The Daily Gardener

Today we celebrate the gardener who turned his farm into a picturesque wonder and the Swiss botanist who survived a fall from a mountaintop that foreshadowed a life of highs and lows. We'll learn about the American botanist Darwin confided in two years before he shared his theory with the rest of the world and the pop star who found restoration and health through gardening. We'll hear some beautiful verses on gardening and the season from several writers associated with today's date. We Grow That Garden Library with one of my new favorite books on the writer and gardener who wrote, There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – I'll talk about how you can repurpose a boot tray to great effect, and then we'll wrap things up with the fruit that was selling for around $6 about this time of year in 1843, and the sellers couldn't keep up with demand. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. The 15 best pictures from the National Trust's photo competition to find a cover for its 2020 member handbook Les Lockhart's photo of the Newtown Nature Reserve on the Isle Of Wight won the @nationaltrust photo competition. @Countrylifemag shared the top 15 photos - proving that the beauty of nature is unbeatable. The National Trust manages over 600,000 acres of gardens. The Forgotten Feminine History of Botany Here's a great post by Sienna Vittoria Lee-Coughlin on @verilymag called The Forgotten Feminine History of Botany. Throughout history, women collected specimens & seeds, mastered botanical illustration (vital to scientific study), and were patrons & promoters of botany. Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD Today is the birthday of the poet and Landscape gardener William Shenstone, who was born on this day in 1714. In the early 1740s, Shenstone inherited his family's dairy farm, which he transformed into the Leasowes (pronounced 'lezzoes'). The transfer of ownership lit a fire under Shenstone, and he immediately started changing the land into a wild landscape - something he referred to as an ornamented farm. Shenstone wisely bucked the trend of his time, which called for formal garden design (he didn't have the money to do that anyway.) Yet, what Shenstone accomplished was quite extraordinary. His picturesque natural landscape included water features like cascades and pools, as well as structures like temples and ruins. What I love most about Shenstone is that he was a consummate host. He considered the comfort and perspective of the garden from the eye of his visitors when he created a walk around his estate. Wanting to control the experience, Shenstone added seating every so often along the path to cause folks to stop and admire the views that Shenstone found most appealing. Then, he incorporated signage with beautiful classical verses and poems - even adding some of his own - which elevated the Leasowes experience for guests. After his death, his garden became a popular destination and was even visited by William Pitt, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. It was William Shenstone who said, "Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former." #OTD Today is the birthday of a son of Switzerland, Charles Leo Lesquereux, (pronounced "le crew"), who was born on this day in 1806. Leo was born with a naturalist's heart. A self-described dreamer, Leo loved to go out into the forest, and he collected all kinds of flowers and specimens for his mother. Yet, when Leo was just seven years old, he fell off the top of a mountain. He was carried back to his home completely unconscious, with multiple injuries to his body as well as head trauma. He remained motionless and unconscious for two weeks. His survival was a miracle, yet the fall resulted in hearing loss that would eventually leave Leo utterly deaf by the time he was a young man. Despite the tragedy, nature still ruled his heart. As Leo matured and tried to provide for his family as a watchmaker, he found himself returning again and again to the outdoors. Eventually, Leo began to focus his efforts on peat bogs, and his early work protecting peat-bogs attracted the attention of Louis Agassiz of Harvard, who invited Leo to bring his family to America. When he arrived, Leo classified the plants that Agassiz had discovered on his expedition to Lake Superior. Then, on Christmas Eve, 1848, Asa Gray summoned Leo to help William Starling Sullivant. Gray predicted the collaboration would be successful and he wrote to his friend and fellow botanist John Torrey: "They will do up bryology at a great rate. Lesquereux says that the collection and library of Sullivant in muscology are Magnifique, superb, and the best he ever saw." So, Leo packed up his family and traveled to Columbus, Ohio, and settling near the bryologist, William Starling Sullivant. Bryology is the study of mosses. The root, bryōs, is a Greek verb meaning to swell and is the etymology of the word embryo. Bryology will be easier to remember if you think of the ability of moss to expand as it takes on water. Mosses suited Leo and Sullivant's strengths. They require patience and close observation, scrupulous accuracy, and discrimination. Together, Leo and Sullivant wrote the book on American mosses. Sullivant funded the endeavor, and he generously allowed Leo to share in the proceeds. In 1873, Sullivant contracted pneumonia - ironically, an illness where your lungs fill or swell with fluid - and he died on April 30, 1873. Leo lived for another 16 years before dying at the age of 83. It was Leo Lesquereux who said, "My deafness cut me off from everything that lay outside of science. I have lived with Nature, the rocks, the trees, the flowers. They know me, I know them." #OTD Today is the birthday of one of the leading American botanists of his time and a member of Team Darwin, Asa Gray, who was born on this day in 1810. In 1857, Asa Gray received a confidential letter from Charles Darwin. In the letter, Darwin confided: "I will enclose the briefest abstract of my notions on the means by which nature makes her species....[but] I ask you not to mention my doctrine." Two years later, Darwin revealed his concept of natural selection in his book, "On the Origin of Species." Early adopters of natural selection, like Asa Gray, helped to advance the march of all science. It was Asa Gray who said, "Natural selection is not the wind which propels the vessel, but the rudder which, by friction, now on this side and now on that, shapes the course." During his long tenure at Harvard, Gray established the science of botany and guided American botany into the international arena. He also co-authored 'Flora of North America' with John Torrey. When the botanist Joseph Trimble Rothrock arrived at Harvard, he worked every day in the private herbarium of Asa Gray. And, of Dr. Gray, Rothrock said, "[He] was kindness personified, though a strict disciplinarian and a most merciless critic of a student's work. I owe more to him than to any other man, and I never think of him without veneration." #OTD Today is the birthday of the pop singer Kim Wilde who was born on this day in 1960. After a successful music career, thanks to hits like "Kids in America" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On," Wilde bought a 16th-century barn and began gardening at the age of 30. Her move to the countryside, not only brought her new challenges thanks to the restoration of the barn and property, but the connection with the outdoors - especially working her garden - was a balm to her anxiety. In an article in the independent, Wilde said, "Spending time outdoors, learning about plants and nurturing them, really helped me find balance and gave me a greater sense of confidence and peace. I love the way that plants are always changing and growing, just like us. [Gardening] can help people get back on top of things and restore balance when it feels like life is veering out of control." In 2005, Wilde won a gold medal and an award for Best Courtyard Garden at the Chelsea. Unearthed Words Today is the anniversary of the death of the French writer Marcel Proust (pronounced"proost") who died on this day in 1922 and is remembered with this quote: "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." And Today is the birthday of the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, who was born on this day in 1939. She wrote: "Gardening is not a rational act. What matters is the immersion of the hands in the earth, that ancient ceremony of which the Pope kissing the tarmac is merely a pallid vestigial remnant. In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." And, listen to what Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal about Yarrow on this day in 1855: "[The] yarrow is particularly fresh and perfect, cold and chaste, with its pretty little dry-looking rounded white petals and green leaves. Its very color gives it a right to bloom above the snow, —— as level as a snow-crust on the top of the stubble. It looks like a virgin wearing a white ruff." It's time to Grow That Garden Library with Today's Book: Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life by Marta McDowell. The subtitle to the book is The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet. I love what Tovah Martin says about this book: "In these pages, you are beside Emily Dickinson's elbow—feeling the dense heat of summer, learning the skills of an ultra-observant plantswoman, finding the poetry in nature." Emily Dickinson was a keen observer of the natural world. Still, less well known is the fact that she was also an avid gardener—sending fresh bouquets to friends, pressing flowers in her letters, and studying botany at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke. At her family home, she tended both a small glass conservatory and a flower garden. The author, Marta McDowell, traces a year in her garden, and the book reveals details few know about Dickinson. Marta masterfully weaves together Dickinson's poems, excerpts from letters, contemporary and historical photography, and botanical art. And McDowell gives an enchanting new perspective on one of America's most celebrated but enigmatic literary figures: Emily Dickinson. Marta McDowell lives, gardens, and writes in Chatham, New Jersey. She consults for public gardens and private clients, writes, and lectures on gardening topics. She teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, where she studied landscape design. Her particular interest is in authors and their gardens, the connection between the pen and the trowel. Today's Garden Chore Repurpose a boot tray and create a substantial pebble tray corral your houseplants and provide humidity. I'm telling you - I saw THE CUTEST galvanized zinc boot tray by Smith & Hawken for just this purpose at Target. When I saw it in the store, it has almost an oil rubbed bronze look. It's quite large - perfect for the top of a buffet or table - it's 15.3 inches by 31 inches. The description says, "The raised edges on this tray keeps water and dirt contained to protect your tables or floors from stains." Anyway, the minute I saw this tray, I fell in love with the size and the durability - no water is going to leak through this baby. Best of all, it is substantial enough for you to group your plants and create a lovely pebble tray for easy watering and to create a care-free water reservoir beneath your plants. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart Back in 1843, cranberries were causing a sensation in towns and cities around the country. The New England Farmer shared a charming update on the demand for the seasonal fruit, saying: "Cranberries. This pleasant fruit is now received in large quantities from the West. The crops at the East are said to have been cut off in a great measure by frost, and the market is now supplied by the western railroad and the connecting links westward. No doubt Michigan cranberries will be eaten in the very headquarters of cranberries, Barnstable, Mass. We had no idea, until today, of the quantity sold in this city. One house in Front street, sold within a few days, 250 barrels, received from Michigan, at $6 - $6.50 per barrel, and have had application for more than they can supply. Of the same lot, 300 barrels, went over the western railroad to Boston, and were there sold as soon as received." Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the first grapes that were grown down under and the poet who saved a tree that looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale. We'll learn about the painter who was supposed to paint pineapples but never did and the florist who did the flowers for Queen Elizabeth's coronation. We'll hear some thoughts on autumn from a Swiss philosopher and poet. We Grow That Garden Library with a riveting biography of a floral artist extraordinaire and the founder of the cordon bleu cooking school. I'll talk about how you can repurpose a big bulky item taking up space in your kitchen cupboard, and then we'll wrap things up with the Florida State Flower - think citrus! But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. Bob Randall's gardening book explains how to cope with Houston's hotter temperatures. Dr. Bob has a new book for Houston gardeners - and great tips for dealing with warmer temps: 1. Grow your own food — even if it's just a single pot of lettuce on a balcony. Food gardening cuts your carbon footprint. It sharpens your awareness of the natural world. And it's an excellent way to fight depression about global warming.

2. If you're a long-time gardener, accept that the time-honored planting dates you used ten years ago may no longer work for specific crops. If old reliables such as corn or lettuce are now failing year after year, ask yourself: Is it because the average temperature is too high for germination, pollination, or some other crucial stage of plant life? Adjust your planting schedule accordingly.

3. To cope with both flooding and droughts, add a pond or rain garden to your yard. During heavy storms, it will store rainwater. And over time, it will release it into the water table below your yard, keeping deep roots happy for months to come.

4. When doing your long-term planning, remember that Houston's summer is hard both on plants and people. Plan to do as little hard outdoor work in your garden in the hot months as possible. Water with a soaker hose and automated timer. Plant cover crops to recharge the soil and keep out weeds.

5. Plant what grows well here in the warming subtropics — even if it means trying new foods or plants. Citrus trees, blackberries, figs, and persimmons grow exceptionally well here. And even in the dead of August, you can harvest crops such as long beans, tindora perennial cucumbers, and leaf amaranth.

Episode 50: Top 50 Plants - FineGardening@FineGardening Zoo-Wee Mama! I LOVE looking through favorite plant lists! Here's a great list from Danielle & Steve with 50 Top Plants in Episode 50 of the Let's Argue About Plants Podcast. Get out your notebooks...

Ornamental Fall Berries Provide Year-Round Awe Here are some excellent plant picks from @uie_hort that provide many seasons of interest. Not only do these plants offer beautiful flower displays & pretty foliage, but they also have a remarkable presentation of fruits called drupes: 'Brandywine' possumhaw viburnum (Viburnum nudum), Beautyberry (Callicarpa Americana), and White fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus). Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD On this day in 1791, Australia's first thriving grapevine was planted. The Australian wine industry began with the arrival of the first fleet into Sydney Cove. In 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip of the First Fleet brought grape cuttings from South America and South Africa. Philip planted a small vineyard at Farm Cove - the site of the present Sydney Botanical Gardens. In the beginning, the settlement in New South Wales experienced great difficulty. Supplies were limited, so cultivating crops for food was the top priority. The soil in and around Sydney was poor, and the convicts lacked horticultural experience. Starvation was a real issue during those early days.

