. He grew a 15 acre aloe field and by 1920 was regularly harvesting the leaves and bringing them to Miami, individually wrapped to stop the spines from making the jelly ooze out. And yes, one of Johnston's plants was something he called "the ice cream vine," botanically known as the monstera deliciosa. The fruit resembles a large ear of corn minus the husk and tastes like a combination of banana, strawberry and pineapple. Johnston's lodge was a Florida showplace and there was no charge for admission. Homestead's chamber of commerce showed that 30,000 people, including botanists, visited the lodge every year. One day, after 2,000 guests had been received, the register revealed that Henry Ford had passed unnoticed in the crowd.     #OTD On this day in 1941 a Soviet court sentenced the prominent Russian botanist Nikolay Vavilov to death by firing squad. Vavilov never faced the firing squad. Instead, he died of starvation in a Soviet prison two years after receiving his sentence.     #OTD Today in 1942, newspapers announced the retirement of George Shull. An Ohio farm kid, Shull was the noted botanist who taught at Princeton University for 27 years. His work resulted in a $150M increase in the value of US corn as a result of his crossing pure line varieties with self-fertilized corn. Shull's hybrid yielded 10 to 40 percent more than ordinary corn. Shull never made a penny from his creation.   Unearthed Words   Here's a poem from Emily Dickinson called Answer July. In the poem, Dickinson speaks to July directly and July responds by pointing out that the hot summer is the fulfilled promise of spring. 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 –       Today's book recommendation: Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History by Diana Wells Wells investigates the names and meanings of trees, sharing their legends and lore. As Wells says, "Our long relationship with trees is the story of friendship. The human race, we are told, emerged in the branches of trees and most of us have depended on them ever since for food, shade, shelter, and fuel."   Today's Garden Chore Incorporate a wheelbarrow garden into your garden plans. Take an old wheelbarrow, drill some drainage holes in the bottom (very important!) and up-cycle it into a beautiful, portable planter that is perfect for flowers, herbs, and small edibles.     Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart Today in 1963 the Marvel comic botanist Samuel Smithers became Plantman when lightening struck his plant ray gun, giving it the power to control and animate all plant life.  Plantman dueled with the Human Torch in the botanical garden and lost. He was taken to prison. In his final storyline, Plantman transformed into a giant plant monster and attacked the city of Los Angeles in retaliation for humans polluting the world. In his final moments, Plantman was defeated by Ironman. Here's one of Plantman's more popular lines: "Do not speak to the Plant Man of power! Mine was the genius that gave the semblance of life to unthinking plant tissue! There can be no greater power than that!"     Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Wine Country TableBy Janet Fletcher Intro: Welcome to the Cookery by the Book podcast with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table, talking to cookbook authors.Janet Fletcher: I'm Janet Fletcher in Napa Valley California, and I'm the author of 'Wine Country Table.'Suzy Chase: California, a western US state, stretches from the Mexican border along the Pacific for nearly 900 miles. Its terrain includes cliff lined beaches, the Redwood Forest, Sierra Nevada Mountains, Central Valley farmland and the Mohave Desert. Talk a bit about the range of California's bounty.Janet Fletcher: Oh you know Suzy, I think a lot of people think of California as just warm and sunny all the time, and we have a lot of that. We have a lot of sunshine, but we have an incredible range of climates. Climate zones, and micro climates, within those zones. We have a lot of cool, foggy coastal areas that are great for certain wine grapes and great for certain crops like lettuces and artichokes and brussels sprouts, and broccoli. I feel like there's a sweet spot for every crop you might want to grow somewhere in this state.Suzy Chase: This book includes 23 stunning farms and wineries. How did these 23 make the cut?Janet Fletcher: We were looking to showcase a variety of crops and a variety of growing regions, and all of the farms and all of the wineries that are showcased in the book, are leaders in sustainability. Some are organic, not necessarily, but all of them are really known as models of sustainable farming or grape growing, and that's really