Apr 21, 2021
Today we celebrate a man who found all the answers to life in
nature, and we still learn from his profound observations
today.
We'll also learn about a botanist and publisher who found fame and
forged meaningful connections with top botanical illustrators and
horticulturists of his time.
We’ll hear an excerpt about spring in Paris from an American author
and journalist who lives in France.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a fun fiction book about a botany
major who feels a kinship with plants on the brink of
extinction.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a little article published on
this day in 1985 about ferns from the great garden writer Frances
Perry.
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Important Events
April 21, 1838
Today is the birthday of the Scottish-American naturalist,
conservationist, and author John Muir.
Muir was known by many names: "John of the Mountains,” “Father of
Yosemite,” and "Father of the National Parks.” In particular,
John’s work to preserve Yosemite resulted in a famous picture of
Muir posing with President Teddy Roosevelt on Overhanging Rock at
the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite in 1903.
And, when I was researching Charles Sprague Sargent (the first
director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in Boston), I
stumbled on a fun little story about John and Charles that was
featured in a 1915 article. It’s a favorite of mine because
it highlights the personality differences between the extroverted
John Muir and the very serious Charles Sargent.
It turns out that the two men had gone on a trip one fall to hike
the mountains in North Carolina. John wrote,
"The autumn frosts were just beginning, and the mountains and
higher hilltops were gorgeous.
We climbed slope after slope through the trees till we came out on
the bare top of Grandfather Mountain.
There it all lay in the sun below us, ridge beyond ridge, each with
its typical tree-covering and color, all blended with the darker
shades of the pines and the green of the deep valleys. . . .
I couldn't hold in and began to jump about and sing and glory in it
all.
Then I happened to look round and catch sight of [Charles Sargent]
standing there as cool as a rock, with a half-amused look on his
face at me but never saying a word.
"Why don't you let yourself out at a sight like that?" I said.
"I don't wear my heart upon my sleeve," he retorted.
"Who cares where you wear your little heart, man?" I cried.
"There you stand in the face of all Heaven come down on earth, like
a critic of the universe, as if to say, Come, Nature, bring on the
best you have: I'm from BOSTON!"
It was John Muir who said these wonderful quotes:
The mountains are calling, and I must go.
In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he
seeks.
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and
pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and
soul.
Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.
April 21, 1864
Today is the anniversary of the death of the English bookseller,
printer, publisher, pharmacist, and botanist, Benjamin Maund.
Benjamin had a large garden where he enjoyed cultivating seeds from
around the world. He had a special curiosity about wheat and was
interested in crossing and growing different wheat cultivars. He
even exhibited wheat and gave talks on it when he had time. In
1846, an English newspaper reported that Benjamin was the first
botanist to attempt to improve wheat through hybridization.
On Christmas day in 1813, after his father died, Benjamin bought a
bookstore and publishing house. The entrepreneurial move would set
the stage for his greatest work - a monthly publication designed to
be both useful and affordable called, The Botanic
Garden. Despite the publication’s London imprint, Benjamin
lived and worked in the small market town of Bromsgrove all of his
life.
Published between 1825 and 1850, The Botanic
Garden brought Benjamin notoriety and authority. Benjamin
became a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and he even corresponded
with other top botanists like Darwin’s mentor, John Stevens Henslow
of Cambridge University.
Benjamin’s main goal was to share “hardy ornamental flowering
plants, cultivated in Great Britain.” Each monthly edition of The
Botanic Garden featured a colored illustration of four different
flowers, along with four pages of descriptive text.
As a result, Benjamin worked with some of the best botanical
artists of his time, including Augusta Withers, Priscilla Bury, and
Edwin Smith. In fact, Benjamin’s own daughters, Eliza and Sarah,
experimented with botanical illustration, and their work was also
featured in the publication.
Today, all of the issues of The Botanic Garden, along with over
1200 pieces of original botanical art produced for publication, are
preserved at the Natural History Museum in London.
Benjamin also introduced a biennial to Britain - the Spiny
Plumeless Thistle or Welted Thistle (Carduus acanthoides
"KARD-ew-us "ah-kan-THOY-deez"). As with most thistles, the Welted
Thistle is an invasive herb that can grow one to four feet tall. It
has a thick taproot that can grow to a foot long, and the purple to
pink flower can appear individually or in clusters. Although it is
a thistle, the Welted Thistle bloom is really quite pretty.
Poignantly, sixty-four years after his death, Benjamin’s hometown
memorialized him with a tablet showing his head surrounded by a
wreath of Carduus acanthoides.
