Alfred Austin's guest appearances

Alfred Austin

The Daily Gardener

Robert Brown

David Allen

Michelle Obama

Peter Rabbit

Candace Bushnell

Alana Chernila

Emily Dickinson

James Logan

Margaret Roach

William Morris

Alfred Hitchcock

John Muir

David Burke

Amy Stewart

Henry David Thoreau

OwlTail

Dylan Thomas

Kate Gould

Carl Sagan

Josiah Hoopes

Dmitry Ivanovsky

Today we celebrate a forgotten West Chester nurseryman and entrepreneur who pioneered the mail-order plant business. We'll also learn about the Russian botanist who made a startling discovery from the sap of diseased tobacco plants. We salute the Welsh poet and writer who died on this day in 1953 after drinking 18 straight martinis. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a really lovely book on garden design - it’s one of my favorites. And then we’ll wrap things up with some words on the natural world from an American astronomer.   Subscribe  Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart  To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” It's just that easy.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Facebook Group 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 November 9, 1832   Today is the birthday of the West Chester Pennsylvania nurseryman, entrepreneur, and Quaker, Josiah Hoopes. Josiah loved nature from an early age. As a young man, Josiah had a desire to propagate and sell plants.  After his 30th birthday, Josiah built a greenhouse on his father’s property.  Within a few years, Josiah’s growing customer base prompted him to start his nursery, named Cherry Hill Nurseries. Over time, Cherry Hill grew to be known as Hoopes, Bro., and Thomas (HB&amp;T) after Josiah recruited his brother Abner and his neighbor, an accountant named George B. Thomas. With its gravelly loam soil, West Chester has cultivated some important botanical figures through the years.  The West Chester botanists David Townsend and Dr. William Darlington were lifelong friends with Josiah. Together, the three men founded Marshall Square Park, named after the colonial botanist Humphry Marshall. The three men also worked on cataloging the trees and plants in their home county. Now, for their efforts, the town appointed all three men to form the first park committee. Later, Josiah (who was younger than the other men) was tasked with improving the park. Josiah added flower beds and walking paths - as well as an extraordinary amount of “resting stations.”  A history of the park shared that at one point, the park had 70 benches - 50 more than today’s total count. And today, in Josiah’s hometown, the 16-acre Hoopes Park is named for Josiah. He served as that park's original park supervisor.  In addition to his local efforts, Josiah became nationally known when he developed a way to ship his nursery stock by railroad. Using moss and paper to wrap his plants, Josiah began to hire salesmen to market his plants and trees across the country. After securing a contract with the federal government, Josiah’s nursery shipped trees and shrubs to all the national cemeteries.  Within a decade, H B&amp;T became the largest commercial grower in America.  Before the turn of the century, HB&amp;T was shipping plants to Europe, Australia, and the West Indian Islands. They even had a sales rep stationed in Mexico. By 1913, the nursery occupied over a thousand acres, and it even offered a pleasure garden with a boardwalk for the locals - complete with manicured shrubs in the shape of spears and a Maltese cross. One newspaper reported,   "There is no more attractive place in our borough than the grounds of this firm, including their private residences adjoining, and we as a people owe them a vote of thanks for the privilege extended us in visiting them."    Josiah had a special love for trees. At Hoopes, Josiah’s fruit trees were a top seller, appealing to new homeowners in America’s growing suburbs.  An 1870’s record book shows old order sheets with the words “send at once” and “immediately” handwritten on the receipt. After mastering packaging and shipping, the nursery could boast of sales to nearly every state in the union, and customers even included President Grover Cleveland at the White House. And, by the late 1800s, the nursery was the number one grower of peach trees.  Like his friend Townsend, Josiah’s botanical writing was geared toward encouraging a love for growing plants and trees. Josiah regularly wrote botanical articles for the New York Tribune, and he also wrote a book called Book of Evergreens.    In terms of posterity, Asa Gray named the plant Hymenoxys hoopesii (ii = "ee-eye") commonly known as Owl's Claws for Josiah Hoopes. This plant is a marvelous native mountain wildflower offering large golden-yellow flowers all summer long. The bloom is made up of long, drooping petals (resembling owl’s claws) and a button-like center cone. Josiah Hoopes died on January 16, 1904. HB&amp;T closed for good in the 1940s.   November 9, 1864    Today is the birthday of the Russian Botanist Dmitry Ivanovsky. In 1892, Dmitry researched the cause of an infection called “Wildfire” in tobacco plants in Crimea. Dmitry made a startling discovery when he learned that even after running through a filter, sap from an infected plant could still infect healthy plants. Dmitry’s testing led to the realization that the cause was something smaller than bacteria. Years later, Martinus Beijerinck ("BY-ah-rink”) would call the filtered, infectious substance a "virus,” and Dmitry’s infection is now known as the tobacco mosaic virus. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we owe a debt of gratitude to botanists like Dmitry Ivanovsky and Martinus Beijerinck ("BY-ah-rink”) and all the rest of the virology pioneers.   Unearthed Words November 9, 1953 Here’s a quote from the Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas, who died on this day in 1953 at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. He had consumed 18 straight martinis. Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies. ― Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and writer   Grow That Garden Library  Urban Garden Design by Kate Gould This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Transform your outdoor space into a beautiful and practical escape. In this book, the award-winning garden designer Kate Gould offers refined solutions and crazy-good ideas for urban gardens. I appreciate Kate because she loves the challenge of small spaces, and she is a total maximizer in terms of her approach to design and plant selection. Kate is also passionate about helping her clients create a garden that is both personal and unique. And one of Kate’s superpowers is connecting the outside design back to the home's interior to create a cohesive feel. This book is a stunning guide for gardeners keen to transform small and awkward outdoor spaces into beautiful and practical spaces. This book is 176 pages of spot-on guidance for gardeners who want to transform their little piece of heaven in the city into a private escape from the world.  You can get a copy of Urban Garden Design by Kate Gould  and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $4   Today’s Botanic Spark November 9, 1934   Today is the birthday of the American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author Carl Sagan, born on this day in Brooklyn, New York. Carl helped explain space to the masses through his articles, books, and popular public television series “Cosmos." Here on earth, gardeners delight in his words about the natural world.   We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever. — Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author   A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic. — Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author   The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff. ― Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author, Cosmos