Not surprisingly, Philip's vines did not bear, but they were able to be transplanted to a new location - a three-acre vineyard at Parramatta. By this time, Arthur Philip had become the first Governor of New South Wales.

Philip's grapes were Crimson Grapes, which require warm, deep, and fertile soil. Fortunately, many regions in Australia are perfect for growing Crimson Grapes like areas in Victoria, New South Wales, and southeastern Queensland.

Australian Crimson Grapes are harvested from November to May.

#OTD Today is the birthday of the poet, Dodgers baseball fan, and founding member of the Friends of Prospect Park, Marianne Moore, who was born on this day in 1885. Moore was an eccentric intellectual who had a range of interests outside of poetry. In 1967, when she was 80 years old, Moore created a citizen group called the Friends of Prospect Park. Moore formed the group to protect endangered trees in Prospect Park - especially one tree in particular; the Camperdown Elm. Camperdown Elms have a fascinating history that dates back to 1840. That year, on the estate of the First Earl of Camperdown, the estate forester and Landscaper named David Taylor made a discovery. After planting much of the forest on the estate, one day, Taylor noticed a contorted young elm tree growing parallel to the ground. What Taylor was looking at was essentially a weeping mutation of the Scotch Elm. Like other weepers, the tree lacked the gene for negative geotropism, so the tree couldn't distinguish which way was up. Taylor dug up the young elm and brought it to the gardens of Camperdown House. Eventually, Taylor grafted cuttings of the weeping elm to Wych Elms, and the result was a tree that became known as a Camperdown Elm - a weeping cultivar of the Scotch Elm. Victorian gardeners loved Camperdown Elms - with their contortions and branches that grow out from the trunk quite parallel to the ground. In 1872, the New York florist Adolphus Goby Burgess gifted a Camperdown Elm to the Brooklyn Parks Commission. The Burgess family had immigrated from England twenty years earlier in 1852. They were highly regarded in the world of horticulture, and their specialty was dahlias. Adolphus, no doubt, acquired the tree thanks to his English connections. After receiving the tree from Burgess, it was Frederick Law Olmsted, who decided on the location for it. He decided to install it near the boathouse at Prospect Park. Since the graft was relatively low on the rootstock, Olmsted wisely planted the tree on a small hill allowing plenty of room for the weeping branches. By the time the Pulitzer-Winning Poet Marianne Moore fell in love with the Camperdown Elm at Prospect Park, it was in sad shape. Some of the limbs were hollow thanks to rats and carpenter ants. The weak areas of the tree made it vulnerable, and it began to succumb to a bacterial infection as well as general rot. Marianne used her fame and her wit to save the Camperdown Elm. She wrote a poem about the tree which was published in The New Yorker in September 1967. The public read her poem, and the Bartlett Tree Company saved the tree. It still stands today. Before I read the poem, I'll offer a few definitions. Thanatopsis is the name of a poem written by William Cullen Bryant. It's also a Greek word that means meditation on or thinking about death. Byrant's poem is a consolation to us; eventually, we will all die. Thomas Cole and Asher Durand were both landscape painters. One of Asher Durand's most famous paintings is called Kindred Spirits. The picture shows two men standing on a rock ledge and shaded by the branches of an enormous elm tree in the Catskill Mountains. The men depicted were the painter, Thomas Cole, and his dear friend, the poet William Cullen Bryant. A curio is something novel, rare, or bizarre. The Camperdown Elm I think, in connection with this weeping elm, of "Kindred Spirits" at the edge of a rock ledge overlooking a stream: Thanatopsis-invoking tree-loving Bryant conversing with Thomas Cole in Asher Durand's painting of them under the filigree of an elm overhead. No doubt they had seen other trees — lindens, maples and sycamores, oaks and the Paris street-tree, the horse-chestnut; but imagine their rapture, had they come on the Camperdown elm's massiveness and "the intricate pattern of its branches," arching high, curving low, in its mist of fine twigs. The Bartlett tree-cavity specialist saw it and thrust his arm the whole length of the hollowness of its torso, and there were six small cavities also. Props are needed and tree-food. It is still leafing; Still there. Mortal though. We must save it. It is our crowning curio.

#OTD Today is the birthday of the country's most loved female painter, Georgia O'Keeffe, who was born on this day in 1887. During her incredible career as a painter, O'Keeffe created over 900 works of art. She is remembered for her iconic paintings of skulls and flowers. In 1938 when O'Keeffe's career was stalling, she was approached by an advertising agency about creating two paintings for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole Food Company) to use in their advertising. O'Keefe was 51 years old when she took the nine weeks, all-expense-paid trip. O'Keeffe never did paint a pineapple. And gardeners will be amazed by this fact: Of all the floral paintings that O'Keefe created in Hawaii, exactly NONE were native to the island. Instead, O'Keeffe was drawn to tropicals that hailed from South America: Bougainvillea, Plumeria, Heliconia, Calliandra, and the White Bird of Paradise. It was Georgia O'Keeffe who said all of these quotes: "Nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small it takes time—we haven't time—and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty. I hate flowers — I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move! The days you work are the best days."

#OTD On this day in 1929, Constance Spry - who went by Connie - unveiled her first floral shop window display, and she shocked London by using hedgerow flowers. Connie was a trailblazer. In the 1920s, she began creating flower arrangements for dinner parties. Her work made her an immediate hit with the socialites of her time. Her success led her to go into business, and she opened a flower shop as well as a flower arranging school. Connie designed the flowers for the coronation of H.M The Queen in 1953. During WWII, Connie gave lectures encouraging people to grow their own food.

And, I thought you'd get a kick out of this June 20, 1945 article on Connie from the Corsicana Daily Sun out of Texas:

"Constance Spry, the English woman who not only arranges and sells flowers but also grows them, carried on all through the blitz. On one occasion a bomb struck her house it trembled the roof sagged, but the building held and Constance went right on working. At the corner of Berkeley Square, the most elegant district of London lives Constance Spry with her flowers. She introduced London to a new kind of flower shop. There is a bridal department, and a department for boutonnieres and corsages; a department for fresh flowers; one for trimming on hats, and on day and evening dresses. In her greenhouse, Constance cultivates some rare and exotic beauties. They are used to decorate the homes and tables of clients, and they are also sent to recreation homes for soldiers, spreading joy to many.

Unearthed Words "Walked for half an hour in the garden. A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains - a melancholy nature. The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief. A brood of chattering birds were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys. Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail." - Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss philosopher & poet Today's book recommendation: The Surprising Life of Constance Spry by Sue Shephard I love love love the cover of this book! It shows Constance arranging flowers - ever the influential floral artist (and, btw - founder of the Cordon Bleu cooking school!) Let me read from Sue's introduction:

"Constance possessed a rare combination of talents: As a writer, innovator, gardener and above all of the florist and above all as a floral artist.

She was a gifted lecturer and at different periods in her life headed schools for the richest and for the poorest.

At a time when most women's expectations were still limited, she believed in instilling in girls from all backgrounds the confidence and freedom to create beauty.

The fact that Connie served high society never meant that she wish to be part of it nor that she was impressed by the breeding and wealth of her clients.

She was never a name-dropper....

Her friend the writer and gardener Beverly Nichols once described the art of flower arranging as pre-spry and post-spry.

She was brilliant at improvisation and enthusiastic user of new materials such as plastics and sticky tape – And, she invented the use of scrunched up chicken wire well hidden to anchors ring stands and branches that would seem to fly out of her arrangements without the benefit of gravity.

Instead of the priceless crystal, silver, porcelain or other heirlooms that she might be invited to use at her client's homes, she preferred baking tins, meat plates or junk finds to put her flowers in. Her genius for creating beauty of the cheapest and simplest materials was legendary." What a story - a riveting biography. You can get a used copy and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for under $3.

Today's Garden Chore Repurpose old punch bowls. Right about now, you might be thinking about going through your cupboards and sideboards as you prepare for the holidays. Seldom-used items like punch bowls end up in the donation pile. But, you can repurpose your punchbowls and use them in your home conservatory - the spot where you keep your houseplants. If you have a larger pot that you're worried about ruining a table, or your hardwood floor or carpet, a punch bowl serving as a drip tray may be the perfect solution. Since most of my pots are terra cotta. I just place the terra cotta pot inside the punch bowl and viola! It certainly is an excellent way to add a little water reserve for your plant. And, if the punchbowl is clear glass, it won't add any visual disturbance to your design aesthetic. Another way to repurpose a punchbowl is to consider using it as an open-top terrarium.

Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart #OTD On this day in 1909, The orange blossom was designated the state flower of Florida. The poet, William Livingston Larned was so inspired he wrote a poem called Florida's State Flower. And, the last little bit goes like this: "Whenever you see the spotless bud, You know tis Florida the fair. And wafted to you comes the scent Of all the blissful regions there. The rose may have its followers, The violet its standard, too; The fleur-de-lis and lily fair In tints of red and pink and blue; But just a scent, On pleasure bent, Of orange sweet, The nostrils greet, And from our dreams, the castles rise, Of groves and meadows 'neath calm skies." Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the botanist who discovered osmosis and the botanist who helped popularize the poinsettia. We'll learn about the painter who made an indelible garden out of waste marshland and the Edwardian Landscape Architect who designed the Peace Palace gardens at the Hague. We'll celebrate the birthday of the royal gardener who turns 71 today. We'll hear the oft-quoted November poem with the lines "The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch hazel wither;" We Grow That Garden Library with a book that helps gardeners create a garden worthy of painting. I'll talk about seedheads, and then we'll wrap things up with the Spanish grape that is the sixth most widely planted grape in the world. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. How to grow your own wellness garden | @HomesProperty @ChelsPhysicGdn's head of plant collections, Nell Jones, shares her tips for the best "wellbeing" plants to grow at home: Peppermint, Rosemary, Tumeric, Aloe Vera, and Chamomile. All are fantastic options for houseplants with health benefits. How to collect and sow astrantia seeds | Gardener's World | @gwmag Here's an A+ video from @gwmag featuring Carol Klein - who couldn't look sharper with her Suit & Scarf - showing us How to Collect and Sow Astrantia, Hesperis, & Hardy Annuals. She's the Real Deal - right down to the dirt under her fingernails! Ep. 237 - The Fall of the Torreya & What is Being Done to Save It — In Defense of Plants | @indfnsofplnts This IDOP podcast is a good one! Ep. 237: The Torreya taxifolia Asa Gray recalled when Hardy Bryan Croom discovered it along with a little plant that grows beneath it: the Croomia pauciflora. So, in botany, as in life, Croom grew happily in the shadow of Torrey. Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD Today is the birthday of the French physiologist and botanist Henri Dutrochet, who was born on this day in 1776. Dutrochet discovered and named the process of osmosis working in his home laboratory as he was investigating the movement of sap in plant tissues. Dutrochet shared his discovery with the Paris Academy of Sciences on October 30th, 1826. Like the cells in our own bodies, plants don't drink water; they absorb it by osmosis. Dutrochet also figured out the green pigment in plants is essential to how plants take up carbon dioxide. #OTD Today is the birthday of the botanist Robert Buist who was born on this day in 1805. Robert Buist came to America from Edinburgh "Edinburgh," where his dad was a professional gardener. He had trained at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and immigrated to Philadelphia when he was 23 years old. One of his first jobs was working for a wealthy Philadelphia businessman named Henry Pratt, who had a tremendous summer estate named Lemon Hill. At the time, Lemon Hill was regarded as having one of the most beautiful gardens in the United States. Eventually, Buist bought the history Bernard M'Mahon nursery - one of the oldest nurseries in the country and the nursery that supplied plants to Thomas Jefferson. Today, on the spot where the nursery used to be, is a large old Sophora tree - known as the Buist Sophora. The tree was brought to the United States from France, and its origin can be traced to China. In addition to the nursery, Buist grew his company to include a seed division and a greenhouse. In 1825, the Plant Explorer Joel Poinsett sent some specimens of a plant he discovered in Mexico home to Charleston. Buist heard about the plant bought himself one and began growing it. Buist named it Euphorbia poinsettia since the plant had a milky white sap like other Euphorbias. The red bracts of the plant were so unusual and surprising to Buist that he wrote it was "truly the most magnificent of all the tropical plants we have ever seen." Of course, what Buist had been growing is the plant we know today as the poinsettia. Buist gave his friend and fellow Scot the botanist James McNab a poinsettia when he visited in 1834. McNab brought the plant back to Scotland and gave it to the head of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Robert Graham. Graham promptly changed the botanical name of the plant to Poinsettia pulcherrima - a move that greatly disgusted Buist for the rest of his life. And, here's a fun little side note about Robert Buist. His books on gardening were very popular. When Stonewall Jackson discovered gardening in middle age, he relied heavily on Robert Buist's book "The Family Kitchen Gardener: Containing Plain and Accurate Descriptions of All the Different Species and Varieties of Culinary Vegetables, that became Jackson's gardening bible and he wrote little notes in the margins as he worked his way through the guide. Just like most gardeners still do today, he'd write, "Plant this" or "try this" in the margins next to the plants he was interested in trying the following year. #OTD Today is the birthday of Claude Monet who was born on this day in 1840 Gardeners love Stephen Gwynn's 1934 book Claude Monet and his Garden. In 1883 Monet purchased a house in 1883. Monet immediately set about creating a hidden water garden fashioned out of waste marshland. Monet made sure his lily pond was surrounded by trees and plants, incorporating poplars, willows, bamboo, and iris. And, Monet's favorite plant and painting subject were, no doubt, his water lilies. Monet said, "'I am following Nature without being able to grasp her. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." Monet painted his garden over the span of 40 years. In 1914, Monet began his most impressive work - a series of large panels that offered a 360-degree view of the pond. Monet worked on the panels all through the first World War. It's was Monet who wrote: "When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape." And it was Monet who said this, "My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece." and "I must have flowers, always, and always." #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the most prolific Edwardian Landscape Architect and town planner Thomas Hayton Mawson who died on this day in 1933. When Mawson was a teenager, his dad started a nursery and fruit farm in Yorkshire. Mawson loved the orchard, but his happiness came to an abrupt end when his father died, and his mother was forced to sell the property. But the nursery experience had left an impression on Mawson and his siblings, and at one point, they all pursued work in horticulture. In 1900, Mawson wrote his classic work, The Art and Craft of Garden Making, which was strongly influenced by the arts and crafts era. The book brought Mawson's influence and authority. In short order, his firm Thomas H. Mawson & Sons, became THE firm for Landscape Architecture. Mawson's most famous client was William Hesketh Lever, and Mawson eventually designed many of his properties: Thornton Manor, Lever's Cheshire home, Rivington Pike, and Lever's London home, The Hill, Hampstead. Mawson's most notable public work was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie: the gardens of the Peace Palace in The Hague in 1908. #OTD Today is the birthday of Prince Charles, who was born on this day in 1948. Recently, Prince Charles was asked how he came to love gardening. It turns out, as a little boy, he was given a small hidden plot at Buckingham Palace where he could grow vegetables. Prince Charles and his sister, Princess Anne, had to cultivate their own plan for the garden. Gardening was a passion that Prince Charles shared with his grandmother, who had a beautiful garden at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park. Prince Charles recently recalled, "It was a wonderful woodland garden with masses of azaleas and rhododendrons. The smell and everything had a profound effect on me." To this day, the Prince is a big believer in the therapeutic benefits of gardening. As an adult, Prince Charles was an early practitioner of the organic gardening movement. His Highgrove farm was one of the first farms in England to be certified as fully organic. Today, nearly 40,000 people visit @HighgroveGarden every single year. Garden guides explain how Prince Charles transformed the land adjoining the house into a series of outdoor rooms that embody his gardening ideals and organic principles. In May of this year, Google Arts and Culture made it possible for people to take a virtual tour of the gardens at Highgrove.One of the most notable aspects of the garden is the Stumpery - a treehouse built for William and Harry in a Holly Tree. The virtual tour also included a glimpse of the Cottage Garden, the Sundial Garden, the Thyme Walk, the Sunflower Meadow, the Rose Pergola that commemorated Prince Charles' 50th birthday, as well as a memorial to his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Tigga. Unearthed Words Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping. And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question 'Whither?' Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season? –Robert Frost, Reluctance It's time to Grow That Garden Library with Today's Book Recommendation: Monet's Passion by Elizabeth Murray Today's book is such a good one. I need to make sure to tell you that this is the 20th Anniversary revised edition. When Elizabeth's book first came out, it was an instant bestseller and deservedly so! Elizabeth Murray was uniquely qualified to write this book because she is both a professional gardener and an artist. But even better than her qualifications is her heart. When Murray saw Monet's garden Giverny in 1984 - her heart fell in love. Elizabeth worked to restore the garden, and she enjoyed privileges to Monet's garden that allowed her real intimacy with the space and with Monet's spirit. Thanks to Murray, all of us can not only enjoy Monet's gardens on a deeper level, but we can breakdown what he was doing with color and balance and light. There is a fabulous 10-minute TED Talk by Murray that is available on YouTube. I shared it in The Daily Gardener Community on Facebook. You are going to love meeting and learning from Elizabeth in this video. If you want to access it quickly - just search for Murray, and her Ted Talk will pop right up. One thing I learned about Monet from reading Elizabeth's book, is that Monet was nearly blind during the later years. So, he painted his beautiful garden from memory in his studio. Elizabeth says, "I find it deeply moving that we can create what we can imagine and that what we create can renew and transform others." I love that sentiment. As a gardener, you are a creator. Your imagination takes your garden in all sorts of directions - thus, the quote that "Gardeners dream bigger dreams than emperors." So I ask you - what better use of your offseason is there than dreaming and planning and imagining all that you can create in your garden. You can get a used copy and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for under $8 - which is 75% off the regular price of the book. Today's Garden Chore You've heard it said a million times by now - "Leave the seedheads!" But, I had a gardener ask me recently - which seedheads should I let alone, I have so many. I say leave the seedheads of your herbaceous plants. Here's a list of some that I like to leave standing: Fennel, Echinacea, Verbena, Teasel, Ligularia, Eryngium, Grasses, and Echinacea, And bonus: Sparrows and goldfinches especially enjoy seedheads. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart Today is International Tempranillo Day. Tempranillo is made with a black grape variety grown to make full-bodied red wines in Spain. It's now the 3rd most widely planted wine grape variety worldwide. Tempranillo is derived from Temprano ("early"), in reference to the fact that the grape ripens several weeks earlier than most Spanish red grapes. Fans of Tempranillo are often surprised to learn there is a white mutant version of the grape - although it is rare. the white tempranillo grape is an approved wine grape and has a citrus flavor. Tempranillo wines tend to have spicey notes, so they are best paired with meat - like chicken, lamb, or pork. Tempranillo's notes include strawberries, black currants, cherries, prunes, chocolate, and tobacco. Tempranillo has found a home in Texas, and it has grown to be the state's signature grape. And, Tempranillo is arguably the signature red wine of Texas. So, cheers to International Tempranillo Day! Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the writer who dedicated his book called A Child's Garden of Verses to his childhood nurse and the German botanist who lost all of his work in the Columbia River. We'll learn about the big chrysanthemum show of 1916 in our Nation's capital and the botanist who was one with Agaves. We'll hear some November poetry. We Grow That Garden Library with a book now in its 3rd edition from the man who loved to say "Happy Gardening, friends." I'll talk about setting up a regular spa day for your Houseplants, and then we'll wrap things up with a little something Jane Powers wrote back in 2010 that I think was just so incredibly cool and memorable. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. Coleus Cuttings | @WDCGardener I can't think of anyone I'd rather learn to take Coleus Cuttings from than @WDCGardener and her cat Santino - who is THE master when it comes to supervising cuttings. btw Santino means "little saint" Aw.... Recommended Air Plants | HEIRLOOM GARDENER Know Thy Air Plants - Here's a nice little post from Heirloom Gardener to help you Tell Your Air Plants Apart. My favorite? Tillandsia xerographica - "Queen of Tillandsias." I recently saw one in a wedding bouquet. Long Live the Queen! Make a Christmas seedhead wreath| @GardensIllustrated I. Cannot. Stand. How. Adorable. This. IS! Just when I thought I was out of the garden... you pull me back in! @GardensIllustrated came up with this adorable project - Make a Christmas seedhead wreath. I love this idea for the She Shed at the cabin. Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD Today is the birthday of Scottish-born writer and poet Robert Louis Stevenson, who was born on this day in 1850. Stevenson sickly little boy with no brothers or sisters. When he was just a toddler, a woman named Alison Cunningham was brought into the Stevenson home to help care for Robert. When Stevenson wrote a collection of poems called "A Child's Garden of Verses," he dedicated the book to Alison. Gardeners will be surprised to learn that Herbert Jekyll and Robert Louis Stevenson were friends. Herbert was the brother of the British horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll. Jekyll's last name was used in Stevenson's most famous work Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but of course, the popular pronunciation of the Jekyll name became Jekyll thanks to the book. It was Robert Louis Stevenson who said, "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant" And, here's an excerpt from Stevenson's The Gardener The gardener does not love to talk. He makes me keep the gravel walk; And when he puts his tools away, He locks the door and takes the key. Silly gardener! summer goes, And winter comes with pinching toes, When in the garden bare and brown You must lay your barrow down. #OTD Today is the 76th anniversary of the day that the German botanist, Frederick Lueders, lost all of his botanical work. On November 13, 1843, Lueders was botanizing along the Columbia River in Oregon. He'd been collecting specimens for three years. He had just encountered the explorer John Freemont, when all of his work, which was secured in a canoe nearby, was drawn into the rapids. Lueders plunged into the river and managed to retrieve only a copy of the Flora by Torrey and Gray. The devastating loss was recorded in Freemont's journal who wrote: "In the natural concern I felt for his misfortune, I gave to the little cove the name of Lueders' Bay." For Lueder's part, the loss of his specimens was devastating. However, the loss of his instruments and his correspondence with Asa Gray and Dr. Englemann was almost too great. Lueders determined his best course of action was to return home. He traveled south around the tip of Chile and then onto England. It took him a year to return to Hamburg a year after his mishap on the Columbia. Lueders didn't stay in Germany long. In fact, he returned to America within the next year. By 1851, he had made his way to Wisconsin; he spent the rest of his life in Sauk City, and he dabbled in astronomy. A biographical sketch said that in his old age, Lueders was mainly devoted to his flowers. #OTD On this day in 1916, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette shared a sweet little article about the 16th annual chrysanthemum flower show that had just been held in Washington DC. It began this way: "If you ever get the idea that people aren't interested in flowers, just give a flower show." said one of the guards at the government chrysanthemum show last week. All morning he had been repeating "Keep to the right!" to the mass of visitors streaming into the greenhouse. There had been a couple of disastrous jams that injured some valuable specimens, and he was quite bitter about it. "Sometimes people take entirely too much interest in flowers. If you don't watch them they break them off and take them home as souvenirs," he said. One of the most noticeable features of this annual chrysanthemum show of the Department of Agriculture and of similar shows held in large cities throughout the country is the growing interest in chrysanthemum culture. "Where can I buy seeds of such varieties as this?" is the question everybody asks, pointing to a big white "Queen Mary" or to a small lavender pompon. At the show this year over 250 varieties of chrysanthemums were exhibited... The whole greenhouse was a riot of color, with yellow and lavender predominating. Interest in chrysanthemums is increasing every year. National shows have been held every season for the last 16 years, but there has never been such large attendance before." #OTD On this day in 1982, the newspaper shared a great story about the author of "Agaves of Continental North America," Howard Scott Gentry. "This elder statesman of the botanical world [is] a first-class charmer when you get .... to his subject;... his love for the wilds of Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico; [and] about the years he spent overseas as an agricultural explorer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and about how he gradually came to know more about agaves "than any other human being." "I don't like to start things and not finish them," Gentry said concerning the hectic pace of his agave research after his retirement from the USDA in 1971. Several times a year he would plunge into the rugged interior of Mexico perched atop a mule, just as he'd been during his first collecting trips nearly half a century earlier. [Gentry graduated college with a degree in] vertebrate biology from the University of California at Berkeley [and he] concocted the notion of becoming a freelance biologist. To pay for his first field trip into Mexico, he sent 300 letters around the country to scientific institutions, to naturalists, to anybody he could think of, soliciting collection orders. "I came up with $3,000 worth of orders. For anything and everything, for an embryo of a white-tailed deer, which I did collect, for birds' eggs, for ticks, for plant specimens. I really got fascinated with that southern Sonoran and Chihuahuan country. Gentry tackled it... producing the book "Rio Mayo Plants." "After that book came out, I became somewhat known as a botanist, which I wasn't. I was a zoologist doing exceptionally well writing as a botanist." Gentry completed a doctorate in botany at the University of Michigan, where the well-known botanist Harvey Harris Bartlet taught. In 1950, Gentry became an agricultural explorer for the USDA. Based in Maryland, he traveled the world locating, researching and collecting plants for the government. [Gentry was involved in a] spurt of postwar agave work when it was discovered that plants in the agave family and plants in the wild yam family contained compounds that seemed effective in treating arthritis. Because of his far-flung collecting (he traveled in 24 foreign countries), Gentry was constantly introducing new plants to the United States and writing about their possible uses. It was high-profile work in the botanical community. "I refused several times to become a desk man for USDA," Gentry said. "It was a chance to cut out all the travel, but I told them, 'No, not me. I want to work with plants, not people. People are problems." Unearthed Words "When the bold branches Bid farewell to rainbow leaves - Welcome wool sweaters." - B. Cybrill "The wild November come at last Beneath a veil of rain; The night wind blows its folds aside - Her face is full of pain. The latest of her race, she takes The Autumn's vacant throne: She has but one short moon to live, And she must live alone. A barren realm of withered fields, Bleak woods, and falling leaves, The palest morns that ever dawned; The dreariest of eves. It is no wonder that she comes, Poor month! With tears of pain; For what can one so hopeless do But weep, and weep again? - Richard Henry Stoddard, poet, November Today's book recommendation: Square Foot Gardening Third Edition by Mel Bartholomew In All-New Square Food Gardening, 3rd Edition, the best-selling gardening book in North America is re-launched and updated for the next generation of gardeners and beyond. Since Square Foot Gardening was first introduced in 1981, the revolutionary new way to garden developed by Mel Bartholomew has helped millions of home gardeners grow more fresh produce in less space and with less work. Now, based mostly on the input and experience of these millions, the system has been even further refined and improved to fully meet today's changing resources, needs, and challenges. With over 150 new photos and illustrations, this new edition makes it easier than ever to achieve nearly-foolproof results in virtually any situation: 100% of the produce; 20% of the water; 5% of the work. Perfect for experienced Square-Foot-Gardeners or beginners, the original method created by Mel has not changed in any significant way with this new 3rd edition of All New Square Foot Gardening. It remains: build a box; fill it with Mel's Mix; add a grid. But along with the classic steps, you will find some exciting and compelling new information, such as:

• Adding trellises and archways
• Substituting with new materials
• Adding automatic watering systems
• "Thinking Outside the Box" with creative configurations and shapes
• Square Foot Gardening in dense urban areas with little or no yard
• Square Foot Gardening with kids

Today's Garden Chore Set up a Houseplant Spa Day on your calendar every two weeks. During the winter, you can reduce the time between waterings as the days get shorter. A few weeks ago, I mentioned using a bar cart for staging your houseplants, and that sure comes in handy when it's time to wheel them all to the kitchen sink. Even a large tray can be of service if you prefer to shlep your plants over to the sink for a spray down instead of merely watering them with a watering can. Double potting, placing a smaller pot inside a larger pot, and insulating the plant with a double blanket of soil can help provide extra support to your plants in between waterings. Additionally, there is not much need to fertilize indoor houseplants until spring. So put the fertilizer down and concentrate on regular maintenance at the kitchen sink. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart It was on this day in 2010 that Jane Powers wrote an excellent article for the Irish Times. What I especially loved about this article was Jane's correlation between the number of bedding plants a person ordered during the middle of the 19th century and their corresponding personal wealth. Here's what she wrote: In the heyday of bedding, the amount of plants that a person displayed was a gauge of their wealth and status. According to the head gardener at the Rothschild estate at Halton in Buckinghamshire, it was 10,000 plants for a squire, 20,000 for a baronet, 30,000 for an earl, and 40,000 for a duke. Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the French admiral and explorer who had a female botanist posing as a male valet on his voyage. We'll learn about the botanist who is remembered by the State Flower of California and the Landscape Architect who restored the entire Landscape of Colonial Williamsburg. We'll learn about the Spanish rose breeder who is remembered for cultivating the white Nevada rose, We'll hear some prose about November from three of the country's top naturalists. We Grow That Garden Library with a fabulous old book about growing your own herbal tea garden, I'll talk about potting up some Paperwhites and Amaryllis and then we'll wrap things up with the codebreaker who also cracked the code on preserving England's garden history. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. Cancer, Libra, Virgo: THESE Zodiac Signs love nature and find gardening therapeutic | @Pinkvilla Finally, a horoscope I find myself wholeheartedly agree with - Cancer, Libra, Virgo: THESE Zodiac Signs love nature and find gardening therapeutic. That said, to borrow a phrase from Ratatouille, "Everyone can garden." Someone keeps stealing my compost, and I have no idea why they want my rotting food | @billy_penn @amandahoovernj Good Lord. As Compost Services are introduced in new areas of the country, thieves need to understand the contents are only golden if you're a plant. This is Australia's most popular indoor plant. | @bhgaus @Bhg A delicious choice, mate! The Monstera deliciosa appears in most Australian homes. The mesmerizing sculptures you can see at The Savill Garden | @SurreySculptors @surreylive Yes, to all of them! The Savill Garden is hosting the @SurreySculptors 25th Anniversary Exhibition. Take a load off and scroll through the 60 pieces of Art in the Garden! Thank you to all the Artists, Excellent Post @surreylive Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the French admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who died on this day in 1729. On Bougainville's expedition, a woman named Jeanne Baret joined the crew after posing as a valet to the expedition's naturalist: Philibert Commerçon. Commerçon had terrible health, and he likely needed Baret to help him. Baret herself was actually a botanist in her own right. When the ship stopped in Rio de Janeiro, it was Baret who ventured out into the tropics and returned with the lovely tropical vine that would be named to honor the expedition's commander: Bougainvillea. #OTD Today is the birthday of Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, who was born on this day in 1793. When the German poet Adelbert van Chamiso ended up in the San Francisco Bay area, and he wrote about the California poppy, which he named Eschscholzia California after his friend Johann Friedrich Von Eschscholz. In return, Eschscholz named a bunch of plants after Chamisso - a little quid pro quo. In 1903, the botanist Sarah Plummer Lemmon put forth a successful piece of legislation that nominated the golden poppy (Eschscholzia californica) as the state flower of California. #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the Landscape Architect Arthur Shurcliff who died on this day in 1957. Shurcliff's path to Landscape Architecture was not clear cut. His dad had been a successful businessman, and Arthur was supposed to follow in his dad's footsteps and become a Mechanical Engineer. But after receiving his degree from MIT, the field of Landscape Architecture was making waves thanks to the Olmsteds, Charles Eliot, and the Chicago World's Fair. Since no formal degree programs existed at the time, Shurcliff cobbled together his own curriculum at the Lawrence School of Science at Harvard. All his life, Shurcliff loved being outside. He enjoyed camping and canoeing. He loved scenery and sketching the landscape. Looking back on his decision to pursue Landscape Architecture, Shurcliff remembered, "All led me away from mechanics toward scenery, toward planning and construction for the scenes of daily life..." In 1904, Shurcliff opened his own firm. Shurcliff designed recreational spaces in and around Boston like the Rose Garden, the Washington Garden at old North, and the park Back Bay Fens. But, Shurcliff will forever be remembered for the work he did at Colonial Williamsburg. It was the first time an entire American community was to be restored. John D. Rockefeller financed the project. Shurcliff had over 30 years of experience behind him when he officially started the project on St. Patrick's Day of that year. He didn't just bring his Landscape Architecture skills; he brought everything he had; his training in engineering, his meticulousness, and his ability to get things done through his personal clarity, energy, and charm. The project would use every bit of knowledge, skills, and expertise that Shurcliff had acquired. It wasn't just the buildings that needed restoration; it was the land, the paths and streets, the gardens, and green spaces. It required tremendous research to restore it all. Shurcliff insisted that wherever possible, original items and authenticity was paramount. For example, Shurcliff's team actually went looking for "fence-post holes to ascertain the outlines of a "typical" backyard" - this was a true restoration in every sense of the word.

