The Daily Gardener - November 29, 2022 John Ray, Amos Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, Flower Flash by Lewis Miller, Edward Hummel, and Gertrude Jekyll

November 29, 2022 John Ray, Amos Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, Flower Flash by Lewis Miller, Edward Hummel, and Gertrude Jekyll

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11/29/22 • 29 min

Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community Historical Events 1627 Birth of John Ray, English naturalist and writer. In 1660, he published a catalog of Cambridge plants. John developed his own system for classifying plants based on their observed similarities and differences. So he was clearly thinking about ways to distinguish one plant from another. And in his book, History of Plants, John was the first scientist to use the terms petal and pollen. John also wrote a Collection of English Proverbs. In one for summer, John wrote: If the first of July be rainy weather, It will rain, more or less, for four weeks together. 1799 Birth of Amos Bronson Alcott, American teacher, writer, Transcendentalist and reformer. In most aspects of his life, Amos was ahead of his time. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights. He also advocated a plant-based diet. Amos once wrote, Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures, plants, and wholesome harvest reaps. In 1830, Amos married pretty Abigail May, and together they had four daughters; the second-oldest was Louisa May, born on this day in 1832. 1832 Birth of Louisa May Alcott, American writer, and poet. She grew up in the company of her parents' friends and fellow Transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow In 1868, she wrote Little Women. In it, she wrote, Jo had learned that hearts, like flowers, cannot be rudely handled, but must open naturally... Louisa could be witty. She once wrote, Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes. 1978 Death of Edward C. Hummel, American plantsman and hybridizer. Edward and his wife Minnie ran Hummel's Exotic Gardens of southern California for 43 years. They specialized in cacti, succulents, bromeliads ("brow·mee·lee·ads"), and orchids. In 1935, Edward and Minnie were featured in a Quaker State Motor Oil advertisement. The young Hummel family is in their home cactus garden. Edward is examining a cactus specimen while his daughter Marquetta and son Edward gather around. Mother Minnie is standing behind them, looking on. The ad garnered plenty of attention, and soon Edward was fielding requests from American gardeners for more information about his cactus garden. The letters gave Edward and Minnie the idea to start a mail-order business for their plants. In 1943, during WWII, Edward published Hummel's Victory Picture Book. The cover featured a photo of two 6-foot-tall Barrel cacti at the base, leaning away from each other at the top in a perfect V formation for victory. The book was a smash hit, and subsequent editions were quickly put together. In the first edition, Edward wrote a note to his customers in the forward. Perhaps you will wonder at receiving this free picture book which contains no prices of plants. If you enjoy a few minutes of interest and relaxation in looking it over, it will have fulfilled its obvious purpose. If your interest and curiosity are stirred to the point that you write us for further information, it will have fulfilled its hidden purpose. After the War, the fumes from LAX drove the Hummels to find a new home for their nursery. They settled in Carlsbad and purchased an existing nursery after the founder Dr. Robert W. Poindexter, died unexpectedly. The nursery was a perfect fit. Robert Poindexter shared the Hummel's passion for cacti and succulents. Robert's son John finalized the sale. Edward was especially interested in propagating and selling drought-resistant plants in his nursery. He won many awards for his plants and was primarily known for his work with Bromeliads ("brow·mee·lee·ads"). Grow That Garden LibraryTM Book Recommendation

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undefined - November 28, 2022 The Royal Society of London, Matsuo Basho, Gottlieb Haberlandt, Stefan Zweig, English Cottage by Andrew Sankey, and William Blake

November 28, 2022 The Royal Society of London, Matsuo Basho, Gottlieb Haberlandt, Stefan Zweig, English Cottage by Andrew Sankey, and William Blake

Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community Historical Events 1660 On this day, the first meeting occurred of what would become The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. The Royal Society's Latin motto, 'Nullius in verba,' translates to "Take nobody's word for it." The motto reminded the Society's members to verify information through experiments and not just based on authority. 1694 Death of Matsuo Basho ("Bash=oh"), Japanese poet. He is remembered as the most famous poet of the Edo period and the greatest master of haiku. In one verse, Matsuo wrote, The temple bell stops But I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. And in another poem from his book on traveling, he wrote, Many things of the past Are brought to my mind, As I stand in the garden Staring at a cherry tree. 1854 Birth of Gottlieb Haberlandt, Austrian botanist. His father was a pioneer in 'soybean' work, and his physiologist son is now regarded as the grandfather of the birth control pill. As for Gottlieb, he grew plant cells in tissue culture and was the first scientist to point out the possibility of the culture of Isolated & Plant Tissues. In 1902 he shared his original idea called totipotentiality ("to-'ti-pe-tent-chee-al-it-tee"), which Gottlieb defined as "the theory that all plant cells can give rise to a complete plant." Today we remember Gottlieb as the father of plant tissue culture. During the 1950s scientists proved Gottlieb's totipotentiality. Indeed, any part of a plant grown in nutrient media under sterile conditions can create a whole new plant. Today, the technique of tissue culture is a very efficient tool for propagating improved plants for food, hardiness, and beauty. 1881 Birth of Stefan Zweig, Austrian writer. During the 1920s and 1930s, at the peak of his career, Stefan was one of the most widely translated writers in the world. In The Post-Office Girl, Stefan wrote, For this quiet, unprepossessing, passive man who has no garden in front of his subsidised flat, books are like flowers. He loves to line them up on the shelf in multicoloured rows: he watches over each of them with an old-fashioned gardener's delight, holds them like fragile objects in his thin, bloodless hands. Grow That Garden LibraryTM Book Recommendation English Cottage by Andrew Sankey This book came out in 2022, and it is a master guide to cottage-style gardening. The chapters in this book cover: The History of the Cottage Garden, Creating the "Cottage Garden Style, Cottage Planting Style, Cottage Flowers, Companion Planting, Green Structure, and Traditional Features. In the Preface, Andrew shares a bit about his background and how he came to master English Cottage Gardening. My first introduction to the style of the English cottage garden came when I was given a copy of Margery Fish's book, We Made a Garden. Having been enthralled with the book, I then traveled down to Somerset to see her wonderful cottage garden at East Lambrook Manor. Shortly after this, Geoff Hamilton started to construct his cottage gardens for the BBC Gardeners' World programs and it soon became apparent that this was the style of gardening I myself wished to adopt. Not long after this I moved to Lincolnshire and started my own garden design/landscaping business, and I soon realized it was difficult to obtain the more unusual plants required for number of my garden designs, in particular plants for dry shade positions. This encouraged me to look for a larger garden with the potential to run a small specialist nursery. This resulted in purchasing Grade II listed cottage (built in 1852) with a good-sized old cottage garden. Although the original garde...

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undefined - November 30, 2022 Martha Ballard, Mark Twain, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Frank Nicholas Meyer, The Wood by John Lewis-Stempel, and the Crystal Palace Fire

November 30, 2022 Martha Ballard, Mark Twain, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Frank Nicholas Meyer, The Wood by John Lewis-Stempel, and the Crystal Palace Fire

Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community Historical Events 1791 On this day, Martha Ballard recorded her work as an herbalist and midwife. For 27 years, Martha kept a journal of her work as the town healer and midwife for Hallowell, Maine. In all, Martha assisted with 816 births. Today, Martha's marvelous journal gives us a glimpse into the plants she regularly used and how she applied them medicinally. As for how Martha sourced her plants, she raised them in her garden or foraged them in the wild. As the village apothecary, Martha found her ingredients and personally made all of her herbal remedies. Two hundred twenty-nine years ago today, Martha recorded her work to help her sick daughter. She wrote, My daughter Hannah is very unwell this evening. I gave her some Chamomile & Camphor. Today we know that Chamomile has a calming effect, and Camphor can help treat skin conditions, improve respiratory function, and relieve pain. 1835 Birth of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (known by his pen name Mark Twain), American writer and humorist. Samuel used the garden and garden imagery to convey his wit and satire. In 1874, Samuel's sister, Susan, and her husband built a shed for him to write in. They surprised him with it when Samuel visited their farm in upstate New York. The garden shed was ideally situated on a hilltop overlooking the Chemung ("Sha-mung") River Valley. Like Roald Dahl, Samuel smoked as he wrote, and his sister despised his incessant pipe smoking. In this little octagonal garden/writing shed, Samuel wrote significant sections of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Prince and the Pauper, A Tramp Abroad, and many other short works. And in 1952, Samuel's octagonal shed was relocated to Elmira College ("EI-MEER-ah") campus in Elmira, New York. Today, people can visit the garden shed with student guides daily throughout the summer and by appointment in the off-season. Here are some garden-related thoughts by Mark Twain. Climate is what we expect; the weather is what we get. It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream and as lonesome as Sunday. To get the full value of joy You must have someone to divide it with. After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the garden with her than inside it without her. 1874 Birth of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian writer and author of the Anne of Green Gables series. Lucy was born on Prince Edward Island and was almost two years old when her mother died. Like her character in Ann of Green Gables, Lucy had an unconventional upbringing when her father left her to be raised by her grandparents. Despite being a Canadian literary icon and loved worldwide, Lucy's personal life was marred by loneliness, death, and depression. Historians now believe she may have ended her own life. Yet we know that flowers and gardening were a balm to Lucy. She grew lettuce, peas, carrots, radish, and herbs in her kitchen garden. And Lucy had a habit of going to the garden after finishing her writing and chores about the house. Today in Norval, a place Lucy lived in her adult life, the Lucy Maud Montgomery Sensory Garden is next to the public school. The Landscape Architect, Eileen Foley, created the garden, which features an analemmatic (horizontal sundial), a butterfly and bird garden, a children's vegetable garden, a log bridge, and a woodland trail. It was Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote, I love my garden, and I love working in it. To potter with green growing things, watching each day to see the dear, new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think. Just now, my garden is like faith, the substance of things hoped for. 1875 Birth of Frank Nicholas Meyer, Dutch-American plant explorer. Frank worked as an intrepid explorer for the USDA, and he traveled to Asia to find and collect new plant specimens. His work netted 2,500 new plants, including the be...