what we wanted to showcase. That California is not only the U.S.'s number one agricultural state but we're really global leaders in sustainable practices.Janet Fletcher: Which is not just ... of course sustainability has a lot to do with how you treat the land. Whether you do dor don't use herbicides and pesticides, are you a good environmentalist? But also, are you conscientious about saving other resources like water, like energy. Are you good to your employees? Are you a good member of your community? It's a more holistic approach to farming then, say, biodynamics or organics.Suzy Chase: In addition to the stories, this book includes 50 recipes that cover all the bases from breakfast to desserts. Talk a little bit about that.Janet Fletcher: Well, breakfast, one of my favorite recipes in the book is, I call it Golden State Granola. California is known as the Golden State. And the Golden State Granola really showcases one of our major crops, which is almonds.Janet Fletcher: There's a lot of toasted almonds in it, and toasted oatmeal and coconut and raisins and dates, and just kind of a compilation of a lot of the things that we're known for, here in California. It makes a great topping for yogurt, or a great breakfast, with some milk on top. So, really love that recipe for breakfast.Janet Fletcher: And smoothies, I'm a big smoothie fan, and I love taking dates or prunes. Prunes, you know, are just dried plums, and putting them in a blender with a frozen banana and some buttermilk, which is very low in fat, and making a delicious breakfast smoothie.Suzy Chase: Now, would a vintner 60 years ago recognize what's going on today in California?Janet Fletcher: Interesting question, I think actually a lot of the old timers, or people from a generation or two ago, were really surprised by how grapes are being grown in California today. One thing that comes to mind is that if you drive around the vineyards, vineyards almost anywhere in this state. I'm talking about vineyards for wine, not just table grapes, you're going to see what looks like sometimes kind of messy vineyards. They look like they have weeds in them. In the old days, vineyards were always really carefully tilled, and so the ground was very bare under the grapes. And today, it's not.Janet Fletcher: And that's because people are growing cover crops to attract beneficial insects and in some cases, to add nutrients to the soil, or maybe, prevent erosion. There are all sorts of reasons to plant cover crops. But, almost every vineyard is doing it today, so vineyards can look kind of messy, because they have these grasses growing up under the vines, or between the rows.Suzy Chase: You mentioned table grapes. What's the difference between a table grape and a grape for wine?Janet Fletcher: Well, some table grapes are used in wine making, one of the biggest ones is Thompson's Seedless. That's probably our main table grape. And it's used, it's used in wine, I wouldn't say it's used in high quality wines too much, but it is a grape that you can vinify. You can vinify any grape. You can add yeast, and ferment it and make wine.Janet Fletcher: But over the centuries, wine makers have learned that certain grapes produce a better flavored wine. Wine grapes tend to have thicker skins, they're not ones you would necessarily enjoy as a table grape, because they have thick skins and they have seeds.Janet Fletcher: And today of course everybody, for the table, they want a seedless grape with a thin skin. So, there is that difference of eating quality, but, and also, wine grapes, to make wine, they let them get really, really sweet. They get up to about, oh, almost a quarter sugar before they pick them. To make wine. And I think very few table grapes are picked at that high a sugar.Suzy Chase: Immigration is a hot button issue right now. How essential is the immigrant population with helping California farming production.Janet Fletcher: Essential is the word. Our immigrant communities are essential. We couldn't, we could not have agriculture in California without the people who work year round, in our vineyards and on our farms. They prune, they cultivate, they harvest. They are the labor force, and most of the native born Americans are not willing to do that work. It's hard, physical work. And so, immigrant communities, in California, agriculture is primarily Hispanic people, mostly from Mexico, who do a lot of the work in our farms. And they are just essential. And I think one aspect of the sustainability programs that most wineries and farms are signing on to is the understanding that working conditions have to be proper, they have to be beyond proper.Janet Fletcher: I mean, California regulates all of