May 30, 2019
Today I'm heading over at 1 o'clock to Walmart to pick
up my mobile order. It has a ton of things I need to get for my
student gardeners.
When the kids help me out in the garden, I put them in teams of two
and I generally have 6 to 8 kids helping me out in the garden on
any given day. That means, I need to have multiples of some of my
favorite garden tools.
So, today I'm picking up ate whisk brooms and eight pruners. The
whisk broom's are for some of the detailed work we will do along
the garden paths. This year we will be adding some polymeric
sand.
And the pruners, of course, are for all the pruning will be doing.
In fact, one of the first things they learn is to chop and drop;
Allowing little pieces of plant material to fall and return to the
earth.
Brevities
#OTD On this day in 1778, the great French writer
Voltaire died.
Voltaire’s seventeenth-century novel: Candide: or,
Optimism, follows a young protagonist as he ventures all over
the world.
Despite all the terrible things that happen to him, Candide never
loseshis optimism.
Here is the most cited passage from the story:
"'All I know,’ said Candide, ‘is that we
must cultivate our garden.’
‘You are right,’ said Pangloss, ‘for when man was placed in the
garden of Eden, he was put there 'ut operaretur eum', so that he
might work: which proves that man was not born for the
rest.’
‘Let us set to work, for that is the only way to make life
bearable.'"
#OTD Today is the birthday of Gustav Leopold Miller, born
in 1884, on this day, in Henry, Illinois.
His claim to fame was the invention of the brush weeder. It was
described in the Daily Times out of Davenport, Iowa in 1918:
"It's composed of two brushes– whisk brooms in reality. The brushes
are placed directly ahead of the principal shovels of the
cultivator, felling the weeds about the corn plant... And as
the weeds are laid low, they are covered with earth which is thrown
up by the shovels.
Miller donated the first weeder to the Red Cross and at a recent
auction, sold one for the price of $60 Which is about 12 times the
cost for which it will be retailed."
#OTD It's the death day of Brian Lawrence Burt who
went by "Bill."
He died in 2008. He was an English botanist and taxonomist noted
for his contributions to the family Gesneriaceae; the family that
Includes African violets.
When Burt started going on and plant expeditions in 1951, the
Gesneriaceae family was poorly represented. Thanks to Burt's work,
Edinburgh became the hub for the family. It led to the popularity
in England of both the African violet and the Streptocarpus. Both
became beloved windowsill plants.
If you look online, you will see a picture of Bill Burt, standing
In a forest in South Africa on one of his botanizing trips.
In his hands, he is holding a very large Streptocarpus grandis leaf
that looks to be about 4-feet tall.
#OTD It's National Mint Julep Day.
A mint julep is made with a mint leaf, bourbon, sugar and
water.
If you ask any Southerner, spearmint is the mint of choice if you
are going to make a Mint Julep.
Unearthed Words
Here's a poem from Cicily Mary Barker; an English illustrator known
for her work depicting fairies and flowers.
The poem mentions Laburnum; a small tree that has hanging clusters
of yellow flowers. After it flowers it produces slender pods which
contain poisonous seeds.
The Lilac Fairy from Cicily Mary Barker
White May is flowering,
Red May beside;
Laburnum is showering
Gold far and wide;
But I sing of Lilac,
The dearly-loved Lilac,
Lilac, in Maytime
A joy and a pride!
I love her so much
That I never can tell
If she’s sweeter to look at,
Or sweeter to smell.
Today's book recommendation: Green Thoughts by Eleanor
Perenyi.
We lost Eleanor into 2009, at the age of 91.
This book is widely considered by many to be a classic of garden
writing. It was Eleanor's only book.
She wrote about working in her Connecticut garden. Perenyi was not
a fan of rock gardens, chemical pesticides or petunias.
She once called petunias,
“as hopelessly impractical as a chiffon ball dress”
There are many Wonderful quotes and sayings that are attributed to
Eleanor in her book Green Thoughts. Here are a
few of my favorites:
“A little studied negligence is becoming to a garden:”
“The double hoops for peonies are beyond description maddening to
unfold and set in place. Two people are needed, one of them with
better control of his temper than I have.”
“I ordered a modern purple martin house myself and proceeded to
construct a dreadful object: unpainted, it looked like a cheap
motel; painted blue and white, it looked like a
cheap Greek motel and had to be thrown out.”
Today's Garden Chore
Incorporate more perennial vines into your
garden.
Vines have more uses beyond just climbing a trellis.
Off-the-trellis ideas include —allowing them to amble their way
through your garden, over walls, up into shrubs and trees, in pots,
and more.
Something Sweet
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
In 1906, the Superior Timesout of Superior,
Wisconsin shared A solution to a common backyard problem: Unsightly
Clothes Line Posts.
"One usually thinks of clothes posts as necessary evils and accepts
their ugliness as unredeemable. It will surprise many to learn that
they may be made beautiful and retain their usefulness.
I have seen a set of clothes posts In a back yard entirely covered
with living green—a luxeriant growth of Virginia creeper... The
best permanent screen for unsightly objects Is a group of
evergreens. A clump of lilacs costs less and begins to be effective
sooner."
Thanks for listening to the daily gardener,
and remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."