September 20, 2019 The Harvest That Never Came, Lorenz Scholz von Rosenau, Margherita Caffi, Mary Sophie Young, Anna Pavord, Carl Sandburg, Big Dreams, Small Garden by Marianne Willburn, Pot Up Herbs for Indoors, and the Rhodum sidus

Sep 20, 2019

Folklore and legends are often intertwined with plants and gardens. 

Today, I stumbled on a Swedish Legend called "The Harvest That Never Came" and I thought you'd get a kick out of it. The story has been used in lesson plans, to teach kids problem solving. I'm going to abbreviate it a bit, but I'll share a link to a good English translation in today's show notes.

A young man named Arild was the son of a Danish noble family. He had fallen in love with a girl from Sweden named Thale. But, in the midst of their romance, Denmark and Sweden declared war on each other.

Arild, who served in the war as a Danish Knight, was captured by the Swedes and thrown in prison. While he was in prison, Arild received a note from Thala, his true love. 

"My dearest Arild,
I promised to wait for you forever, but I fear I will not be allowed to. My father says you will never return, and he has chosen another man to be my husband... He has already set the marriage date.
I will love you always.
Your faithful Thale"
 
Now, Arild was not about to die in prison, and he was certainly not going to lose Thale. So, he came up with an offer and he presented it to King Erik of Sweden in the form of a letter:

"Your Royal Majesty,
Grant me one favor. Let me go home to marry the woman I love. Then allow me to stay only long enough to plant a crop and harvest it.
On my word of honor (as a knight), I will return to your prison as soon as the harvest is gathered."
 
The King granted Arild's request and Arild married Thale. In the Spring, Arild decided on a crop and he planted the seeds placing them each of them six paces apart.

In the Fall, after the Harvest season had passed, King Erik sent a messenger to summon Arild back to prison.

Arild looked at the messenger with surprise, saying, "My crop is not harvested... Indeed it has not yet even sprouted!”

The messenger looked perplexed and said, "Not sprouted? What did you plant?"

Arild's reply revealed the cleverness of his plan: "Pine Trees."

When King Erik heard Arild's story he wisely judged, “A man like that does not deserve to be in prison.”

"And so, Arild was allowed to remain home with his beloved Thale. And a magnificent forest stands today as a testament to his love."


 
 
Brevities

#OTD  Today is the birthday of the botanist and physician Lorenz Scholz von Rosenau who was born on this day in 1552.

The information history has preserved about Scholz gives us a rare glimpse into the botanical life of a dedicated plantsman in the 1500's. Like many early botanists, he was very well educated and he was a polyglot; reading, writing, and speaking many languages. 

One of the most important endeavors accomplished by Scholz was translating medical references which were written in Greek and Arabic. He took that information, along with references written by peers around Europe, and put together a reference book that combined all of the best medical information of his time. His work proved so valuable in helping to teach people about the plague, that he earned a coat of arms and nobility title, the Scholz von Rosenau" name in 1596.

As for botanical activities, Scholz was way ahead of his time. He grew potatoes - a dubious activity during his day and age, and one few gardeners would have pursued - because people were afraid of night shade plants. And, Scholz had a massive garden even by today's standards - over 7 acres. I love the description of the layout for Scholz's garden: four quadrants, big central pathways, and smack in the middle of all of it was a building that historians say was used to entertain; Scholz had designed it to serve both as a dining hall and an art gallery.

Clearly, Scholz was a people person and he loved entertaining his friends and family at his garden. During the growing season, Scholz would hold gatherings he called "flower festivals" in his garden to delight his friends and family. 



 
#OTD  Today is the anniversary of the death of Margherita Caffi who died on this day in 1710. 

Caffi was an Italian painter who was able to have a long career painting still life flower & fruit compositions.The men in her family were painters, but Caffi was self-taught. A mother of four who was pursuing a craft outside of the norm for her times, Caffi had an incredible work ethic. But, her efforts paid off; Caffi achieved fame and even royal patronage during a time when female painters were not embraced.

A quick Google search of Caffi will reveal that she loved tulips, roses, peonies and carnations; she loved to paint their delicate forms and felt that their tremendous colors - the soft pinks, the vibrant reds, the remarkable shades of yellow and orange - were best displayed against a dark background.

Caffi's art is formal and elegant; she painted on silk, canvas and vellum.
 
 
#OTD   Today is the birthday of botanist and explorer Mary Sophie Young who was born on this day in 1872.

In 2017, Nicole Elmer wrote a lovely profile of Young which was featured on the website for the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. Here are some highlights from Elmer's profile:

When Mary Sophie was born in Glendale, Ohio to an Episcopalian minister and his wife, she was undoubtedly the answer to her parents prayers; they had already had seven boys by they time Mary Sophie was born.