this. Farmers and vintners have to follow certain regulations about employee welfare. But people who are advocates of sustainability sort of go beyond that. I'm thinking of one great, one vintner in California, and I'm sure he's going to kill me when I'm, but he's quite a well known character. Larry Turley, of Turley Wine Cellars, who has pledged to put any one of his, the kids of any one of his employees through a state college. He'll pay their state college tuition, and he has done that for four and he told me that there are 28 more people currently, young people who would qualify, and he stands ready to put them all through state college.Janet Fletcher: So there's just this understanding that, employees are key assets, and you have to treat them well. It's just the right thing to do.Suzy Chase: One story that caught my eye was the Resendiz Brothers, in the town of Rainbow, an hour north of San Diego. Can you talk a bit about their story?Janet Fletcher: Isn't that a great town name, Rainbow? Yeah, and it really doesn't look like Paradise as you're driving up to it, it's a desert landscape. It's very dry and rocky. And very steep hills that are just bare, it looks like nothing would grow there.Janet Fletcher: But to go to Resendiz Brothers, which is in northern San Diego County, not far from the town of San Diego, you pull off the road and you drive up into the mountains. And there is this farm there, that's a cut flower farm. And we included cut flowers in the book, even though they're not edible, because there's a big sustainability movement in California cut flowers. You know, you can grow apples sustainably, and berries sustainably, but you can also grow cut flowers sustainably, if you choose to. And the Resendiz Brothers do that.Janet Fletcher: It's an operation that was started by a man named Mel Resendiz, who came to California as an immigrant, as a teenager, with nothing. And he started working on a cut flower farm just to, as a low man on the totem pole, and he learned the business. And he became very accomplished at growing these flowers in the desert.Janet Fletcher: They are a type of flower called protea, which doesn't take a lot of water, it likes that sun and those difficult conditions. And he started his own business, growing proteas for the florist trade. And he now has a large business, lots of employees, and he ships these flowers all over the world. They are gorgeous, and they grow out of this landscape that just looks like nothing would come out of it. So, he's turning this marginal land into very productive land that's supporting a very good business.Suzy Chase: He started out at 17, making $20 a day, and now he gets $12 a flower. This is a real great American story.Janet Fletcher: It really is, I'd forgotten those numbers, but yeah. Some of these flowers are quite valuable, and when I was down there visiting him, he took me, near the end of our visit he took me into his packing shed. And he started kind of ordering his employees around in Spanish, and they were bringing him all sorts of, all these cut flowers to his table in the packing shed. And he starts making this bouquet. And I thought he was making it for some client, that it was going to go off to some bride, somewhere, for some society wedding. It was this gorgeous bouquet, and it was getting bigger and bigger.Janet Fletcher: And finally, it was about two feet across, and he handed it to me. And I said, "Mel, I can't take that. I'm getting on an airplane in two hours. What am I going to do?" And he said, "You're going to take it on the plane."Janet Fletcher: So, in fact, I marched onto the plane with that bouquet, they let me on with it. And I fortunately had an empty seat next to me, and so I just put that giant bouquet of proteas in the seat next to me, and I put a seat belt around it. And off we went.Suzy Chase: That's so funny. I love it.Janet Fletcher: Yeah, a very generous man. Growing a beautiful, you know, building a great business on this beautiful crop that he found a niche for.Suzy Chase: You wrote in the book Luther Burbank, the legendary plant breeder, called Sonoma County the chosen spot of all this earth as far as nature is concerned. Talk a little bit about his ground breaking work.Janet Fletcher: Well, Luther Burbank was, I don't know where he was from. I'm not sure if he was a Californian, but he did most of his work around the town of Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County. And he was a famous plant breeder of the early, I'm going to say, the early 20th Century. And a lot of the fruits, primarily, are what he worked with. And a lot of the fruits that he created through hybridizing are still among our favorites, today. One called