May 18, 2021
Today we celebrate an old poet who loved gardens,
We'll also learn about an inventor and architect who created a
large machine to help move established trees during the
establishment of Prospect Park.
We hear a delightful excerpt about a purée of spring
vegetables.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a beautiful set of Paper Flower
Cards - a little stationery set for the gardener today.
And then, we’ll wrap things up with a British philosopher,
mathematician, and author who won the 1950 Nobel Prize for
literature. He spent a great deal of time studying happiness, and
no surprise - he found it in a garden.
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Important Events
May 18, 1048
Today is the birthday of the Persian mathematician, astronomer, and
poet Omar Khayyam (“Ky-yem”).
In 1859, the British writer Edward FitzGerald translated and
published Omar’s signature work, The
Rubáiyát (“Rue-By-yat”).
In The Rubáiyát, Omar wrote some beautiful
garden verses:
I sometimes think that never blooms so red
The rose that grows where some once buried Caesar bled
And that every hyacinth the garden grows dropped in her lap
from
Some once lovely head.
Today in Iran, tourists can visit the beautiful mausoleum of Omar
Khayyam and the surrounding gardens.
And gardeners in zones 4-9 can grow a pretty pink damask rose named
Rosa 'Omar Khayyam.' Over on the Missouri Botanical Garden website,
they report that,
“'Omar Khayyam' ... is reputed to have grown on the tomb of
Omar Khayyam in Persia, [and] was brought to England by William
Simpson, an Illustrated London News artist, and in 1893 was planted
on the grave of Edward Fitzgerald, who translated the Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam into English. According to the Modern Roses 12
database of the American Rose Society, it was registered in 1894.
It is a small, dense shrub with grayish-green, downy foliage and
numerous prickles. Its clear pink, double flowers are 2 in. wide
with a small center eye and 26 to 40 petals. Blooming once per
season in late spring to early summer, the flowers are moderately
fragrant and in groups of 3 to 4. 'Omar Khayyam' grows 2 to 3 ft.
tall and wide.”
May 18, 1839
Today is the birthday of the American civil engineer, landscape
architect, inventor, and plantsman John Yapp Culyer.
John was commissioned to work on parks in major cities across
America - like Chicago and Pittsburgh. He was the Chief Landscape
Engineer of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, which opened to the public in
1867.
During his time at Prospect Park, John invented a machine to help
relocate large trees. His impressive tree-movers (he had two of
them built) moved established trees and placed large specimen trees
from nurseries. In February 1870, the Brooklyn
Eagle reported that John’s tree-moving machines had
relocated 600 trees - a feat in scope that had never been
attempted.
To aid with pruning old-growth forest trees, John invented the
extension ladder. John’s ladders would stand on a platform and
extend over fifty feet in the air. The New York Historical Society
shares photos of John’s workers on these ladders, and the images
are breathtaking - the danger of working on those ladders is so
obviously apparent.
Unearthed Words
“Beef consommé or purée of spring vegetables," she read aloud. "I
suppose I'll have the consommé."
"You'd choose weak broth over spring vegetables?"
"I've never had much of an appetite."
"No, just listen: the cook sends for a basket of ripe vegetables
from the kitchen gardens- leeks, carrots, young potatoes, vegetable
marrow, tomatoes- and simmers them with fresh herbs. When it's all
soft, she purées the mixture until it's like silk and finishes it
with heavy cream. It's brought to the table in an earthenware dish
and ladled over croutons fried in butter. You can taste the entire
garden in every spoonful.”
― Lisa Kleypas, a best-selling American author of historical and
contemporary romance novels, Devil's
Daughter
Grow That Garden Library
Paper Flowers Cards and Envelopes: The Art of Mary Delany
by Princeton Architectural Press
“Each exquisite paper flower in this elegant collection blooms
with extraordinary detail and color. Eighteenth-century British
artist Mary Delany created each piece by cutting and layering tiny
pieces of paper on black ink backgrounds. The fine shading and
depth are as intricately detailed as a botanical illustration and
scientifically accurate as well. Printed on thick, textured paper,
the set features sunflowers, rhododendron, cornflower, water
lilies, and more. Perfect for any occasion that warrants beauty and
sophistication.”
You can get a set of Stationery featuring The Art of Mary
Delany by Princeton Architectural Press and support the show
using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around
$15
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
May 18, 1872
Today is the birthday of the British philosopher, mathematician,
pacifist, and author Bertrand Russell.
Bertrand won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 for his work
called A History of Western
Philosophy (1945).
One of Bertrand’s first works was about happiness and how to find
it.
He wrote,
“Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.”
Bertrand also wrote:
“I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I
feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when
I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.”
And
“The happiest person I have ever known is my gardener, who each
day wages war to protect vegetables and flowers from
rabbits.”
As for the cure for anxiety, Bertrand once told this story,
“I knew a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by
telling them that the second coming was very imminent indeed, but
they were much consoled when they found that he was planting trees
in his garden.”
When it came to the natural world, Bertrand recognized the limits
of the earth’s natural resources, and he liked to say,
"It's co-existence or no existence."
It was Bertrand’s study of happiness that led him to recognize the
power of hope. He wrote,
"Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this
or that but hope and enterprise and change."
Bertrand hoped that humankind would get smarter about the natural
world and our planet. He wrote,
“The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our
wits to grow sharper.”
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."