Growing up with brothers was formative for Young; she often said she felt that playing with them outside had made her tough and that the experience had helped her withstand the challenging conditions often faced by botanists during plant collecting expeditions.

Young ended up getting her PhD from the University of Chicago. By the fall of 1910, she was on the faculty at the University of Texas; she had landed a job in the botany department.

In two short years, Young was put in charge of the herbarium which already housed 2500 specimens; but had never had a curator. Young immediately set about adding to the herbarium through her  collecting. 

Early on, as a collector in Austin, Young began publishing her work and she would often correspond with others using the simply sign-off  "M.S. Young" which masked the fact that she was female. Young wrote in the manner that she spoke; very directly. To Young's delight, while exchanging letters, many people who read her prose and her initials and would incorrectly assume that she was a man. It gave her an immense feeling of satisfaction.

In Elmer's post about Young, she wrote:

"Young’s favorite area to collect was West Texas, and she traveled there during [her] vacation[s].... [in the] the summers of 1914, 1915, 1916, and 1918... Young would hire a younger man to accompany her, usually a university student, to assist with hunting and setting up camp. Young also paid part of her expenses on these collecting trips and donated her time. While in West Texas, she collected from ferns, grasses, cacti, large trees, and sedges."

Young recorded her 1914 trip in a journal. 

Elmer wrote that,

"Young [expressed] awe at the landscape... of being in the vastness of West Texas at the turn of the century:

“It’s about five o’clock now. The ‘lonely’ time is beginning. The air is very transparent and very still and everything glistens. There is something of that uncanny fee ling of the consciousness of inanimate things.”

In February 1919 Young was diagnosed with advanced cancer. She died a month later at the age of 46 . She had served as curator for seven years and in that time she had added almost 14,000 specimens to the University of Texas herbarium. Today, the herbarium occupies eight floors of the Tower; an iconic part of the University of Texas Landscape.
 


 
#OTD  Today is the birthday of the garden writer Anna Pavord. 

In her 2010 book,The Curious Gardener, Pavord, culled articles from her newspaper column. Here's an excerpt:

"It was at our first house and on the first patch of ground that we actually owned that I really discovered the point of gardening. It wasn’t a Pauline conversion. There was no sudden, blinding vision of beauty. I didn’t see myself (still don’t) trolling through bowers of roses, straw hat just so, gathering blooms into a basket. Nor had I any idea at first of the immense joy of growing food. But I had at least begun to understand that gardening, if it is to be satisfying, requires some sense of permanency. Roots matter. The longer you stay put, the richer the rewards.

"I also realized how completely I had missed the point as a child. Gardening was not necessarily about an end result. The doing was what mattered. At this time too, I learned about gardening as therapy."
 
 
 
Unearthed Words

"Under the harvest moon, 
When the soft silver 
Drips shimmering 
Over the garden nights, 
Death, the gray mocker, 
Comes and whispers to you 
As a beautiful friend 
Who remembers." 

- Carl Sandburg, Under the Harvest Moon



Today's book recommendation: Big Dreams, Small Garden by Marianne Willburn

Big Dreams, Small Garden is Willburn's Guide to Creating Something Extraordinary in Your Ordinary Space.

As a columnist and Master Gardener for over 20 years, Willburn is used to talking to people who long to create the garden space of their dreams, but find that something in their circumstances is getting in the way of that dream.

If that situation describes you, Willburn's guide will be your inInspiration to getting unstuck and getting the garden you are hoping for; whether that's a restful outdoor space for entertaining or a garden to supply edibles for cooking.

Stop waiting for “the perfect place” and start the process of visualizing, achieving, maintaining, and enjoying your unfolding garden.

Willburn  gives you tips for making a sanctuary in less-than-ideal situations and profiles real-life gardeners who have done just that—including the author herself.
 
 
Today's Garden Chore

Pot up some herbs to bring indoors.
This is an excellent weekend to pot up some of your herbs to grow through the fall and winter on the kitchen windowsill. I like to bring in mint and parsley, as well as rosemary, basil, and cilantro. And don't forget that your windowsill is a great place to sprout scallions which will happily grow in a vase of water - right next to the herbs on your windowsill.
 
 
Something Sweet 
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart

On this day in 1910, The Rutland Daily Herald out of Vermont shared this utterly charming story about a little-known flower called the Rhodum sidus:

An amusing story told by Hood describes how a country nurseryman made a large sum out of sales of a simple little flower that he sold under the name of Rhodum sidus.
 
This charming name proved quite an attraction to the ladies and the flower became the sage of the season.
 
It was one of those freaks of fashion for which there is no accounting.
 
At length a botanist  who found that the plant was [a common] weed requested to know where the nursery man got the name from.
 
He elicited the following reply:
 
“I found this flower in the road beside us, so christened it the Rhodum sidus.”
 
 
Thanks for listening to the daily gardener,
and remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."