the Santa Rosa plum. Santa Rosa plum is one of our table plums, you can find it all over markets. The Santa Rosa plum is a great eating plum, that he developed.Janet Fletcher: But the one that we dry is called the Improved French plum, and that's a Luther Burbank hybrid. And that's what's grown in all of our prune orchards. Which are, it's just an absolutely delicious piece of fruit, both fresh and dried.Suzy Chase: In Sonoma County is the Francis Ford Coppola Winery. How did a world famous film director get into the wine business?Janet Fletcher: Well, Francis Coppola is a wine lover. And, he and his wife bought a beautiful heritage estate in Napa Valley, I'm going to say, maybe 30 years ago. And really transformed that. And then he, I think he just enjoyed the wine business. There's a bit of a performance quality to the wine business as well, in some levels, and I think he just enjoyed being in agriculture. I think his wife, Eleanor Coppola's an amazing gardener, and they went on to buy this property in Sonoma County, another important heritage estate. And that's where they have Francis Ford Coppola Cellars now.Janet Fletcher: It's a wonderful place to visit, and the thing that he did that was pretty revolutionary for the wine industry, is that he created this winery that is very welcoming to children. I think wineries have sort of shied away from that, for fear of crossing a line, offending people that they're marketing to children. But Coppola just embraced kids, and he created a swimming pool. He used to, he noticed that at his Napa winery that kids were always wanting to go into the fountains, and parents were always admonishing the kids not to go into the fountain. So he said at his Sonoma winery, he was going to have this giant swimming pool that kids could enjoy. So, there's all sorts of fun, family oriented things to do at his winery in Sonoma. Including a beautiful garden, great restaurant and this enormous, oversized swimming pool.Suzy Chase: Among the fog, what is harvested on the north coast?Janet Fletcher: The foggy areas on the north coast are really best for certain wine grapes that like cool climates like Chardonnay, Pinot Noir. In the Anderson Valley, which is one of our coolest growing regions along the coast, wineries are just growing varieties that are more typically associated with Alsace, one of France's coolest growing regions. That would be the varieties, like Riesling and Gerwurztraminer, so that's one of the few places in California where those cool climate grapes are still grown, in the Anderson Valley.Janet Fletcher: But as far as produce, those cool climate areas are really great for all those beautiful baby lettuces that you see in fancy restaurants. There's one grower along the coast, in a little, you can't even call it a town. It's just a little speck of a burg called Bolinas. He grows an amazing array of lettuces, very tender lettuces, and he has really, the farmer who deserves a lot of the credit for introducing the Little Gem variety, he started growing it and taking it to a Farmer's Market in San Francisco.Janet Fletcher: It's a Romaine type, but very small, very crisp. People fell in love with the Little Gem lettuce that this farmer was growing. And it's now, I mean, it's the trendiest lettuce. It's on every menu, and people have Little Gem Caesar salads, and Little Gem this and that. But he really introduced the Little Gem, I would say, to California agriculture.Suzy Chase: You wrote, "The early Sierra Foothills grape growers got it right. Zinfandel belongs here." Why is that?Janet Fletcher: Well, Zinfandel likes mountain vineyards, it does really well on these higher elevation vineyards. It likes some heat. And it doesn't really get a lot of flavor until it gets very ripe. Riper than you would pick, say, a Pinot Noir or a Chardonnay. And, it also, you know, it needs good drainage, like most grapes so that's, but it really likes the drainage that you get on a steep hillside.Janet Fletcher: You know, it got established in some of these older California vineyards, like 19th Century vineyards, in the Sierra Foothills, shortly after the Gold Rush. That's where the Gold Rush happened, and of course a lot of these people who came to California to mine gold, they liked to drink. And they wanted their wines, and so people started planting vineyards there. So some of our oldest vineyards are in that sort of Gold Rush area, in the Sierra Foothills.Janet Fletcher: And today's wine makers are just overjoyed when they can get a parcel that has some of these older vines on it. Some of them might be 80, you know, 70, 80, 90 year old vines. And they are very prized, because they have shown that they can survive in that