Feb 19, 2021
Today we look back at the story that inspired the book The
Orchid Thief.
We'll also learn about the incredible true story of a Madagascar
explorer.
We hear words about the incredible Algerian Iris.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a memoir from a garden who pulls
back the row cover on the remarkable story of her magnificent
garden - a place she called Duck Hill.
And then we’ll wrap things up with the story of an incredible
naturalist and botanist who had some very eclectic habits
concerning preserving and utilizing specimens.
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Important Events
February 19, 1962
Today is the birthday of the American horticulturist John Laroche
("La Rōsh").
Before John was arrested for poaching wild ghost orchids, he was a
typical horticulturist. In the late 1980s, John was active in the
Bromeliad ("brow·mee·lee·ad) Society of Broward County, and he was
giving lectures on topics like “Growing Bromeliads from Seeds” and
“New Techniques in Bromeliad Culture.”
By the early 1990s, John’s attention turned to orchids, and this
passion would end up becoming a story fit for a book. One of the
first newspapers to share the story was the Indiana
Gazette on June 14, 1993:
“Susan Orlean's… "The
Orchid Thief" tells the tale of John Laroche... When a
fascination with orchids overtook him, he... conceived a scheme
that would benefit the Seminoles, the world, and himself.
Using the Seminoles' exemption from laws against picking orchids in
the wild, he helped himself to rare specimens growing in a Florida
swamp called the Fakahatchee ("Fack-ah-HATCH-ee") Strand State
Preserve.
His plan was to clone them by the millions, make them available to
fanciers everywhere and thus save them in their wild state by
obviating the need to pick them. Not incidentally, he would make a
fortune for the Seminoles and himself.
But the law did not agree, and Laroche was arrested and convicted
for poaching.
Attracted by an article on Laroche's arrest, Susan Orlean, a
reporter for The New Yorker, traveled to Florida,
befriended Laroche, and got him to introduce her to his world.
Near the opening of The
Orchid Thief, Susan describes how she approaches her
subjects,
"I read lots of local newspapers and particularly the shortest
articles in them, and most particularly any articles that are full
of words in combinations that are arresting. In the case of the
orchid story, I was interested to see the words 'swamp' and
'orchids' and 'Seminoles' and 'cloning' and 'criminal' together in
one short piece."
Today it’s estimated that only around 2,000 ghost orchids remain in
Florida.
February 19, 1932
On this day, The Shreveport Journal shared a
story about the botanist Charles Swingle and his quest to find the
Euphorbia Intisy ("in-tah-ZEE").
“Charles Swingle was the first American botanist to set foot on the
island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. He was on the trail of a
peculiar rubber plant called "Intisy," which government scientists
thought might be grown In our own Southwest.
When this young American arrived in Madagascar, he found he was
just 15 minutes too late to catch a little coastwise boat heading
to the south. The natives simply couldn't understand his
disappointment.
"Oh sir," they said, "another boat will arrive in six weeks. In the
meantime, there is rice for all —so there is nothing to worry
about, good sir" In the native Malagash language, there is no word
for "time."
They spend a few days a year planting, transplanting, and
harvesting rice—and there's enough food for all.
"Don't the natives ever get tired of rice?" I asked Dr.
Swingle.
"Not at all" be explained, "If they get tired of white rice they
change to red rice or blue rice or brown As many as 64 varieties
grow in Madagascar And then there are special delicacies to go with
it—delicacies that are for those who like dried grasshoppers and
locusts."
Dr. Swingle made daily trips to the village markets to get peanuts,
bananas, pineapples, guavas, mangoes, or papayas to add to the
hotel diet of rice.
On the sixteenth day of his march into the southern brush, Dr.
Swingle sighted the first of his long-sought for plants—the Intisy
plants. The curious bulbous roots were filled with water—the best
they had had for many a day.
And the milky latex which oozed from its trunk was found to be pure
rubber.”
The Euphorbia Intisy is a large, succulent tree growing up to
almost 25 feet tall. Thanks to Charles Swingle, the plant was
experimentally cultivated in the American Southwest.
Unearthed Words
Kindliness, so far as the Algerian Iris is concerned, consists in
starving it. Rich cultivation makes it run to leaf rather than to
flower. What it really enjoys is being grown in a miserably poor
soil, mostly composed of old lime and mortar rubble and even
gravel: a gritty mixture at the foot of a sunny wall, the grittier
and the sunnier, the better. Sun and poverty are the two things it
likes.
You should search your clumps of the grass-like leaves every day
for possible buds, and pull the promising Bud while it still looks
like a tiny, tightly rolled umbrella, and then bring it indoors and
watch it open up under a lamp. If you have the patience to watch
for long enough, you will see this miracle happen.
If you have not yet got this Iris in your garden and want to
acquire it, you can plant it in March or April; but September is
the best time for transplanting. It does not much like being split
up and moved, so whenever you require it, do make sure that it does
not get too dry until it has had time to establish itself. After
that, it will give you no trouble.
— Vita Sackville West, English author and garden
designer, In
Your Garden, Algerian Iris
Grow That Garden Library
Embroidered Ground by Page Dickey
This book came out in 2012, and the subtitle is Revisiting
the Garden.
In this book, Page recounts her journey as she created her
magnificent garden, Duck Hill, in upstate New York. Gardeners will
relate to the challenges and the pleasures that Page encountered
creating her masterpiece. Best of all, we get a chance to learn
directly from Page as she shares her unique perspective on making a
garden shine - from textures and structure to fragrance and
color.
Page shares her garden’s story and her garden wisdom like she’s
writing a story for a dear garden friend. Unpretentious and
insightful, Page takes us on a delightful garden stroll through the
evolution of her garden.
This book is 272 pages of a garden by a garden writer who shares
the tender story of how they both grew old together.
You can get a copy of Embroidered Ground by Page Dickey
and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show
Notes for around $9
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
February 19, 1974
On this day, The Journal Herald out of Dayton,
Ohio, published a little snippet about the naturalist Eliza
Brightwen and her unusual needlepoint methods:
“If you are tired of the same crewel and needlepoint your
friends are making, you might try a different type of embroidered
picture.
About 1880, Mrs. Brightwen, a famous botanist, began making
embroidery pictures using the bones from the heads of fish such as
haddock, whiting, or cod. The bones were cleaned, boiled, and
dried. They were used as the wings for embroidered insects or
leaves for flowers. The design was usually embroidered on black
velvet. The tiny fish bones were sewn into place in a pattern that
was embellished with original embroidery.
This is not as odd as it might seem if you look today at the
modern collages made with large animal bones, nuts, bolts, prune
pits, and other ordinary materials.”
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."