Unearthed Words
Spring had come to the market as well. Everywhere there were young
green things, the tips of asparagus, young leeks no bigger than
scallions. There was crisp arugula, curled and tangled, and fresh
green peas, plump in their pods.
I had no idea what I wanted to make for dinner. This didn't pose a
problem; on the contrary, it was an opportunity, a
mini-adventure.
The season's new ingredients brought new ideas. The first baby
tomatoes were coming in from Sicily. I bought a box of small red
globes still on the vine and a red onion in my favorite childhood
shade of royal purple.
Maybe I would make a salsa for the dorade (do-rahd) I'd picked up
at the fishmonger.
I imagined a bright confetti, the tomatoes mixed with freshly
chopped coriander, maybe a sunny mango.
― Elizabeth Bard, American author, Lunch in Paris: A Love Story,
with Recipes
Grow That Garden Library
Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol
This botany-inspired fiction book came out in 2017 with a theme
centered around endangered plants and a premise that examines how
to stay true to the people you care about while trying to change
the world.
In this book, Ellen Meeropol tells the story of a botany major at
the University of Massachusetts, named Jeremy who feels a kinship
with plants that are nearing or have become extinct. Jeremy first
appeared in Ellen’s book House Arrest as a nine-year-old child who
had survived family trauma and found safety in the family
greenhouse where he loved to draw plants.
This book is 248 pages of one young man’s struggle to fight for the
environment and climate justice without losing the people he
loves.
You can get a copy of Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol
and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes
for around $5
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
April 21, 1985
On this day, the garden writer, Frances Perry, shared a charming
article in her regular gardening column in The
Observer about how to grow a fern spore. She wrote:
My father-in-law, Amos Perry, once told me that if I pushed a
stopperless bottle upside down in moist shady soil, a fern would
grow inside it. So I did just that and then forgot
it.
Two years later, while separating some large hellebore plants,
we came across the old bottle. Sure enough, there was a baby fern
growing inside. The spores; can survive in their millions until
conditions for growth are right.
Next, Frances shared how to propagate ferns:
The best way to propagate [ferns] is by division. This is a
good time both to plant and divide.
Propagation by means of spores is more laborious. Towards the
end of summer, the spores are found on the backs of mature fronds.
When ripe, they can be shaken off, then sown on fine soil in a pot
or pan. Do not cover with soil, but lay a pane of glass over the
top to maintain humidity. Stand the pot in a saucer with a little
rainwater at its base. Keep the temperature at about 65 degrees
Fahrenheit, and remove the glass for about an hour daily to change
the air. Wipe it dry before returning.
Eventually, green cushion-like bodies will appear… Later, first
tiny green leaves... It will be at least another 12 months before
good plants are produced.
Finally, Frances highlights a variety of ferns. Regarding Queen
Victoria’s fern, she wrote,
Queen Victoria's Fern, Athyrium filix-femina
'Victoriae' ("ah-THEER-ee-um FY-lix--FEM-in-uh”), which has its
3-foot fronds and all their pinnae (segments) crossed to form V’s
as well as boasting crested edges, was found near a Scottish cart
track more than a century ago.
Regarding the Royal Fern, Frances said,
No waterside fern is more regal than the Royal
Fern, Osmunda regalis ("oz-MUN-duh ray-GAH-lis"), the 8-
to10-foot fronds once sheltered an ancient British king, Osmund,
from marauding Danes.
Then Frances shared her favorite ferns for wet gardens and indoor
spaces. She wrote:
Good ferns for soggy spots include all of
the Heart's Tongues; the Netted
Chain Fern, Woodwardia areolata ("wood-WAR-dee-ah
arr-ee-oh-LAY-ta"), a creeping plant for swampy ground,
and the Dwarf Oak Fern, Gymnocarpium
dryopteris 'Plumosum' ("jim-n-oh-KAR-pi-um dry-OP-ter-is
ploom-oh-sim").
Ferns suitable for indoor culture include
most Maidenhairs, Adiantums
("AYE-dee-ANT-ums") — which incidentally loathe tobacco smoke
— the Hare's Foot [or the Squirrel's
Foot fern], Davallia fejeensis, (“duh-vall-ee-uh fee-jay-en-sis”) —
ideal for hanging baskets with its brown exposed tubers like animal
paws, the long-fronded aptly-named Ladder
Ferns (Nephrolepis "nef-ro-LEP-iss" varieties - like
the sword fern or Boston fern) and the Bird's Nest
Fern, Asplenium nidus "as-PLEE-nee-um Nye-dis"; which
produces 24-inch fronds shuttlecock fashion in a wide
circle.
In nature, Asplenium perches on trees, but our 20-year-old does
very well in a large flower pot. I only water into the center of
the plant, not into the soil.
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.