climate. You know, it's like survival of the fittest. They're the vines that have done well there, have survived for all these years, and have very deep roots and make beautiful wines. So that's where these old vine Zinfandels that you read about, a lot of them are coming out of that Sierra Foothills area.Suzy Chase: Speaking of old vines, the Lucas Winery in Lodi is owned by David and his wife Heather Pyle Lucas. So, David purchased the land in 1976 after doing a stint in the Peace Corps and US Foreign Service with expertise in Asian rice cultivation. And he just wanted to own land and grow something. They have old vine, world class Zinfandel, and David has named every grapevine. I love that.Janet Fletcher: I went into one, into their barrel area, and there was this vine mounted on the wall. A dead vine, with no leaves on it. It's just those gnarly arms. And it was mounted on this wooden board, it makes almost like a cross shape. It looks this religious icon on this barrel wall.Suzy Chase: I found it funny, because I kept reading it over and over, and I was thinking, "A tractor ran over Cindy?" And then I was like, "Oh, Cindy's a grape vine." It was so funny.Janet Fletcher: Exactly, yeah, that was, David Lucas gives all his grape vines names, all his old ones. They have names because he just treasures them. He sees them as, you know, almost members of the family. And they are prized, and you can injure one if you have a tractor or a weed eating device that goes, there are these kind of plows. And when they sense the vine trunk they go around it, they retract and they go around it. But if you're not handling it properly, you can do some damage to a vine. And that's what happened to poor Cindy, she got nicked and she didn't survive. So, he mounted her on a wall, like a shrine, and it's quite, it's a beautiful, it looks like a work of art. Very gnarly arms that kind of stretch across the wall of their barrel room. You can't miss Cindy.Suzy Chase: So, on your personal blog, you wrote, "I live, cook, garden and write on a quiet street in Napa Valley. My house is not large, but my kitchen is. And my sunny garden is bigger yet." That sounds dreamy. Describe how the two years you spent as a cook at Chez Panisse shaped your taste.Janet Fletcher: I worked at Chez Panisse, it was one of my first jobs out of cooking school and it, I was very impressionable, and it made a big impression. And it has really stayed with me in the years since. That was more 30 years ago, but working with Alice Waters is just, well, it was a dream for a young cook. And she has such a strong point of view, a strong aesthetic, and it really made a mark on me.Janet Fletcher: A lot of it had to do with supporting small farms, supporting local farms, being an absolute obsessive about quality and working with only the best. You can't make good food without great ingredients, and also, I think as a cook, I learned to keep it simple. That, if you buy great ingredients, that you just don't want to do too much to them, because you don't want to screw them up. Alice really shaped my approach to cooking and certainly that experience of being at Chez Panisse and seeing all that gorgeous produce that would come in the door, made me want to garden. So I've been an avid gardener ever since that time.Suzy Chase: Your husband has said, "Over the years, Janet's cooking and recipe development has affected how I view wine." Talk a bit about that.Janet Fletcher: Well, Doug makes wines that are, I hate to use this word because it sounds kind of trite, but they're very food friendly. They are not hugely tannic, they are fruit forward, and the alcohol is restrained. And the tannin is gentle. Doug recently retired, but he's most, but most of his career in the Stags Leap district of Napa Valley, which is renowned for that style of wine, anyway. But the wines are primarily Cabernet, that's what the area is known for, and Cabernets, depending on how you make them and where you grow them, can be very tannic and hard to like when they're young.Janet Fletcher: Doug's are more feminine, more soft, more ... not soft in terms of low acid, they have good acidity and approachable tannins. So they're very good food wines, we eat a lot of beans and grains and fruits and vegetables in this household, and not a lot of meat, and the wines, his red wines are very complimentary with that kind of produce first way of eating.Suzy Chase: Now to my segment called My Last Meal. What would you have for your last supper?Janet Fletcher: I, you know, every time I have an avocado, a beautiful, ripe avocado, and spread it on homemade bread or whole grain bread from a good bakery, and I put some coarse salt on top, and a little