Jul 24, 2020
Today we remember the man who brought Lilacs to America.
We'll also learn about the man who created the Missouri Botanical
Gardens, also known as "Shaw's Garden."
We celebrate the French author, who exchanged his personal library
for a lifetime supply of cantaloupe.
We also look back at an article from 1938 and the topic was
tropical peas.
In Unearthed Words, we'll hear an excerpt from Vita
Sackville-West.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a brand new book for 2020 about
creating gorgeous gardens and design mastery. Let the chase
begin.
And then we'll wrap things up with a little article from 1975 about
something called the "Dial-A-Garden-Tipline."
But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around
the world and today's curated news.
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Curated News
Robert Miller: An ancient, ubiquitous plant easily ignored
— but shouldn't be | RegisterCitizen.com
“Because it’s tiny and everywhere, it’s easy to not see
it.
But moss is really too remarkable to overlook.
Scientists now believe it was these simple plants, spreading
like a carpet over the face of the then-barren earth that changed
our atmosphere into the oxygen-rich state it’s now in and those
allowed life to flourish here. Moss helped create our
world.
“It’s all over the place,” said Cathy Hagadorn, executive
director of Deer Pond Farm, the nature sanctuary in Sherman owned
by Connecticut Audubon Society. “It’s beautiful.”
Birds use moss to line their nests. Four-toed salamanders lay
their eggs in the sphagnum moss at the edge of swamps. Gardeners
depend on peat moss to give new saplings a nice moisture-absorbing
bed to start growing in.
Because they’re great at absorbing water, mosses prevent
erosion. They play a part in the forest cycle, helping in the
decomposition of downed trees and stumps.
And they’re great at returning oxygen to the
atmosphere.
“Pound for pound, moss delivers more oxygen to the atmosphere
than any other plant,” said Jim Fucetola, chief of operations at
Moss Acres, a Pennsylvania-based company that sells moss to
gardeners. “Fifteen percent of trees deliver oxygen to the
atmosphere. For mosses, it’s 100 percent.”
Alright, that’s it for today's gardening news.
Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles
and blog posts 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
1696 It's the birthday of the colonial
governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth, who was born on
this day in 1696.
American gardeners remember Benning because he brought the lilac
along with other trees and shrubs when he immigrated to States from
England.
In 1750, the first lilac was planted at the Wentworth home. In
1919, it was adopted as the New Hampshire State Flower because
lawmakers felt it was,
"symbolic of the hardy character of the men and women of New
Hampshire; the granite state."
1800 It's the birthday of the man who
created the Missouri Botanical Gardens, also known as "Shaw's
Garden," or "Hank's Garden" - the great horticulturist and
botanical philanthropist Henry Shaw.
Henry is celebrated on the St. Louis Walk of Fame with this
epitaph:
"Henry Shaw, only 18 when he came to St. Louis, was one of the
city’s largest landowners by age 40. Working with leading
botanists, he planned, funded and built the Missouri Botanical
Garden, which opened in 1859. Henry donated the land for Tower
Grove Park and helped with its construction. He wrote botanical
tracts, endowed Washington University’s School of Botany, helped
found the Missouri Historical Society, and gave the city a school
and land for a hospital. Of Henry’s gifts, the Botanical Garden is
best-known. Said as early as 1868 to have “no equal in the United
States, and, indeed, few anywhere in the world."
In addition to the Botanical Garden, Henry built the Linnean House
in 1882. It is the oldest continuously operated public greenhouse
west of the Mississippi River and was initially designed to be an
orangery, a place to overwinter citrus trees, palms, and tree
ferns.
And, there's a little story I love that reveals Henry's regard for
the plants in his garden.
It was posted in the St. Louis Star and Times on April 5, 1933:
"Mr. Shaw was escorting a lady through his gardens, pointing
out objects of interest.
The visitor said: " I cannot understand, Sir, how you are able
to remember all of these difficult names."
He replied, with a courtly bow, "Madame, did you ever know a
mother to forget the names of her children? These plants and
flowers are my little ones."
1802 Today is the birthday of French author
of "The Three Musketeers" and gourmet Alexandre Dumas ("
Doo-Ma").
Alexandre also wrote the Count of Monte Cristo, which contains many
passages about the garden. Here's one for Chapter 44:
“The garden was long and narrow; a stretch of smooth turf
extended down the middle, and at the corners were clumps of trees
with thick and massy foliage, that made a background for the shrubs
and flowers.”
Alexandre was a larger-than-life character, and there are actually
quite a few stories about him that gardeners will find
charming.
For instance, in the mid-1860s, the Library in Cavaillon
("Ca-VAY-on"), France was just getting started, and they asked
Alexandre for a donation of some of his books.
Alexandre responded,
“I agree on one condition: Just as the town and the Cavaillon
authorities love my books, so I love their melons. In exchange for
my 300 or 400 books, I request a town by-law be passed giving me a
life annuity of 12 Cavaillon melons a year.”
The town happily agreed to the terms Alexandre set forth, and
Alexandre received a dozen Charentais ("Shar-en-TAY") melons every
year until he passed away in 1870.
The cantaloupe melons of Cavaillon are perfectly suited to growing
in the soil and climate of the Durance River Valley and are perfect
for growing cantaloupe. Cavaillon is still the home of the sweet,
Charentais melon. In fact, visitors to Cavaillon are greeted by a
nine-ton statue of a Charentais melon, and the annual melon
festival happens every year the weekend before Bastille day.