It took Arthur Shurcliff 13 years to finish the project. But, once it was done, Shurcliff had redefined Williamsburg; helping it to lay claim to it's past and ensuring that Colonial Revival garden design found legitimacy in 20th Century Landscape Architecture. #OTD On this day in 1972 that The Greenville News shared an article called Orchidist Finds Hobby Versatile. The orchidologist was Gilbert L. Campbell. At the time the article was published, Campbell had been collecting orchids for six years, and he had amassed a collection of more than 300 plants in addition to a library of orchid reference materials. Campbell recalled, "My first orchid was a gift,' and it led him to visit a commercial orchidologist in Newberry for more information. Orchid lovers grow orchids all year long, and his passion led him to add greenhouses to help with his hobby. Campbell said, "Some orchidologists do grow their flowers in their homes... but he advises against it. 'Growing an orchid is like being a fisherman,' he says. 'Some fishermen may be content to sit on the bank and fish, but most want to get out in a boat on the lake. It's a lot easier to grow orchids in a greenhouse.' He cites temperature and humidity control as one major benefit of growing the tropic blooms "under glass." As for why Campbell had two greenhouses, his answer was simple. "He has the two, he says, because he needs a "cool" house for his cymbidium orchids and a "medium" house for his cattleyas. In "orchidese" this means a temperature difference of 5- 10 degrees. A "medium" house, he says, has a minimum temperature of 55 to 60 degrees, and a "cool" house, a minimum of 45-50 degrees. Campbell also advocates fresh air for the plants, which he moves outside in summer and on balmy days throughout the winter. "Orchids, like people, do best in a spring-like fresh-feeling atmosphere," The two things which cause growers the most difficulty, he believes, are proper watering of plants and placement for best performance." When a plant ceases to function properly, it is vulnerable to insects and disease," he notes, adding that his constant problem, snails, crops up periodically. To help combat problems, he makes these recommendations: For the beginner, start with a few mature plants. Orchids like dry roots, so they should be watered thoroughly, then allowed to dry out." #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the Spanish rose breeder Pedro Dot who died on this day in 1976. As a young boy, Pedro learned about plants from his father, who was a highly regarded gardener and plant breeder. The estate where his father worked, grew roses and the Marquise of the estate funded Pedro's early work in hybridizing. Dot is remembered for his white rose, which came out in 1927. It was called Nevada and is named for its color. Nevada is the Spanish word for "snowy." The British rosarian, Peter Beales, called 'Nevada' one of the best-known semi-double shrub roses. The American horticulturist and professor, Dr. Griffith Buck, taught horticulture at Iowa State University, and he created over 80 cultivars of rose. When Buck wanted to name one of his roses after Pedro Dot, he reached out to his son. He wrote: "I wanted to name a rose after Pedro Dot, a famous Spanish rose breeder who supported me in my breeding. I wrote to Pedro's son, telling him that I would like to name this rose for his father. I told him I knew his father was very proud of being a Spaniard who was also proud of being a Catalonian. His son replied, "If you are going to name it for my father, why don't you name it in Catalonian and call it 'El Catala.'" " which I did." #OTD On this day in 1972, the Greenville News shared that the American Rose Society had chosen Pat Nixon to be their patroness. "Mrs. Richard M. Nixon recently accepted an invitation to become the first patroness of the American Rose Society on the invitation of Dr. Eldon W. Lyle, president of the group. She was presented with a brass gilded vase of 24 porcelain roses to commemorate the occasion. The Garden Party roses were created by Mrs. Oscar Tilleaux." Unearthed Words "Two sounds of autumn are unmistakable, the hurrying rustle of crisp leaves blown along the street or road by a gusty wind, and the gabble of a flock of migrating geese. Both are warnings of chill days ahead, fireside, and topcoat weather." - Hal Borland, Naturalist "The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry. The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playing swirls, and the wind hurries on... A tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving, but there is no detaining the wind." - Aldo Leopold, Ecologist "It is autumn; not without But within me is the cold. Youth and spring are all about; It is I that have grown old." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Autumn Within It's time to Grow That Garden Library with today's book: Herbal Tea Gardens by Marietta Marshall Marcin Create your own herbal tea garden! This inspiring guide covers everything you need to know to grow herbs and use them in homemade tea blends successfully. Providing plans for 22 themed tea gardens, Marietta Marshall Marcin offers expert tips for growing and harvesting a variety of common herbs. Clear directions for more than 100 recipes include Flu Brew, Double Green Digestive, and Women's Energizing Tonic. Before you know it, you'll be creating enticing herbal teas to suit every occasion. At the beginning of the book, Marcin shares the Chinese legend of the tea plant. The White Buddha known as Ta' Mo would sit in his garden near the place and meditate through all the seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The White Buddha would meditate unblinking and unsleeping. Finally, after many years, His attention wavered, his chin dropped, and his eyes closed in sleep. When the White Buddha awakened - Perhaps a day or year later - he was so angry with himself for neglecting his meditation that he took out a knife's life, sliced off both his eyelids and threw them on the ground. The Saint's eyelids took root in the fertile soil and grew into a tea bush, the symbol for wakefulness. I love to find books like this for you - oldie but goodies that are so affordable on the used book market. You can get a used copy and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for under $2. Today's Garden Chore Now is the perfect time to pot up some Paperwhite or Amaryllis bulbs for forcing this winter. Paperwhites (Narcissus papyraceus) and Amaryllis (Hippeastrumspp.), make great gifts and to your holiday décor. One of my favorite Christmas mantles over the fireplace featured a row of these large silver goblets that I used to pot up Paperwhites. Along the feet of the goblets, I strung Christmas lights, and on top of the mantle, I had laid a sheet of moss. It was such a gardener's holiday mantle. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of Mavis Batey, who died at the age of 92 on this day in 2013. Mavis Batey is remembered for her work with the Enigma research team. Mavis broke the German Enigma code, which allowed the Allied forces to stage their D-Day invasion. In 1955, Mavis and her husband settled on a farm in Surrey. It was here that Mavis began learning about Landscape history. After Surrey, the Bateys moved to Oxford and lived on a park designed by Capability Brown. The park was also home to a garden designed by William Mason in 1775. Mavis recalled: "We lived in the agent's house, right in the middle of a Capability Brown park, but it was William Mason's garden that really got me. We had to cut our way into it. It was all overgrown and garden ornaments were buried in the grass, but I knew at once it wasn't just an ordinary derelict garden: someone had tried to say something there, I knew at once it wasn't just an ordinary derelict garden: someone had tried to say something there." It wouldn't be the last garden Mavis Batey saved. In 1986 Mavis was honored with the Veitch Memorial Medal for her work, preserving gardens that would otherwise have been lost to time. Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the botanist who bred more than 40 types of pears - including our most popular varieties. We'll learn about the cultural meanings associated with the chrysanthemum and the Swedish botanist who posed as a Dutchman to botanize in Japan. We'll hear some thoughts on November from one of my favorite garden writers And, we Grow That Garden Library with one of the best books on Gardening for Butterflies I'll talk about straightening your ornamental trees, and then we'll wrap things up with the story of the woman who loved blueberries so much she shared them with the world. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. Gardens, Paradise, & Kashmir| Searchkashmir.org | @SearchKashmir It's no surprise that the word 'paradise' was first used to describe a garden. This Farsi poem about Kashmir by Amir Khusrau does the same: If ever there is Paradise on Earth, It is here! It is here! It is here! How to grow orchids by Alys Fowler| @guardian @guardianweekend This is an excellent post about orchids, and I always love to hear how people approach caring for their orchids. Alys says: "An east-facing window... plus consistent watering (every week in the growing season, every other during winter) & Lou's Poo, dried alpaca poo." Every gardener reading this now will search online for Lou's Poo... but just a heads up - they don't deliver to the US. Vermont Garden Journal: Some New Ideas For Perennial Garden Care| @charlienardozzi @vprnet I couldn't agree more! Love this post from @charlienardozzi @vprnet The first thing I tell my student gardeners is that plant material doesn't leave the property. The second thing I teach them is Chop & Drop. https://buff.ly/32aL8TI Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD Today is the birthday of Jean-Baptiste Van Mons, who was born on this day in 1765. The name of the game for Van Mons was selective breeding for pears. Selective breeding happens when humans breed plants to develop particular characteristics by choosing the parent plants to make the offspring. Check out the patience and endurance that was required as Van Mon's described his work: "I have found this art to consist in regenerating in a direct line of descent, and as rapidly as possible an improving variety, taking care that there be no interval between the generations. To sow, to re-sow, to sow again, to sow perpetually, in short, to do nothing but sow, is the practice to be pursued, and which cannot be departed from; and in short, this is the whole secret of the art I have employed." Jean-Baptiste Van Mons produced a tremendous amount of new pear cultivars in his breeding program - something north of forty incredible species throughout his lifetime. The Bosc and D'Anjou pears, we know today, are his legacy. #OTD On this day in 1790, Chrysanthemums are introduced to England from China. Chrysanthemums are the November birth flower and the 13th wedding anniversary flower. The greens and blossoms of the chrysanthemum are edible, and they are particularly popular in Japan, China, and Vietnam. Generally, chrysanthemums symbolize optimism and joy - but they have some unique cultural meanings around the world. Back in the Victorian language of flowers, the red chrysanthemum meant "I Love," and the yellow chrysanthemum symbolized slighted love. In China, the chrysanthemum is a symbol of autumn and the flower of the ninth moon. During the Han dynasty, the Chinese drank chrysanthemum wine - they believed it made their lives longer and made them healthier. As a result, the chrysanthemum was often worn to funerals. On Mother's Day down under, Australians traditionally wear a white chrysanthemum to honor their moms, and Chrysanthemums are common Mother's Day presents. In Poland, chrysanthemums are the flower of choice to be placed on graves for All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. Finally, in 1966, Mayor Richard Daley declared the chrysanthemum as the official flower of the city of Chicago. #OTD On this day in 1799, the Leonids meteor shower was seen from Europe and South America. The famous German explorer and botanist Alexander Humboldt had just arrived in South America to begin his great five-year exploration, and he wrote this in his journal from Chile as he saw the Leonids: The night between November 11 and 12 was calm and beautiful... During 4 hours, we observed thousands of huge fireballs, often with a brightness like Jupiter. Long smoke trails were left behind, lasting 7-8 seconds, often the meteors exploded, leaving trails too. It wasn't just Humboldt who witnessed this event. Andrew Ellicott Douglass, an early American astronomer who was born in Vermont, observed the Leonids from a ship off the Florida Keys. Douglass, who later became an assistant to the famous astronomer Percival Lowell, wrote the first- known record of a meteor shower in North America in his journal, saying that the, "whole heaven appeared as if illuminated with skyrockets, flying in an infinity of directions, and I was in constant expectation of some of them falling on the vessel. They continued until put out by the light of the sun after daybreak." #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the father of South African botany, the botanist Carl Peter Thunberg, who died on this day in 1828. As fellow Swedes, Carl Linnaeus had taught Thunberg, and Linnaeus encouraged him to continue his work by visiting other parts of Europe. Eventually, Thunberg joined the Dutch East India Company, and he botanized in South Africa for three years. After South Africa, he set his sights on Japan. But, before he went, Thunberg needed to become Dutch. Averse to the influence of Christianity, the Japanese had closed their country off to all European nations except for Holland - because they valued the medicinal plant knowledge of the Dutch botanists. So, when Thunberg went to Japan, he hid his Swedish heritage and posed as a Dutchman. In fact, during the 18th century, Thunberg was Japan's only European visitor, and his Flora Japonica published in 1784 was a revelation to botanists around the world. During his time in Japan, Thunberg discovered the Easter Lily growing near the city of Nagasaki. He also found Forsythia in Japan, and he named it to honor William Forsyth. And, during his entire time in Japan, Thunberg was confined to a small artificial island in Nagasaki harbor. So how did he manage to learn so much about the country's flora? Ever the clever end-rounder, Thunberg came up with a unique strategy to obtain botanical samples. Thunberg knew that goats are picky plant-eaters. So, while staying on the island, Thunberg asked to have some goats. Then, he asked his Japanese assistants to collect plants to feed the goats. It was through the guise of feeding the goats that Thunberg was able to collect all kinds of plant specimens. The most impressive examples were a total of five different species of hydrangea that were previously unknown to the West. These hydrangeas included the lace caps – they're the ones that produce the beautiful UFO ring of blooms around the flowerhead of small florets - Japan was very private about them. Can you imagine his excitement? The entire time Thunberg was away, which amounted to an incredible nine-year journey - from his native Sweden to South Africa and then Japan - Thunberg sent plants and letters to his old teacher and friend, Linnaeus, who wrote that he had never received, "more delight and comfort from any other botanist [than Thunberg]." Unearthed Words "Most people, early in November, take last looks at their gardens, are then prepared to ignore them until the spring. I am quite sure that a garden doesn't like to be ignored like this. It doesn't like to be covered in dust sheets, as though it were an old room which you had shut up during the winter. Especially since a garden knows how gay and delightful it can be, even in the very frozen heart of the winter, if you only give it a chance." - Beverley Nichols, garden author It's time to Grow That Garden Library with today's book recommendation: Gardening for Butterflies by The Xerces Society The subtitle for this book is How You Can Attract and Protect Beautiful, Beneficial Insects. In this 2016 book, gardeners get practical and expert advice from the Xerxes Society on all things butterflies. You will learn why butterflies matter, why they are in danger, and what simple steps we can take to make a difference. Gardeners will appreciate learning about the best blooms for attracting the garden's prettiest winged visitors, like Penstemon, Pearly Everlasting, and Golden Alexanders. There are sections on designing a butterfly garden, creating shelter, observing and conserving, even tagging butterflies to help track migration. Gardening for Butterflies provides home gardeners with everything they need to create a beautiful, beneficial, butterfly-loving gardens. Today's Garden Chore It's the perfect time to stake your ornamental trees. While you are outside wrapping your boxwoods, arborvitaes, and shrubs in burlap, take the time to stake your trees - especially your smaller ornamentals like lilacs and hydrangea. It's something you can do now that can actually mean one less thing to do in the spring. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart Today is the anniversary of the death of the Queen of Blueberries, Elizabeth Coleman White, who died on this day in 1954. When Elizabeth was a little girl, growing up on her dad's Cranberry Farm in the Pine Barrens of Burlington County, New Jersey, she would take walks and gather blueberries - wild blueberries. There wasn't any other way to procure them. Over time, Elizabeth began to wonder about creating a blueberry crop - something that would fit in nicely with the cranberry harvest, which happened at the end of the season. Cranberries grow in highly acidic soil, which is also perfect for growing blueberries. Elizabeth began by having the local blueberry pickers keep their eyes out for the plants with the biggest berries, and then she would have them transplanted to her father's field. She wrote: "I used to call them swamp huckleberries and thought an occasional one - half an inch in diameter - huge. They always grew luxuriantly about the margins of our cranberry bogs, and as a girl, I used to hunt the largest and best-flavored berries and dream of a field full of bushes as good. I knew it was a wild dream." As fate would have it, in 1910, the chief botanist at the USDA, Frederick Colville, was also working on blueberries at his summer home in New Hampshire. When Elizabeth read about his efforts, she reached out, and the two worked out a deal where Elizabeth would use her land and labor. Colville would supply his technical expertise, especially when it came to propagation. Together, they crossbred the largest New Jersey blueberries with the largest New Hampshire blueberries, and the rest, as they say, is history. "Enough of the puzzle has been fitted together to show that my old dream was but a faint shadowing of the possibilities. Now I dream of cultivated blueberries shipped by the trainload, - blueberry specials - to every part of the country. She continued: The little berries of today's dreams are half an inch in diameter. And the big ones? - Well, it is hard to measure a dream accurately, but they are at least an inch across. And raising all these blueberries will give healthful remuneration and employment to lots of people. But you can dream for yourself - [but] only if you are to share my confidence that this dream is not wild. Some day it will come true." It took Elizabeth five years to develop the first blueberry crop. The wastelands around the pines districts in New Jersey where Elizabeth grew her blueberries increased in value from 50 cents an acre to $500 an acre after the blueberry was cultivated. That first harvest yielded 21 bushels of berries, and it sold for $114. By 1947, more than 8,000 bushels were harvested. In 2016, a total of 690 million pounds of cultivated wild blueberries were harvested in the United States, and annual revenue was s around $80 million. In addition to cultivating the first blueberry in 1916, Elizabeth was the first person to use cellophane to protect and market blueberries. The Whitman chocolate company inspired her because that was how they packaged their chocolates. Whitman's also partnered with Elizabeth; they helped her source the cellophane from France so that people all around the country could see her blueberries - right through the packaging. And there's one more footnote to the Elizabeth Coleman White story. She was a champion of native plants. She fought to save the American holly, and in 1947, Elizabeth helped found the Holly Society of America. Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the plant named in honor of Queen Victoria and the President of Peru and Bolivia. We'll learn about the Mother of Balboa Park and how the world seed bank was saved during WWII. We'll hear the Garden Poem that celebrates the end of the apple-picking season. We Grow That Garden Library with a book from the author who was pulled out of her grief by nature walks with Marion Satterlee. I'll talk about an on-trend and portable way to display your houseplants, and then we'll wrap things up with a set of botanical stamps that commemorated the bi-centenary of Captain Cook's first voyage to New Zealand. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. How to lift and divide herbaceous perennials Now's the time for all good men to come to the aid of their... Whoops - nope - Really now is the perfect time to lift and divide perennials with @GWmag - It's not too late! Dividing or not - you should check out the garden in this video. Swooning now... 11 things to know about the Agius Evolution Garden Here's a Behind the Scenes Look at Kew's Brand New Garden called the Agius. Learn about the mulch @kewgardens makes for the garden, the pergola that supports 26 roses & the drought-resistant asterids - like sages, olives, and rosemary. What to grow in a medieval herb garden - English Heritage Blog Medieval Herb Gardens grew the tried & true herbs. Learn more about Sage, Betony, Clary Sage, Hyssop, Rue, Chamomile, Dill, Cumin, & Comfrey in this post by @EnglishHeritage featuring a beautiful pic of @RievaulxAbbey Never Underestimate the Intelligence of Trees Gardens are plant communities that need these pillars of protection- yet many gardens are treeless. As gardeners, we should plant Micro Forests. Dr. Suzanne Simard - Professor of Forest Ecology: Older, bigger trees share nutrients w/ smaller trees & they pay it back later. @NautilusMag Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD On this day in 1849, the very first Victoria cruziana flowered in a custom-built greenhouse at the Duke of Devonshire's estate at Chatsworth. After that initial bloom, the other specimens began blooming as well. And, one of the blossoms was, appropriately, given to Queen Victoria (Santa Cruz Water Lily). The Victoria cruziana is an exotic plant. It is named in honor of two people: Queen Victoria & Andres de Santa Cruz, President of Peru & Bolivia, who sponsored the expedition where the plants were first collected. In the wild, Victoria cruziana is native to open waters in northern Argentina and Paraguay. Sadly, the Victoria cruziana is endangered due to deforestation. Although in recent years, the Santa Cruz Water Lily has been returning by the hundreds in the Salado River in Paraguay. Locals take tourists out to see them in little canoes. Victoria cruziana produces enormous lily pads that can grow up to 2 meters or almost 7 feet wide. Today, greenhouses grow the Santa Cruz Water Lily from seed. In cultivation, pollination takes place by hand in the evenings when the plant is flowering. But in its native habitat, the pollination process of the Santa Cruz Water Lily is a fantastic spectacle:

• When the big flower bud initially opens - it is pure white and it emits a pineapple aroma.
• Then, as night falls, the flower goes through a chemical change that causes it to heat up.The pineapple scent and the warmth draw flying scarab beetles who venture far into the depths of the flower to find feast of starch. It's likeThanksgiving in there. While they are feasting through the night, the morning sunlight causes the flower to close up, and the feasting scarab beetles are trapped inside.
• During the day, the flower goes through a tremendous transformation. The pineapple scent goes away, and the flower turns from pure white to pink - all in the course of a single day.
• What's more, the sex of the flower changes from female to male.
• When the Santa Cruz Water Lily flower opens again on the second night, the scarab beetles are ready to go, and they fly off, covered in pollen to find the next freshly opened pineapple scented female flowers. Isn't that incredible?

Now the underside of the giant Amazonian water lily, Victoria cruziana, is quite something to see. It consists of this intricate vaulted rib structure, which is perfectly designed by Mother Nature. The air pockets give it the buoyancy and allow it to handle the load of the enormous lily pad. Those ribs are what allows the lily pad to float. This pattern so inspired Joseph Paxton that he incorporated it into his design for Crystal Palace in 1851. And, to illustrate the strength of the lily pads, there's a famous old photo from the 1800s that shows five children sitting on top of individual lily pads - one of them looks to be about three years old, and she's sitting on a rocking chair that was put on top of the Lily pad, and they are all just calming staring into the Camera. It's quite the image. There is one more surprise for people who get the chance to really study the giant water lily. Everything except the smooth top surface of the lily is ferociously spiny to protect it from being eaten by nibblers under the water. Back in July, I shared a video in the Facebook Group for the Show from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh which showed their Senior Horticulturist, Pat Clifford, teaching an intern, how to remove older Giant Water Lily pads so the pond doesn't get overcrowded. Using a pitchfork, Pat carefully folded the giant lily pad first in half, then quarters, and then once more. Then he stabbed the large folded pad with the pitchfork, hoists it in the air to let the water drain out, and then flops this huge beast of a pad down on the edge of the pond. Then, the camera zooms in to reveal the incredibly savage thorns that grow on the underside of the lily pad and all down the stem of the plant. For folks who watch that video, It is a shock to see how vicious the thorns are - rivaling any rose. #OTD Today is the birthday of American botanist, horticulturist, and landscape architect Kate Sessions, who was born on this day in 1857. As a young woman, Kate had traveled to San Diego to teach, but she ended up following her passion and bought a local nursery in 1885. Before long, Kate owned a flower shop as well. And, she didn't leave her teaching roots behind. Kate is remembered for going from grammar school to grammar school, teaching thousands of young children basic horticulture and botany. In 1892, she managed to convince the City of San Diego to lease her 30 acres of land to use for growing in Balboa Park so that she could grow plants for her nursery. The arrangement required Session to plant 100 trees in balboa park every single year in addition to another 300 trees around the city of San Diego. Over a dozen years, Kate planted close to 5,000 trees, forever changing the vista of San Diego. The Antonicelli family, who later bought Kate's nursery, said that Kate was tough and plants were her whole life. "When she would go out on a landscape job, rather than put a stake in the ground, she had these high boots on, and she'd kick heel marks in the ground, and that's where she would tell the guys to plant the trees." Thanks to her nursery and connections, Session planted hundreds of cypress, pine, oak, pepper trees, and eucalyptus. And although she never married or had any children, it was thanks to her dedication to the trees of San Diego that Sessions became known as The Mother of Balboa Park. But there is one tree that Sessions will forever be associated with, and that is the jacaranda, which is a signature plant of the city of San Diego. Sessions imported the jacaranda, and she propagated and popularized it - it which wasn't difficult given its beautiful purple bloom. In September of 1939, Kate broke her hip after falling in her garden. The following march, newspapers reported she had died quietly in her sleep, "At the close of Easter Sunday, when the broad lawns, the groves, the canyons, and the flower beds were aglow with a beauty that has become her monument." #OTD On this day in 1941, Hitler gave a speech where he said that "Leningrad must die of starvation." The following year, that's nearly what happened as hundreds of thousands starved to death in the streets of Leningrad. People were so desperate, that some people attempted to eat sawdust. As the Nazis arrived in St Petersburg, the dedicated scientists at the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry locked themselves inside the seed vault to protect the world's seed collection, which was housed in bins that went from the floor to the ceiling in 16 rooms. The workers came up with a strategy where no one was allowed to be alone with the seed. They were always paired up, and they guarded the collection in shifts. The siege lasted for 900 days, and one by one, the people in the vault started dying of starvation. In January 1942, Alexander Stchukin, a peanut specialist, died at his desk. And, ironically, as he was guarding rice, the Botanist Dmitri Ivanov also died of starvation. When the siege ended in the Spring of 1944, nine scientists had starved to death while defending the world's seeds. #OTD On this day in 1974, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington dedicated the Bluethenthal Wildflower Preserve. The 10-acre preserve is in the middle of the campus and is home to a marvelous example of unique native plants like the Venus flytrap, sundew, and white and yellow jasmine. An article reporting on the preserve said, "In this hurly-burly rush-around world of ours, there are still those who care about the natural beauty of the area and about preserving it for future generations." #OTD On the same day in 1974, London's famous flower, fruit, and vegetable market moved from Covent Garden to Battersea. In 1661, King Charles II established Covent Market under a charter. After an incredible transformation from a 9-acre pasture in the heart of London, the streets and alleys of Covent Garden served as a market for Londoners for 305 years. Back in 1974, 270 dealers were buying and selling 4,000 tons of produce every day, as well as flowers and plants worth $28.8 million. One newspaper reported that when a trader was asked if he would miss the location of the old market, he replied, "We deal in fruit and vegetables, not sentiment." Covent Gardens was the spot where Professor Henry Higgins met a flower seller named Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady." And, in Dicken's story, "The Old Curiosity Shop," a stranger went to the Covent Market, "at sunrise, in spring or summer when the fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, overpowering even the unwholesome streams of last night's debauchery and driving the dusky thrush, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night long, half-mad with joy." Unearthed Words "My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off." - Robert Frost, After Apple Picking Today's book recommendation: How to Know the Ferns by Frances Theodora Parsons Parsons was an American naturalist and author, remembered most for her book on American wildflowers. But her book, How to Know the Ferns, is also a favorite and it's a personal favorite of mine. One of the reasons I'm a huge Parsons fan is because of her incredible life story. After her first husband and baby died, Parsons finally broke her grief when her friend Marion Satterlee managed to get her to take nature walks, which rekindled her love for wildflowers. In 1893, Fanny published her famous book, How to Know the Wildflowers. It sold out in five days and was a favorite of Theodore Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling. Three years later, in 1896, Fanny married a childhood friend, a professor, politician, and diplomat, James Russell Parsons. The following year, Fanny gave birth to their son. Parsons was not well off, so Fanny wrote today's book, "How to Know the Ferns" in an effort to financially help her family. In the first page of the book, Parsons shares this beautiful quote about ferns by Henry David Thoreau: "If it were required to know the position of the fruit dots or the character of the indusium, nothing could be easier than to ascertain it; but if it is required that you be affected by ferns, that they amount to anything, signify anything to you, that they be another sacred scripture and revelation to you, helping to redeem your life, this end is not so easily accomplished." A year after Ferns, Fanny gave birth to their only daughter, Dorothea, who tragically died at two and a half years old five days before Thanksgiving in 1902. Three years later, Fanny's husband, James, was killed when his carriage collided with a trolley car. A widow for the second time, Fanny published this poem in Scribner's Magazine in 1911: When Laughter is Sadder than Tears. The marshes stretch to the dunes and the dunes sweep down to the sea, And the sea is wooing the meadow which waits with an open door; Then a melody sweet to the hearer floats up from the murmuring lea Till the sea slips seaward again and the land is athirst as before. And athirst is the heart whose worship is not the worship of yore, Whose visions no magic can conjure, whose plenty is suddenly dearth; And parched as the desert the soul whose tears no grief can restore, Whose laughter is sadder than tears and whose grief is as barren as mirth. The days are alive with music, the nights their pleasures decree; The vision the morning fulfills is the dream that the evening wore, And life is as sweet to the living as the flower is sweet to the bee, As the breath of the woods is sweet to the mariner far from shore. But singing and sweetness and laughter must vanish forevermore, As the petals fall from the flower, as the waters recede from the firth, When hopes no longer spring upward as larks in the morning soar, Then laughter is sadder than tears and grief is as barren as mirth. Friend, if shaken and shattered the shrine in the heart that is fain to adore, Then forsake the false gods that have held you and lay your pale lips to the Earth, That in her great arms she may take you and croon you her melodies o'er, When laughter is sadder than tears and grief is as barren as mirth. Today's Garden Chore Enjoy a portable and dazzling spot for your houseplants by repurposing a bar cart. Bar carts are super trendy once again, and they offer gardeners a stylish space for displaying houseplants. If you get a cart with glass shelves, light can filter through to plants on the bottom shelf as well. Or, you can use the bottom shelf to store extra soil, horticultural charcoal, pots, and other gear. I've had tremendous luck sourcing bar carts on Facebook Marketplace. I recently put a gold cart in my botanical Library. It's a mid-sized oval cart, and it holds about a dozen small houseplants for me - from Swedish Ivy to a variety ferns. I have to say, my little glass misting bottle looks extra elegant on the bar cart. And remember, if you happen to find a metallic cart - whether it's gold or silver - those are all considered neutrals in interior design. And, don't forget, that you can repurpose ice buckets - whether they are crystal or have a beautifully textured exterior - you can use them as cache pots for your plants. Along with the bar cart, they add a touch of sparkle and glimmer during the holidays. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart On this day in 1969, the Johnson City Press, out of Johnson City Tennessee reported on a new batch of postage stamps out of New Zealand that commemorated the bi-centenary of Captain Cook's first voyage to New Zealand: The 4c stamp featured a side portrait of Captain Cook with the planet Venus crossing the sun - together with an old navigational instrument, the octant. The 6c stamp featured the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks with an outline of the 'Endeavour.' The 18c stamp showed Dr. Solander. He was the botanist aboard the 'Endeavour,' together with a native plant bearing his name and known locally as the Matata. The 28c stamp displayed a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and Captain Cook's 1769 chart of New Zealand. Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the Landscape Architect, who left a mark on over 50 towns in the United States.