squeeze of lemon or lime, I think, "This is what I want, for my last meal." It just doesn't get any better than a great California avocado, buttery, nutty, and I, you know, I'm quite happy with something like that. It's, in fact, I have that for lunch a lot. Just a piece of avocado toast.Janet Fletcher: So it makes me laugh, that avocado toast has become so trendy, because I've been eating that for a long time. Even at Chez Panisse, when I was a cook there, and I had like all this amazing food around me. For my little break time lunch, I would just grab a piece of bread and an avocado. And I would be very happy with that for lunch.Suzy Chase: You were ahead of your time.Janet Fletcher: In terms of avocado toast, yes. I've been enjoying it for a long time. And will continue, even when other people move on to other things, I'll be eating my avocado toast.Suzy Chase: Until it comes back around.Janet Fletcher: Right. These things are cyclical. No, people will never give up on avocados. It's one of people's favorite fruits, they're so luscious.Janet Fletcher: And I did get to visit an avocado grower in the book, and profiled him. He's down in the Carpinteria area, near Santa Barbara. Family farm, he farms with his wife, and has two adorable children, or three. And they grow citrus and avocados, and they're very sustainable about it.Janet Fletcher: In fact, he gets a lot of the mulch that he puts around his trees from a local Starbucks factory where they make Frappuccino, so there are all these coffee grounds that he can get for next to nothing. And he puts those around the base of his tree, to provide nutrients and keep the weeds down. And it, other people do not do that. It's pretty progressive, a pretty new thing to think about mulching your grove.Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web, social media and your cheese class?Janet Fletcher: Well, I hope people will find me on janetfletcher.com, that's my website where I list all my classes. I teach a lot of cheese appreciation classes and cooking classes. I have a blog called Planet Cheese and people can sign up on my website, janetfletcher.com, it's a once a week read, something new that I've learned about cheese and want to share.Janet Fletcher: So, cheese is a great passion along with my love of writing about farms and farming and great produce. I do love the world of cheese, and I hope people will join me with Planet Cheese. Instagram, @janetfletcherNV, for Napa Valley. And Twitter, @janetfletcherNV.Suzy Chase: Awesome. Thanks Janet for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.Janet Fletcher: It's been my pleasure, Suzy, thank you for having me.Outro: Follow Suzy Chase on Instagram, @cookerybythebook, and subscribe at cookerybythebook.com or in Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening to Cookery by the Book podcast, the only podcast. The only podcast devoted to cookbooks, since 2015.

In the first episode of Project Botany we are going to explore the podcast's name sake, Botany. We will talk about Botanical Illustrations, Scientific names and the plant wizard Luthur Burbank. Check out the Project Botany Podcast website or send me an email at projectbotanypodcast@gmail.com Don’t forget to listen and subscribe on the apps below or where ever you get podcasts Anchor Spotify Overcast Pocket Casts Apple Podcast Not Google Podcasts yet For more information on Luthur Burbank you can go here https://www.britannica.com/biography/Luther-Burbank http://www.lutherburbank.org/about-us/luther-burbank If you would like to explore Botanical Nomenclature try these sites http://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio300w/botnom.htm For more about Botanical illustrations try out these websites https://mymodernmet.com/history-of-botanical-illustration/ https://www.google.com/search?q=botanical+illustrations&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAqo6hveDhAhVKsZ4KHUdHC1EQ_AUIDigB&biw=958&bih=923

How much do you care for your garden?   Does your time and attention stay pretty constant throughout the season?   If not, why not?   What would your garden look like in August if you loved it then as much as you do now?   What do you need to do to sustain a high level of care for your garden all season long? Fewer tomato or pepper plants? More raised beds? Getting regular garden time committed on the calendar? Removing high maintenance plants? Brevities #OTD Luther Burbank died today in 1926 (Books By This Author). His friend, Yogi Yogananda wroteAutobiography of a Yogi- a book many people find inspiring including Andrew Weil, George Harrison, and Steve Jobs - who read it annually.   