Feb 4, 2020
Today we celebrate the Swiss botanist who started a botanical
Dynasty and the man who coined the term osmosis.
We’ll learn about the American landscape architect who made England
his home and cheered on so many gardeners with his book Successful
Town Gardening.
Today’s Unearthed Words feature words about winter.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about hunting for
medicinal plants in the Amazon.
I’ll talk about a garden item to help you get growing
and then we’ll wrap things up with the early spring warm-up of 1931
- it was extraordinary.
But first, let’s catch up on a few recent events.
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Curated Articles
American Gardens: An
American Garden In Bath
American gardens: an American garden in Bath by Gardens Illustrated
@gdnsillustrated
What is an American garden? Discover more with our focus on the new
garden at the American Museum and Garden in Bath
Gardens: Weeds To Love And Loathe | Life And Style | The
Guardian
Weeds to love and loath, an excerpt from Wild about Weeds by
@JackWallington
Now, if you’d like to check out these curated articles for
yourself, you’re in luck, because I share all of it
with the Listener Community in the
Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener
Community.
There’s no need to take notes or search for links - the next time
you’re on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request
to join. I’d love to meet you in the group.
Important Events
1778Today is the birthday of the Swiss botanist
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle.
Candolle named hundreds of plants. His seven-volume monumental
work, Prodromus, was an effort to characterize all of the plant
families and establishing the basis for the science of botany. He
only finished two volumes. Augustin’s Candolle descendants would
finish Prodromus after extensive and detailed research. His famous
son, Alphonse, was born the year Linnaeus died. In 1855, Alphonse
was awarded the Linnean gold medal.
Augustin’s grandson, Casimir, was devoted to the study of the
pepper plant family or the Piperaceae ("PIE-per-aye-see-ee"). The
most commonly-known species in the family is Piper nigrum
("PIE-purr NYE-grum") - a flowering vine that gives us peppercorns
that are ground to become black Pepper. The biggest consumer of
Pepper, at almost 20% of the world’s total Pepper crop, is the
United States. During the middle ages, pound for pound peppercorns
was worth more than silver.
Augustin de Candolle’s great-grandson, Richard Émile, was also a
botanist. He died unexpectedly at the age of 51. After his death,
the enormous Candolle family herbarium and Library - built over
four generations was donated to the city of Geneva.
Augustin’s great living legacy is the Botanical Garden of
Geneva.
1847Today is the anniversary of the death of the
French botanist and physiologist Henri Dutrochet.
After studying the movement of sap in plants in his home
laboratory, Dutrochet discovered and named osmosis. Dutrochet
shared his discovery with the Paris Academy of Sciences on October
30th, 1826.
Like the cells in our own human bodies, plants don’t drink water;
they absorb it by osmosis.
Dutrochet also figured out that the green pigment, chlorophyll, in
a plant is essential to how plants take up carbon dioxide.
Photosynthesis could not happen without chlorophyll, which helps
plants get energy from light. And chlorophyll gives plants their
color. Have you ever asked yourself why plants are green? Long
story short, chlorophyll reflects green light, which makes the
plant appear green.
Dutrochet was a true pioneer in plant research. He was the first to
examine plant respiration, light sensitivity, and geotropism (How
the plant responds to gravity, ie, roots grow down to the
ground.)
The upward growth of plants against gravity is called negative
geotropism, and downward growth of roots is called positive
geotropism. The plant part that responds to positive geotropism is
at the very end of the root, and it is called the root cap. So,
what makes the roots turn downward as they grow? The root cap -
responding to positive geotropism.
1879Today John H. Heinz received a patent for an
improvement to Vegetable-Assorters - the machines used for sorting
produce like fruits, vegetables, etc.
I, myself, have created some excellent vegetable sorters - their
names are Will, Emma, PJ, & John.
1912Today is the birthday of the American
landscape architect, consummate plantsman, and writer who made
England his home - Lanning Roper.
When Vita Sackville-West read Lanning’s book Successful Town
Gardening she wrote,
“The book I have been reading, and which has cheered me up so much
as to the answers I can in future return, is called Successful Town
Gardening by Lanning Roper.”
Today, Lanning’s book is regarded as a classic garden book. Many
people use the wintertime as a chance to reconnect with the garden
and dream about the following season as they read or reread
Successful Town Gardening.
Lanning’s grandfather was William Hartley Eveleth, who served as
the Superintendent of the college grounds for Harvard University
and Radcliffe College. Lanning, himself, went to Harvard and
graduated in 1933.
After Harvard, Landing enlisted in the Navy, and he ended up in
charge of division 67, which is where he found himself on D-Day.
After D-day, Lanning had a six-week deployment near the great
Rothschild estate. He fell in love with the rhododendrons, the
woodland, the gardens, and England.
He decided to train as a gardener at the Royal Botanic Gardens at
Kew and then pursued more training at Edinburgh (ED-in-bruh).” He
began working as an editor for the Royal Horticultural Society. And
In 1952, Lanning fell in love with a woman named Primrose. Primrose
Harley. She was a muralist and a gardener. Her parents had named
her Primrose because she was born on Primrose Day, April 19th,
1908. Primrose worked with Lanning on his many landscape
projects.