We'll learn about The Botany Man, who helped start The Sierra Club.

We'll hear beautiful words about the mists of November from two of the world's best nature writers.

We Grow That Garden Library with the book written by the wife of the author of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web.

I'll talk about getting your outdoor rugs cleaned, and then we'll wrap things up with the story of an award-winning botanical writer who was once tutored by Nathaniel Lord Britton.

But first, let's catch up on a few recent events.

1. Here's a very helpful video tutorial on How to Make a Compost Bin for Next to Nothing from Richard Spencer @RS_Garden_Care. I really like the simplicity and functionality of this.

2. Excellent Hedge Planting Advice from Buckingham Nurseries. It made me of that saying... The best time to plant a tree (or a hedge) was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

3. Here are Six Hardy Annuals to Sow in Autumn for a beautiful Spring & Summer from @theenglishgarde Think California Poppy, Centaurea, Borage, Love-in-a-Mist, Calendula, & Clary sage. I'd also add Cornflower and Larkspur!

Book Winner: Kathy Brown

The Garden in Every Sense and Season by Tovah Martin

Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.

Brevities

#OTD Happy Winter's Day! In the Old English poem of the Anglo-Saxon Calendar known as the Menologium, November 7th is considered to be the first day of winter - 'Winter's Day.'

According to the poem, winter has 92 days, lasting from November 7th to February 6th.

#OTD Today is the birthday of the American landscape designer Warren H Manning who was born on this day in 1860.

The day Manning was born, his father recorded the moment in his diary:

"At five minutes past 12 this morning, we had a son born to us. He is strong and healthy to all appearances. I set Hackett at work to dig the hole while I planted the Elm tree to commemorate the day that our first child was born. I think that there should be a tree planted at the birth of every child so that in the after times it may be seen which is most useful."

Manning's dad was undoubtedly proud of his son, who worked on design projects in almost every state in the country. Manning started out as an apprentice to Frederick Law Olmsted before going out on his own. Ultimately, Manning designed on all types of properties, from estates to golf courses and everything in between. All told, his portfolio included over 1,600 projects. One of the signature aspects of Manning's practice was promoting "Wild Gardens." Wild gardens appealed to Manning because they were more affordable (at least initially) for his clients compared to formal gardens. Adding wild spaces meant that Manning would generally get an opportunity to follow up on his projects as they usually needed some fine tunings. Then, third, many of Manning's private wild garden designs ended up becoming a gift to the community. And Manning was always thrilled to see more natural areas transitioned into public spaces.

The Birmingham artist and Landscape Architect Frank Hartley Anderson gave a moving tribute to Manning upon his death:

"Fifty other towns and cities today arc better places to live because of the vision of Warren H. Manning. Eleven hundred communities, in part, were made pleasanter places through his 50 years of wholehearted service."

#OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of The Botany Man Willis Linn Jepson, who died on this day in 1946.

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."

When Jepson was 25, he created the Sierra Club along with John Muir and Warren Olney.

During Jepson's junior year at Berkeley, he decided to start a diary. His diaries became known as his field books. Like many botanists, Jepson was an archivist at heart, and he recorded everything - 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 began 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. Sadly, he never fully recovered, and on this day in 1946, Jepson passed away.

Jepson impacted many botanists. One was Mary Bowerman, who was one of Jepson's doctoral students. She wrote once,

Another botanist influenced by Jepson was George Dexter Butler. Butler's story is unusual. He was trained as a lawyer, but his passion was botany. Yet, he put his botanical efforts aside to raise his family. But when he was 56, he passed by a book store in Oakland. The store had a copy of Jepson's Flora. His time to pursue botany had come, and the trigger was that little book written by Willis Lynn Jepson.

#OTD A year ago today, we said goodbye to Irvin M Williams, who died on this day in 2018 at the age of 92.

Williams served as Chief Horticulturist at the White House from 1962 to 2008, becoming the longest-serving gardener in White House history. Williams helped develop the Rose Garden during the Kennedy administration. He once said that the Merion bluegrass that made up the famous White House lawn as "the best grass you can have."

Unearthed Words

As a gardener herself, Ruth had an excellent understanding of flowers. Pitter once shared that she liked to write her poetry only after she finished bother her chores and her gardening.

My favorite book by Pitter is The Rude Potato. It's is a very witty and entertaining collection of poems about gardens and gardeners.

On this day in 1855, Henry David Thoreau was writing about the November mist as well:

"Another drizzling day, — as fine a mist as can fall... My thoughts are concentrated; I am all compact. The solitude is real, too, for the weather keeps other men at home. This mist is like a roof and walls over and around, and I walk with a domestic feeling... The world and my life are simplified. What now of Europe and Asia ?"

Today's book recommendation: Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katherine White

After Katherine separated from her first husband, she married E.B. White, who was the author of three beloved children's books, Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). In the early 1930s, Katherine and E.B. bought a farmhouse in North Brooklin, Maine. By the end of the decade, they moved there from New York. White began writing garden pieces for The New Yorker in 1958. Onward and Upward in the Garden (1979) is her only book, edited and published posthumously by her husband E.B. White. Gardeners especially enjoy EB White's tenderly written preface to his gardener wife.

You can get a used copy and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for $3.

Today's Garden Chore

Get your outdoor rugs cleaned.

Sonny had an accident in the front room this week. When the carpet cleaner arrived, I asked if they could clean the outdoor rugs, and even the natural fibered welcome mat got a makeover with a quick professional clean. It was the perfect first step toward getting the house ready for the holidays. Next week is all about putting together containers and pots for the holidays.

Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart

On this day in 1967, The Daily Times out of Salisbury, Maryland, reported the death of botanist and author Norman Taylor who died on November 5th.

Taylor immigrated from England with his parents when he was a little boy. He was very sickly and was not able to stay in school. In his early 20's, Taylor was hired to work at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) by Nathaniel Lord Britton. It was a lucky break for Taylor as Brittain became his personal tutor in Botany, taking Taylor along on expeditions to the Caribbean.

Taylor also worked as the curator of plants at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. There, he came up with the idea of a Garden Dictionary. It brought Taylor accolades and popularity.

His obituary in The Daily Times shared what Taylor considered one of his most significant endeavors:

"Besides writing over a dozen books and articles by the score on botany, Mr. Taylor is responsible for what he considered a "terrific undertaking." This was the amount of work required in framing 33,000 botanical definitions for Webster's New International Dictionary, second edition, published by Houghton, Mifflin Co. 1933-36."

Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the Versailles botanist who started organizing plants in a new way but kept his method a secret. We'll learn about the young New Yorker and garden writer who met the perfect botanical illustrator for her garden books in the hospital as she was battling influenza. We'll hear some glorious thoughts on November from the author of "Butternut Wisdom." We Grow That Garden Library with a book that helps us grow more by going vertical in our gardens. I'll talk about burying your cold-hardy succulents, and then we'll wrap things up with the intrepid botanist who discovered a plant that's still almost too good to be true - the blue poppy. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. Modern Monochromatic Wedding at Baltimore's Sagamore Pendry Hotel @ruffledblog shared this gorgeous @lemonlime_event Modern Monochromatic Wedding at Baltimore's Sagamore Pendry Hotel. Gardeners will love the green/white floral arrangements. And you MUST check out the bride's bouquet. That air plant!! https://buff.ly/2oFnKjj What is a Vegan Garden? I must confess I didn't fully appreciate all that it entails - so hats off to Garden Teacher Plews Garden Design @plewgd for a thorough and thoughtful explanation. Great article in @PsychToday by @peterbongi called Saffron for Emotional Health. Studies show the stigma & the petal of Saffron (Crocus sativus) are helpful for calming, mood support & more. And, love the Charlemange quote about herbs at the beginning... https://buff.ly/2WBvKyp Garden Betty share a really lovely post called A Guide to Saving and Storing Seeds As your end-of-season crops start to fade, now's the time to save the seeds from your favorite plants so you can grow them again next year! Here's a foolproof guide to show you how from @gardenbetty #gardenchat #gardening #growyourown https://buff.ly/2RzMpiN Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So there's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the French naturalist and botanist Bernard de Jussieu who died on this day in 1777. Jussieuwas a French botanist who developed the first natural classification of flowering plants. Today, there's a metro station near the botanical garden in Paris that is named in honor of the Jussieu family - which boasted five members over several generations as notable botanists. Bernard and his brother Antoine were both botany professors in Paris. Bernard was the stronger botanist, and there's a famous story about his incredible dedication to botany: One time, after botanizing in Lebanon, Bernard was sailing back to France. Of course, drinkable water onboard a long voyage home would have been a precious commodity. Yet, Bernard Jussieu purportedly shared his precious water with a little Lebanon Cedar seedling he was bringing home. He wanted to plant in the Royal Garden, and he was determined to bring the little tree back alive to Paris. The French say the seedling lived to be over 200 years old and eighty feet high. As for Bernard Jussieu, in 1759, he was brought to Versailles to develop the Royal Botanical Garden at the Petit Trianon. Unassuming and laid back, Bernard quietly began arranging the plants in the garden in a new way. Jussieu's system of organizing plants into a more natural order was revolutionary at the time and also something he wouldn't disclose to others. However, Bernard did put together a catalog of the plants in his garden. Bernard recognized a kindred spirit in his nephew, Antoine-Laurent. Bernard trained him for four years, and when he came of age, Bernard confided his methods of plant classification. As a result, Antoine-Laurent's work was an extension of his Uncle Bernard's ideas around grouping plants. It took Antoine-Laurent Jussieu almost twenty years of refinement and perfecting of his Uncle's work, but he finally published his work on natural classification as the Bastille was falling in 1789. In Genera Plantarum, Antoine-Laurent Jussieu kept Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature, but he grouped plants by genera and then into families. He called his system natural and strived to let nature be his guide. Today, many plant families can be attributed to Jussieu. #OTD Today is the birthday of the botanist and garden writer Alice Lounsberry who was born on this day in 1868. (Note: Online accounts, based on a Who's Who biography have the date of her year of birth as 1873 - which is incorrect as she was already two years old on an 1870 census with her brother and parents.) Lounsberry was a New Yorker, and she developed a love for botany as a young girl. In her mid-twenties, she was already serving as a board member for the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). Lounsberry is forever linked to her friend and collaborator - the Australian botanical illustrator, Ellis Rowan. In the late 1890s, Rowan (b. 1848) decided to travel to New York. She caused a bit of a sensation during her first trip to the States a few years earlier. This trip was no different - except that after her arrival, Rowan contracted influenza, and she needed to be hospitalized. New Yorkers, like Lounsberry, read about Rowan's illness, and they sent cards and flowers to her hospital room to cheer her. But Lounsberry had an enormous sense of admiration for Rowan, and she felt she needed to do something more personal. So, Alice personally brought a box of fresh-picked wildflowers to the hospital and gave them to Rowan's nurse. Rowan was thoroughly charmed by the bouquet and the card which read, "From one flower seeker to another - and an admirer of your work." The following day, Alice visited Rowan. Even though Alice was twenty years younger than Rowan, the two hit it off. They spent an entire afternoon discussing botany and their work. When Alice offered to show Rowan where she liked to botanize for wildflowers, it was the incentive Rowan needed to get her health back on track. When Alice invited her to illustrate a book on Wildflowers she had been asked to write, their fates as writer and painter were jointly sealed. Together, they produced three books: "A Guide to the Wild Flowers" (1899) describing around 500 wildflowers. "A Guide to the Trees" (1900) describing nearly 200 trees & shrubs. And, "Southern Wild Flowers & Trees" (1901) where Alice wrote in the preface: "To learn something of the history, the folklore and the uses of southern plants and to see rare ones growing in their natural surroundings, Mrs. Rowan and I traveled in many parts of the south, exercising always our best blandishments to get the people of the section to talk with us. Through the mountainous region we drove from cabin to cabin, and nowhere could we have met with greater kindness and hospitality." While they were working on their book on Southern Wildflowers, Alice and Rowan's time together was marred by tragedy. They were surrounded by the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains when a telegram came for Rowan. Her only son, Eric, had died in South Africa. He was 22 years old. After finishing these books, the two went their separate ways. After working with Rowan, Alice continued to write - but without Rowan's artwork, her books failed to attract the same level of popularity. After suffering a stroke, Alice Lounsberry died at the age of 81 on November 20, 1949. Unearthed Words Walking down the country road this morning, I noticed the swamp in late fall has lovely colors. The chalky purple of the wild blackberry canes, the cinnabar of frosted weeds, and the garnet of oak seedlings seem like music. Farther on, the cutover fields have variations on the theme of brown, from tawny to copper. Squirrels go a-marketing under the hazel bushes, for, under the burs, the satiny brown nuts begin to show. A fawn-colored rabbit hops ahead along the grey stone wall, and a pheasant leads three females toward the thicket. As I pass the neighbor's old red barn, the smell of dried hay is as sweet as honey. Pumpkins and cabbages and smoky hubbard squash lie in the garden. Blue smoke rises from a pile of burning cornstalks. "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," Keats called it, and also, "Think not of spring, thou has thy beauty too." -Gladys Taber, The Best of Still Meadow Today's Grow That Garden Library book recommendation: Vertical Vegetables by Amy Andrychowicz The subtitle to this book is Simple Projects that Deliver More Yield in Less Space. Going vertical is something I love to do indoors in small spaces - but as Amy shows us in this book, it's a strategy that works brilliantly in our gardens as well. Amy points out that when you grow upward rather than outward, you will double or triple the yield from your small-space garden. Not only does growing vertically not only potentially increase your yield, but also it also gets your plants off the ground - increasing airflow, reducing the risk from soil-borne disease, and making a crouch-free harvest. Vertical Vegetables is packed with valuable information. Amy includes lists of plants that are best suited for vertical growing. The book is packed full of beautiful DIY garden projects anyone can do thanks to step-by-step instructions. Beyond the trellis, Amy shares what you can grow vertically using cages, stakes, tee-pees, a classic obelisk, or pergolas in addition to providing creative plans for even more functional structures. Today's Garden Chore It's time to have a funeral: Bury your pots with hardy succulents like Hens and Chicks and Sedums. In a Northern garden, you cannot leave your cute little pots with these cold-hardy succulents sitting out in the garden. They won't make it - or should say - they won't make it above ground in a pot. To avoid the heartbreak of having to re-buy them and the hassle of repotting them, I simply gather up all my pots - terra cotta, iron, strawberry pots, etc. - collecting them in a cleared area by the water feature. I'll add in my succulent wreath form as well. Then I bury them under a couple of bags of wood mulch. Sheltered under the mulch, the plants continue to grow until the first hard freeze. In the spring, I dig out my pots and then return them to their homes throughout the garden. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart #OTD Today is the birthday of the British plant collector and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward who was born on this day in 1885. During the beginning of the twentieth century, Frank Kingdon Ward went on twenty-four Indiana-Jones-like expeditions throughout Tibet, China, and Southeast Asia, in search of rare and elusive species of plants. Among his many accomplishments, Ward found the legendary Tibetan blue poppy. Ward's accounts of his adventures are captivating. In 1942, he arrived inNew Delhi after a 500 hundred mile walk over mountains and through jungles. The newspaper account said: "A thin, wiry little man in his 50s, Captain Kingdon-Ward...decided that the Japanese were getting too close for comfort so he loaded two 60-pound bags of rice on two mules... But instead of taking the short road through the Chaukan pass, [he] decided to travel the 500 mile mule trail through Tibet... [Kingdon-Ward tramped] knee-deep in snow [and] crossed the Himalayas at the 14,500-foot pass.... [He said] "It was a pleasant walk and [my] reward is in the finding of dazzling flowers never seen before. You know they may always blush unseen unless you manage to take them back and make them grow where others can admire them. They are a little bit of the enchantment of Asia transplanted into England or America. It is satisfaction enough if you can feel in an industrial age like the present that you have brought home a little beauty for others to enjoy." Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Today we celebrate the botanist who created the second botanical garden in the United States and the botanist who was a dear friend to Asa Gray and was with him as he saw first hand one of the most sought after plants of the 1800s. We'll hear some words about the falling leaves and autumn senescence. We Grow That Garden Library with a book that is so gorgeous that some folks buy copies to cut out the pages to frame them. I'll talk about the three things you need to do to winterize your pressure washer, and then we'll talk about a troublesome otter in Vancouver. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. Who doesn't want MORE Small Garden Design Ideas on a Budget? I stumbled on a great video about this very topic by Alexandra Campbell @midsizegarden, who is the brains behind the middle-sized garden. What I love about Alexandra's video is that she culls the best tips from top garden designers she's interviewed over the years. Find out how to save money and still get the garden you'll love. The designers share tips like designing off of the house or a tree, making your boundaries look smart, and the secret benefits of using a large pot instead of buying lots of little pots. Alexandra has pulled together a handy set of clips with commentary. It's a great video. Plus, I love her voice... Boy, did Tom Brown @headgardenertom pick some wonderful plants for November in his article for Gardens Illustrated called "Best flowers and plants for November." There are beautiful photographs of these plants and flowers from Jason Ingram in this great post from @GdnsIllustrated. There's plenty for gardens across all different growing zones. Northern Gardeners should check out Rosa 'Geranium' and Acer griseum - they both caught my eye. The Irish Florist, Lamber de Bie, shared a post called A Romantic Garden Wedding at Waterford Castle. You know those breathe/calming apps? This is basically that - but with flowers. Check out @Lamber_de_Bie & @WaterfordCastle on a private Island SE of Ireland. Lamber's woodland birch arch includes blue & pink summer hydrangea & tall plumes of pampas grass. It's a unique combination, and it's just incredible. Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.So there's no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the botanist Humphrey Marshall who died on this day in 1801. The Marshalls were cousins to the Bartrams - their mothers were sisters. John Bartram was known as the "Father of American Botany, and he ignited Humphrey's love of native plants. John had established the country's first botanical garden. In 1773, after Marshall inherited his family estate and a sizable inheritance from his father, he created the country's second botanical garden. He incorporated natives, naturally, but also exotics. Marshall forged a friendship with the British botanist John Fothergill who paid Marshall for his plant collecting. Fothergill was a collector and a connector, introducing Marshall to many of Europe's top botanists and a growing list of customers. Marshall's contacts helped him source new plants for his botanical garden. And Twenty-five years before Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis & Clark on an expedition to the west, it was Humphrey Marshall who first made the suggestion - in 1778, 1785, and 1792. He really wanted the United States to sponsor an expedition to explore the west. A fellow friend, Quaker, and botanist, Joseph Trimble Rothrock wrote this about Marshall: "The earth abounds in beauty, all of which is open to his chastened senses. He revels in the sunlight and the breezes. The songs of the birds fall, welcome, into his ear. The colors of the flowers attract him." Marshalltown Pennsylvania was named in honor of Humphrey Marshall. In 1785, Marshall published the very first American essay on trees and shrubs. Humphrey Marshall is also known as the "Father of American Dendrology" (or the study of woody plants, trees, and shrubs). The genus, Marshallia, is named in honor of Humphrey Marshall. #OTD On this day in 1896, the newspaper out of Buffalo, New York, reported that the John Redfield herbarium was looking for a home. John H Redfield was born in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1815. In 1836, Redfield became friends with Asa Gray after joining the Lyceum of Natural History in New York, where Gray was the Librarian and Superintendent. The remained life-long friends. When Redfield married in 1843, he moved to Philadelphia and worked for his Father-in-law's company making wheels for the railroad. During his free time, Redfield went on plant hunting expeditions with Asa Gray and other botanists. During the 1840's Gray was trying to locate a plant called the Shortia galacifolia (commonly known as Oconee bell). Andre Michaux had found the plant and had sent it back to Paris. In 1839, when Gray was in Paris on behalf of Harvard, he found a cabinet of unidentified plants, and there was Michaux's plant - the Oconee bell. Gray named the plant Shortia in honor of the Kentucky botanist, Charles Wilkin Short. Gray made two serious attempts in 1841 and 1843 to find the spot where Michaux had found the Shortia, but both failed. Soon every botanist wanted to find the Shortia. In 1863 Charles Short died - and still no Shortia. Botanists dealt with constant comments like "Found Shortia yet?" In May of 1877, a North Carolina teenager named George Hyams was walking beside the Catawba River when he spied a plant he couldn't name. His father was an amateur botanist, and he sent the specimen to a friend. A specimen made it to Gray, who could be heard crying 'Eureka' when he found it. In 1879, Gray organized a group to see the Shortia. Along with his dear friend, John Redfield, Gray brought his wife, Charles Sprague Sargent, and William Canby. Sure enough, they found the Shortia growing in the spot Hymans found it. It was an honor for Redfield to be there with his old friend. Redfield devoted most of the final 20 years of his life to the herbarium of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. During Redfield's lifetime, botanists would visit Torrey if they were in New York, Asa Gray, if they were at Harvard or in Boston, and John Redfield when they passed through Philadelphia. It helped that people genuinely liked Redfield; his botanist friends noted his "strong yet tender character" when they wrote about him in his obituary. Redfield's work at the Academy was both worker bee and preservationist. In the early 1800s, Philadelphia had been a major botanical hub in the country. Redfield made sure the early botanical work was indexed and mounted, preserving the precious botanical history of the city of brotherly love. Unearthed Words "Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place?" - Annie Dillard, author "Saw the rainbow in the heaven, In the eastern sky the rainbow, Whispered, "What is that, Nokomis?" And the good Nokomis answered: "'Tis the heaven of flowers you see there; All the wild-flowers of the forest, All the lilies of the prairie, When on earth they fade and perish, Blossom in that heaven above us." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Song of Hiawatha Today's book recommendation: Botanicum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis I got my own copy of this book just last week, and it immediately became one of my favorites. And, it's a beautiful coffee table book with stunning pictures and heavy paper - although it actually was written for kids ages 8 -12. Don't let that dissuade you. It really is a remarkable book, and it's chock-full of information. Just seeing it on my ottoman in the family room makes me so happy. In fact, some people buy copies of this gorgeous book to cut the pages out to frame them. So just a quick heads up - they sell a Botanicum poster book too. The cover is spectacular. OK - now let me tell you about it. This book came out in 2017 and is part of Big Picture Press's Welcome to the Museum series. Botanicum is a brilliantly curated guide to plant life. The text was written by Kathy Willis, the director of science at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England. Botanicum also features artwork from the fabulous Katie Scott of Animalium fame. Botanicum is designed to make you feel like you are having a museum experience - visiting a fascinating exhibition about the world of plants -from perennials to bulbs to tropical exotica. Like any excellent exhibit, Botanicum offers a beautiful feast of botanical knowledge complete with superb cross-sections of how plants work. This is an excellent gift book for the holidays or gift for yourself. It's undoubtedly one of my unexpected favorites this year - a treasure of art and botanical information. You can get a used copy and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for under $20. Today's Garden Chore Take 5 minutes and winterize your pressure washer. If your pressure washer is gas-operated, you need to start with this step: First, add a fuel stabilizer to the gas tank. Then run the engine for 2 minutes to get the stabilizer to circulate through the engine's system. If your pressure washer is electric, you begin the process here (gas pressure washer, continue): Second, hook up the pressure washer to your garden hose. Let it run to clean the detergent out of the system. Turn off the water and remove the garden hose and then spray it until no more water comes out of the system. Finally, add anti-freeze "Pump Saver" to pump inlet if the temperatures are going near or below freezing, so that your pressure washer doesn't freeze up. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart Finally, this past week, the Global News shared a story called Koi Tremble in Fear as Otter makes a reappearance in the Vancouver Chinese garden. "Nearly a year after a hungry otter began decimating the koi population at Vancouver's Chinese Gardens... The Vancouver Park Board said Saturday the otter was spotted in the koi pond on Wednesday morning after the carcasses of three koi were found. Park board staff began draining the pond that same day to transfer the remaining koi to a temporary holding area off-site. It's not yet known whether this otter is the same one that ate 11 of the garden's 14 prized koi fish in November of last year, including a prized 50-year-old fish named Madonna." When I shared this story in the Facebook Group, I wrote: "There Otter be a law!" In all seriousness, for pond owners, there's nothing worse than losing your koi. You should watch the measures the park is taking to prevent animals from getting into the pond area. It's pretty intense. And, it just goes to show that whether you're a big public garden or a small private garden, dealing with critters like this can require ingenuity and hard work and even then - there are no guarantees. Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."