Yogananda later dedicated the entire book to “Luther Burbank, an American Saint”, and he wrote about Luther’s death, saying: In tears I thought, “Oh, I would gladly walk all the way from here to Santa Rosa for one more glimpse of him! Locking myself away from secretaries and visitors, I spent the next twenty-four hours in seclusion." #OTD Today we celebrate the birthday of a South African who had many botanical triumphs; Botanist Elsie Elizabeth Esterhuysen.She’s been described as "the most outstanding collector ever of South African Flora", collecting 36,000 herbarium species.    A botanist at the Bolus Herbarium in Cape Town, Elsie was beyond humble. She would never be publish the results of her work under her own name. There are 56 species and two genera named after her. The saying, "if you want to be immortal collect good herbarium specimens” is certainly reflected in Elsie Esterhuysen’s botanical legacy.   After Elsie died, over 200 people gathered at her memorial gathering - which featured three tributes from her botanical family.   Botanist John Rourke recalled, "Elsie returned to Cape Town in 1938. It was here that her real career began when she joined the Bolus Herbarium (Figure 2) under another formidable woman. Dr Louisa Bolus. […] It’s an astonishing fact that for the first 18 years of her employment she received no proper salary and was paid out of petty cash at a rate not much better than a laborer.   She did not collect randomly; Elsie was above all an intelligent collector, seeking range extensions, local variants, or even new species, filling voids in the Bolus Herbarium’s records, often returning months later to collect seeds or fruits that were of diagnostic importance. […] Always self-deprecating, one of her favorite comments was ‘I’m only filling in gaps’.”   Botanist Peter Linder said,  “She was what I thought a botanist was supposed to be. She was in the mountains every weekend, and came back with big black plastic bags full of plants, that she sorted and passed to Gert Syster to press. She was the one person who could put names on plants that defeated my attempts. And she had little time for academic niceties—for her the important things were plants in the mountains, their welfare, their relationships. She was immersed in plants and mountains.”   "Elsie taught me that each species has an essence, a character—that it liked some habitats but not others and that it flowered at a particular time. She was curious about the plants, not because they informed her about some theory or other, but she was interested in the plants themselves—she cared about them.”   Botanist Ted Oliver remembered, "Her mode of transport was the bicycle (we have her latest model here today). She rode to the University of Cape Town up that dreadful steep road every day for a lifetime, come sunshine or rain, heat or cold. Now one knows why she was so fit and could outstrip any poor unsuspecting younger botanist in the mountains! Every day she would come up and park her bicycle behind the Bolus Herbarium building and then often jump through the window in the preparation section rather than walk all the way around to the front door.” A newspaper cutting found among her personal effects after her death showed a side of Elsie that none of her coworkers knew existed. It was from the local Kimberleynewspaper (undated) and reported on a Reading on life and works of Franz Schubertat a meeting of the Kimberley Philharmonic Society. The lecture was given by Miss E. Esterhuysen. It was preceded by another describing Burchell’stravels in South Africa during Schubert’s time and was followed by "a delightful short program of the composer’s music played as piano solos by Miss Esterhuysen". #OTDHappy birthday to the eminent Dutch botanist and geneticist born in Dordrecht John Paulus Lotsy (April 11, 1867), author of “Some Euphorbiaceae from Guatemala” (1895).”  He spent two years from 1893 to 1895 at Johns Hopkins University and presented his entire Herberium to the Baltimore Women’s College.  The collection was started when Lotsy was a boy and Lotsy himself gathered every specimen personally.  Before leaving for an appointment as botanist to the Dutch Botanical Gardens in Java(known as the Garden of the East), Lotsy gifted his entire herbarium - which contained about six thousand species, being especially rich in the flowering plants of Europe, in the desert Hora of Algiers, in algae, lichens, cryptogams, mosses, seeds and water plants.    Dr. Goucher, of Johns Hopkins, acknowledged, "The special value of the herbarium, is that it is collected by an eminent botanist not merely to contain as many species as possible, but to afford illustration of the principles of vegetable morphology and of adaptation of plants to peculiar conditions of environment."   