Sep 22, 2021
Today in botanical history, we celebrate the 4th Earl of
Chesterfield, an English botanist and a Patron Saint of
gardeners.
We’ll hear an excerpt from a book by Tim Robbins featuring
September in Louisiana.
We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that inspires us to make
plants feel right at home in our homes.
And then we’ll wrap things up with a milestone moment in the
history of Australia - the stunning loss of the Garden Palace that
happened on this day 139 years ago today.
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Important Events
September 22, 1694
Birth of Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, English
statesman and writer. He’s remembered for his letters to his son
and other notable people of his day. He once advised his son,
l recommend you to take care of the minutes, for hours will
take care of themselves…
Yale University has Chesterfield’s note containing the words
to On a Lady Stung By a Bee.
To heal a wound a bee had made
Upon my Chloe's face,
It’s honey to the part she laid,
And bade me kiss the place.
Pleased, I obeyed, and from the wound
Suck'd both the sweet and smart ;
The honey on my lips I found,
The sting within my heart.
September 22, 1800
Birth of George Bentham, English botanist, writer, and teacher. He
was going to be an attorney but pursued botany after living in the
country. His thinking was preserved in a diary, which he kept for
over fifty years. George once wrote,
I decided that my means were sufficient to enable me to devote
myself to botany, a determination which I never…. [had] any reason
to [regret].
George’s longest professional friendship was with the botanist John
Stuart Mills who had lived with the Bentham family as a teenager. A
pragmatist, George finished his Flora of the British Islands by
writing every morning before breakfast. He purposely used simple
language so that his book could reach a wider audience. George
wanted everyone to see fundamental differences in plants. The
useful way he classified plants laid the foundation for modern
taxonomy. Later in his career, George co-authored the three-volume
Genera Plantarum with Sir Joseph Hooker. The "Bentham & Hooker
system" was widely used and made plant classification easier.
George also worked with Ferdinand Mueller to create an impressive
nineteen-volume flora of Australia. In 1830, George discovered Opal
Basil (purple) which is prized for its flavor and color. But the
plant George is most associated with is an Australian sister plant
to tobacco, Nicotiana benthamiana. The plant was named in his honor
and is used to create vaccines for the Ebola virus and the
coronavirus. George died two weeks shy of his 84th birthday.
September 22nd
Today is the Feast Day of Phocas the Gardener, a Turkish innkeeper
and gardener who lived during the third century. A protector of
persecuted Christians, Phocas grew crops in his garden to help feed
the poor. His garden aided him in living his most-remembered
virtues: hospitality and generosity.
When Roman soldiers arrived in his village, Phocas offered them
lodging and a homemade meal using the bounty of his garden. As they
talked, Phocas realized they had come for him. While the soldiers
slept, Phocas went out to the garden to dig his own grave and pray
for the soldiers. In the morning, Phocas revealed his identity to
the soldiers who reluctantly killed him. Although gardening can be
a solitary activity, Phocas illustrated how gardens create
connection and community. Phocas is the Patron Saint of flower and
ornamental gardens, farmers, field hands, and market
gardeners.
Unearthed Words
Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature.
The air--moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh--felt as if
it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded
like heavy breathing. Honeysuckle, swamp flowers, magnolia, and the
mystery smell of the river scented the atmosphere, amplifying the
intrusion of organic sleaze. It was aphrodisiac and repressive,
soft and violent at the same time. In New Orleans, in the French
Quarter, miles from the barking lungs of alligators, the air
maintained this quality of breath, although here it acquired a
tinge of metallic halitosis, due to fumes expelled by tourist
buses, trucks delivering Dixie beer, and, on Decatur Street, a
mass-transit motor coach named Desire.
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug
Perfume
Grow That Garden Library
Wild Interiors by Hilton Carter
This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is Beautiful
plants in beautiful spaces.
And this book has one of my favorite covers ever! So hats off to
the book designer who came up with that incredible cover.
Hilton is a plant stylist, a plant whisperer, and a plant coach,
and all of that comes into play in this inspiring book of home
interiors that are full of life, style, balance, health, and of
course, plants. Carter is a master of greenery, and his approach to
creating a welcoming room is making your plants feel right at home.
Carter uses his book to take us on a tour of a dozen different
homes that all feature their own unique ways of incorporating
plants into their interiors and design. Each space is thoughtfully
laid out, super comfortable, and beautiful.
This book is 224 pages of plants at home in the home - and what a
welcome addition for each of us to make. Lots of plant styling
inspo in this book!
You can get a copy of Wild Interiors by Hilton
Carter and
support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for
around $17
Today’s Botanic Spark
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
September 22, 1882
On this day, at 5:40 am, the iconic Garden Palace in the Royal
Botanic Garden in Sydney was destroyed in a fire that consumed the
entire fourteen-hectare structure in forty minutes. The flames
could be seen for twenty miles. Modeled after the Crystal Palace
but constructed primarily with timber, The Garden Palace was built
at a record pace and completed in just over eight months for the
Sydney International Exhibition in 1879. It dominated Sydney’s
skyline for only three years. In its glory, a statue of the Queen
stood beneath the palace dome made of thirty-six stained-glass
windows. After the Exhibition closed, the Garden Palace was
unfortunately used to store important records (including the 1881
census) and countless irreplaceable Indigenous artifacts. The cause
of the fire has never been established. At the time of the fire, a
French artist named Lucien Henry captured the fire on canvas. His
assistant, George Hippolyte Aurousseau, recalled the moment in a
1912 edition of the Technical Gazette:
Mister Henry went out onto the balcony and watched until the
Great Dome toppled in; it was then early morning; he went back to
his studio procured a canvas, sat down, and painted the whole scene
in a most realistic manner, showing the fig trees in the Domain,
the flames rising through the towers, the dome falling in and the
reflected light of the flames all around.
Today the Pioneer Memorial Garden rests on the site where the dome
would have been. Built in 1938, the garden commemorated the 150th
anniversary of European settlement in Australia.
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."