Now gardeners may wonder if a Charentais is similar to French
cantaloupes or North American musk melons. Although they are
related, they are not the same. Charentais melons are sweeter and
have a jasmine and apricot fragrance.
Just before he died, Alexandre finished his final book, and he
titled it Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine (The Grand Dictionary of
Cuisine). It is especially poignant to see that Alexandre included
an entry on the Charentais melon. In fact, Alexandre did not mince
words, and he gushed that it was the greatest melon he'd ever
encountered.
There is yet one more hilarious story about Alexandre that occurred
when he was traveling in Switzerland. One day Alexandre decided he
wanted mushrooms for supper. Now Alexandre spoke only French while
the owner of the inn he was staying at spoke only German. To convey
what he wanted, Alexandre quickly made a charcoal sketch of a
mushroom on the wall. After seeing the sketch, the innkeeper went
out for a while and then came back and presented Alexandre with an
umbrella.
It was Alexandre Dumas who said,
All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and
hope.
It is not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower
that forsakes the tree.
To despise flowers is to offend God.
1938 On this day, The Miami News
published an article with the title "Tropical Peas Will Mitigate
Relief Wants."
The article begins this way,
"If English peas don't suit your palate, plant pigeon peas. The
suggestion is that of a Miami pioneer, Charles F. Sulzner, who
through the years has pointed out to newcomers the advantages of
growing tropical fruits and vegetables, often of a type requiring
no painstaking cultivation...
Pigeon peas, as Sulzner demonstrated in his spacious grounds,
...grow on trees, and may be had by the simple process of
picking."
Pigeon peas make a lovely and distinct addition to the edible
garden.
The cultivation of the pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), can be traced
back more than 3,500 years. Other common names include Congo pea,
Angola pea, and red gram. In Barbados, pigeon pea was used to feed
pigeons.
Gardeners who love growing peas in the spring may thoroughly enjoy
growing pigeon pea in the summer. It's a hardy perennial that can
produce multiple harvests during the season.
The sweet, fresh green peas are technically beans. They can be
eaten raw when green or dried. The dried beans need to be soaked
before boiling.
Pigeon peas have a nutty taste and crisp texture. The entire pod
may be eaten.
As a bonus, the yellow-red flowers attract flocks of hummingbirds,
and the plants are also nitrogen-fixers and enrich the soil.
Unearthed Words
When skies are gentle, breezes bland.
When loam that's warm within the hand
Falls friable between the tines.
Sow hollyhocks and columbines.
The tufted pansy, and the tall
Snapdragon in the broken wall.
Not for this summer, but for next.
Since foresight is the gardener's text.
And though his eyes may never know
How lavishly his flowers blow.
Others will stand and musing say
'These were the flowers he sowed that May.'
But for this summer's quick delight
Sow marigold, and sow the bright
Frail poppy that with noonday dies
But wakens to afresh surprise:
Along the pathway, stones be set
Sweet Alysson and mignonette,
That when the full midsummer's come
On scented clumps the bees may-hum,
Golden Italians, and the wild
Black bumble-bee alike beguiled;
And lovers who have never kissed
May sow the cloudy Love-in-Mist.
Nor be the little space forgot
For herbs to spice the kitchen pot:
Mint pennyroyal, bergamot.
Tarragon and melilot.
Dill for witchcraft, prisoner's rue.
Coriander, costmary.
Tansy, thyme. Sweet Cicely,
Saffron, balm, and rosemary
That since the Virgin threw her cloak
Across it, -so say cottage folk -
Has changed its flowers from white to blue.
But have a care that seeds be strewn
One night beneath a waxing moon.
And pick when the moon is on the wane.
Else shall your toil be all in vain ...
— Vita Sackville West, English author and garden designer, The
Land
Grow That Garden Library
Chasing Eden by Jack Staub and Renny
Reynolds
This book came out in January of this year, and the subtitle
is Design Inspiration from the Gardens at Hortulus
Farm.
This is one of my favorite new books for 2020. I adore the
title.
The author Anna Pavord ("PAY-vord") said, "Vision, tenacity, and a
perfectionist's eye are the qualities that shine out from this
account of a paradise garden created by two of America's foremost
stylists."
This is the overview from Timberpress:
“One of the most spectacular private gardens in America,
Hortulus Farm is the masterpiece of Renny Reynolds and Jack Staub,
renowned experts in the fields of design, gardening, and
entertaining. It is beautifully captured in Chasing Eden, a
lavishly illustrated roadmap to creating a personal Eden.
Hortulus Farm is a not only a model of classical tenets, but
also a showcase of how traditions can be successfully broken.
Gardeners will discover information on specific design principles,
from vistas and allées to hardscaping and water features. They will
also learn how to adapt these principles to less-than-optimal
settings without sacrificing a site’s sense of place. Both
aspirational and practical, Chasing Eden will inspire home
gardeners to create their own earthly paradise.”
You will read this book and then head straight out to the garden.
Let the chase begin!
This book is 272 pages of gorgeous gardens and design mastery - all
shared to inspire today's gardener.
You can get a copy of Chasing Eden by Jack Staub and Renny
Reynolds and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's
Show Notes for around $23.
Today's Botanic Spark
On this day in 1975, the Green Bay Press-Gazette shared a
little notice for their "Dial-A-Garden-Tipline."
Readers could dial the number at any time and hear a taped garden
message. Here were the topics posted in the paper:
July 17 Russian Olive diseases
July 18, 19, 20 Dutch Elm disease
July 21 How to Blanch Vegetables
July 22 Growing Cauliflower
July 23 Birch Borer
July 24 Training Young Trees