When it came to his gardens, Lanning wanted romance. Known as the
father of borders, Lanning liked to see flowers spilling into paths
- like lavender and roses. He wanted walls to be covered in vines -
and more roses. As a designer, Lanning had a knack for creating
beautiful hardscapes like paths and walkways. But, Lanning also
cautioned about planting too much. He said,
“Over-planting is a fault common to most gardeners. If you plant
three shrubs that will grow quickly to fill an area where one alone
would have been sufficient, two things may happen. If you remove
two, the remaining one is in the wrong place. If you leave all
three, they perhaps will be poor specimens, lacking the
characteristic natural grace of the species.”
Lanning designed nearly 150 gardens during his career. His work has
mostly joined the many gardens that can only be seen through
pictures or through the words that sang their praises. In 1987,
Jane Brown wrote the only volume on Lanning Roper and his gardens.
It it loaded with beautiful images of Lanning's
gardens. You
can get a used copy of Lanning Roper & His Gardens and support the
show, using the Amazon Link in today’s Show Notes for under
$6. But hurry, because I predict there won’t be
many left of this gem in the coming decades.
At the end of his life, Lanning was picked to completely redesign
the garden at a new estate called Highgrove, which had recently
been purchased by Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Camilla Parker
Bowles had recommended Lanning; he had beautifully designed her
parents’ garden in the 1960s.
Lanning noted that,
“the soil at Highgrove is alkaline, very different to the acid soil
of the gardens which Prince Charles is used to at Windsor,
Sandringham, and Balmoral where rhododendron and azalea
flourish.”
Lanning said,
“Highgrove is ideal for lilac, roses and flowering shrubs, which
make some of the prettiest gardens [and] Prince Charles [wanted
Highgrove, his first garden,] to be fragrant.”
Sadly, Lanning never had the chance to do the work, his cancer was
taking a toll, and he declined the job.
It was Lanning Roper who said,
“People like myself are lucky to follow a profession which is so
absorbing, satisfying, and pleasurable that at times it is not easy
to decide where work ends and recreation begins.”
Unearthed Words
Here are some words about winter:
In winter, the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon
achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more
exalted simplicity. Summer is more wooing and seductive, more
versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments,
and fosters inquiry and the art impulse. Winter is of a more heroic
cast, and addresses the intellect. The severe studies and
disciplines come easier in winter.
— John Burroughs, American naturalist and nature
writer
Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.
— Paul Theroux, American travel writer, and
novelist
How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose if there were
no winter in our year!
— Thomas Wentworth Higginson, American Unitarian minister,
and abolitionist
He knows no winter, he who loves the soil,
For, stormy days, when he is free from toil,
He plans his summer crops, selects his seeds
From bright-paged catalogs for garden needs.
When looking out upon frost-silvered fields,
He visualizes autumn’s golden yields;
He sees in snow and sleet and icy rain
Precious moisture for his early grain;
He hears spring-heralds in the storm’s ‘turmoil
He knows no winter, he who loves the soil.”
— Sudie Bower Stuart Hager, Idaho’s Poet Laureate, He Knows
No Winter
Grow That Garden Library
Witch Doctor’s Apprentice by Nicole
Maxwell
The subtitle to this book is: Hunting for Medicinal Plants in the
Amazon
This memoir features Nicole Maxwell who was hunting for medicinal
plants in the rainforest. Despite setbacks and disillusionment, she
never lost sight of her goals.
Maxwell, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, was scouring
the Amazon rainforest for clues to ancient medicinal plants and
practices.
Maxwell has created an appendix that catalogs all of the plants
mentioned in the text, with their scientific names, the names by
which they are known locally, and their medicinal uses. This
edition also includes a new introduction by the noted ethnobotanist
Terence McKenna.
“A spirited and engrossing personal narrative, as much about people
and places, discomforts, and dangers, the beauty of the
jungle."
You can get a used copy of Witch Doctor’s Apprentice by
Nicole Maxwell and support the show, using the Amazon Link in
today’s Show Notes for under $6.
Great Gifts for Gardeners
LED Grow Lights, Full Spectrum Panel Grow Lamp with IR & UV
LED Plant Lights for Indoor Plants, Micro Greens, Clones,
Succulents, Seedlings
$18.44
Full Spectrum Plant Light - equipped with 75 High-power LED
chips:47 Red 19Blue 3UV 3IR 3White. NOTE: The UV and IR LEDs are
particularly DIM, but it is normal. PANEL SIZE: 12.2 * 4.7 *1.2
inches
Wide Uses - This light can be used for both hydroponics and indoor
plants in soil, mainly used for small plants, micro-greens, and
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Today’s Botanic Spark
1931On this day newspapers were reporting a
shocking headline from Brainerd, Minnesota: Pansies In Bloom:
“A bed of pansies came into full bloom today in a farm garden near
Brainerd, the center of a section famous for severe winters. Other
February oddities: Lilac trees were budding. Girls were playing
tennis. Boys were shooting marbles. Men were pitching horseshoes.
The temperature was climbing toward 60 above.”