John Paulus Lotsy died in Amsterdam at the age of 64. Unearthed Words Always Marry An April Girl by Ogden Nash (Books By This Author)     Praise the spells and bless the charms, I found April in my arms. April golden, April cloudy, Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy; April soft in flowered languor, April cold with sudden anger, Ever changing, ever true -- I love April, I love you.   Today's book recommendation  In honor of the work of botanist Elsie Elizabeth Esterhuysen, today’s book recommendation is: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver (Kingsolver has a background in biology).  Although it's a fictional book, it features naturalist Mary Treat, who corresponds with Darwin and a character who risks his job to teach evolution.   In real life, Treat actually exchanged letters with Darwin& Asa Gray.  She is referenced in Darwin's book Insectivorous Plants.  She published 5 books and over 70 articles; there are four species named after her. She studied insects, carnivorous plants, and general botany.  Treat put spiders in candy jars filled with moss and plants -  "so that my nervous lady friends may admire the plants without being shocked with the knowledge that each of these jars is the home of a spider." Treat talked to all living things; she was an amazing woman who helped establish our understanding of carnivorous plants. Today's Garden Chore Feel spiffy.  Buy a new garden tote.  I like the new one at Target from Smith and Hawken. It's the 18.7" x 14" Canvas Garden Tool Tote Green - Smith & Hawken™  Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart As part of Clark Botanic Garden’s 50th Anniversary in Albertson NY, the Town is hosting a photo exhibit featuring photos by residents and visitors of the garden. There will be a reception for the opening of the exhibit on tonight at 6 p.m. There’s a link in the show notes to view the photos online: https://bit.ly/2EzgU2R.     Don’t forget to join them for “Sundays in the Garden” year-long lecture series of presentations to commemorate the big 5-0!Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

March 30, 1941 - Jack benny works in his garden and has trouble with his writers. This episode mentions Frank Buck the animal collector, Luther Burbank the botanist, a "Mickey", Bromo-Seltzer and Don Wilson's western movie The Round Up.

Rabbi Elezar Bogomilsky is the Director of Friendship Circle Washington, based on Mercer Island and serving the Puget Sound Region. The Friendship Circle is a great organization that works with youth, typically-abled and special needs, and matches them in pairs, to spend time together. Lasting friendships evolve. The programs that promote these connections need funds, and the October 22 Walk on Mercer Island, at Luther Burbank Park, is a way to support this important work. Join Alan and Ashley, emceeing the event that Sunday morning! www.friendshipcirclewa.com

"Science Series" featuring Botanist Roy Wiersma shares with us about it his research on Luther Burbank, and Burbank's work with Rhubarb & Daisies

The "Artisan Spotlight", radio interviews with local artists here in Anza, Ca. Botanist Roy Wiersma shares with us about it his research on Luther Burbank, and Burbank's work with brambles & berries

Botanist Roy Wiersma shares with us about it his research on Luther Burbank, and Burbank's work with plums & prunes

Botanist Roy Wiersma shares with us about it his research on Luther Burbank, and Burbank's work with cactii

FFRF's TV ad featuring Ron Reagan was censored by the major news networks. After celebrating the birthday of freethinking botanist Luther Burbank and hearing “Bread & Roses” in honor of International Women’s Day, we talk with Kimberly Veal, an organizer with Chicago Black Skeptics.

Healing Conversations Episode 16. Join us as we talk with DR MARGARET STAHLER, ND, MPH, PhD, a Naturopatic doctor with a PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics. Margaret's passion for plants began at the age of 4, finding her own healing thru plants in the garden, as medicine and for food. In her practice, she uses the tenants of Dr Edward Bach to treat the person, not the illness. She is also guided by the philosophy of Luther Burbank, who felt that love was the greatest force for healing and to realign nature for a higher purpose for mankind. Then, we'll chat with LORRAINE GANE, award-winning poet, writer, teacher, editor, and writing & creativity coach. Lorraine will entice us with how she manages to stay in a state of harmony and well-being, so creativity can flourish and thrive. Plus, she'll grace us with her poetry. RT: What life wisdom would you share with your 20-year-old self?