Today we celebrate a forgotten West Chester nurseryman and entrepreneur who pioneered the mail-order plant business. We'll also learn about the Russian botanist who made a startling discovery from the sap of diseased tobacco plants. We salute the Welsh poet and writer who died on this day in 1953 after drinking 18 straight martinis. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a really lovely book on garden design - it’s one of my favorites. And then we’ll wrap things up with some words on the natural world from an American astronomer.   Subscribe <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-gardener/id1458062597" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Apple</a> |<a href="https://playmusic.app.goo.gl/?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&amp;isi=691797987&amp;ius=googleplaymusic&amp;apn=com.google.android.music&amp;link=https://play.google.com/music/m/Im4i25xyanawqu5fin7oy6smrnm?t%3DThe_Daily_Gardener%26pcampaignid%3DMKT-na-all-co-pr-mu-pod-16" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Google</a> |<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5ODID572hLPggNp9WZBnzC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Spotify</a> |<a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=387618" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Stitcher</a> |<a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-daily-gardener-51539428/?cmp=web_share" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> iHeart</a> To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” It's just that easy.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Facebook Group 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 <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/thedailygardener/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.</a> 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 November 9, 1832   Today is the birthday of the West Chester Pennsylvania nurseryman, entrepreneur, and Quaker, Josiah Hoopes. Josiah loved nature from an early age. As a young man, Josiah had a desire to propagate and sell plants.  After his 30th birthday, Josiah built a greenhouse on his father’s property.  Within a few years, Josiah’s growing customer base prompted him to start his nursery, named Cherry Hill Nurseries. Over time, Cherry Hill grew to be known as Hoopes, Bro., and Thomas (HB&amp;T) after Josiah recruited his brother Abner and his neighbor, an accountant named George B. Thomas. With its gravelly loam soil, West Chester has cultivated some important botanical figures through the years.  The West Chester botanists David Townsend and Dr. William Darlington were lifelong friends with Josiah. Together, the three men founded Marshall Square Park, named after the colonial botanist Humphry Marshall. The three men also worked on cataloging the trees and plants in their home county. Now, for their efforts, the town appointed all three men to form the first park committee. Later, Josiah (who was younger than the other men) was tasked with improving the park. Josiah added flower beds and walking paths - as well as an extraordinary amount of “resting stations.”  A history of the park shared that at one point, the park had 70 benches - 50 more than today’s total count. And today, in Josiah’s hometown, the 16-acre Hoopes Park is named for Josiah. He served as that park's original park supervisor.  In addition to his local efforts, Josiah became nationally known when he developed a way to ship his nursery stock by railroad. Using moss and paper to wrap his plants, Josiah began to hire salesmen to market his plants and trees across the country. After securing a contract with the federal government, Josiah’s nursery shipped trees and shrubs to all the national cemeteries.  Within a decade, H B&amp;T became the largest commercial grower in America.  Before the turn of the century, HB&amp;T was shipping plants to Europe, Australia, and the West Indian Islands. They even had a sales rep stationed in Mexico. By 1913, the nursery occupied over a thousand acres, and it even offered a pleasure garden with a boardwalk for the locals - complete with manicured shrubs in the shape of spears and a Maltese cross. One newspaper reported,   "There is no more attractive place in our borough than the grounds of this firm, including their private residences adjoining, and we as a people owe them a vote of thanks for the privilege extended us in visiting them."   Josiah had a special love for trees. At Hoopes, Josiah’s fruit trees were a top seller, appealing to new homeowners in America’s growing suburbs.  An 1870’s record book shows old order sheets with the words “send at once” and “immediately” handwritten on the receipt. After mastering packaging and shipping, the nursery could boast of sales to nearly every state in the union, and customers even included President Grover Cleveland at the White House. And, by the late 1800s, the nursery was the number one grower of peach trees.  Like his friend Townsend, Josiah’s botanical writing was geared toward encouraging a love for growing plants and trees. Josiah regularly wrote botanical articles for the New York Tribune, and he also wrote a book called Book of Evergreens.    In terms of posterity, Asa Gray named the plant Hymenoxys hoopesii (ii = "ee-eye") commonly known as Owl's Claws for Josiah Hoopes. This plant is a marvelous native mountain wildflower offering large golden-yellow flowers all summer long. The bloom is made up of long, drooping petals (resembling owl’s claws) and a button-like center cone. Josiah Hoopes died on January 16, 1904. HB&amp;T closed for good in the 1940s.   November 9, 1864    Today is the birthday of the Russian Botanist Dmitry Ivanovsky. In 1892, Dmitry researched the cause of an infection called “Wildfire” in tobacco plants in Crimea. Dmitry made a startling discovery when he learned that even after running through a filter, sap from an infected plant could still infect healthy plants. Dmitry’s testing led to the realization that the cause was something smaller than bacteria. Years later, Martinus Beijerinck ("BY-ah-rink”) would call the filtered, infectious substance a "virus,” and Dmitry’s infection is now known as the tobacco mosaic virus. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we owe a debt of gratitude to botanists like Dmitry Ivanovsky and Martinus Beijerinck ("BY-ah-rink”) and all the rest of the virology pioneers.   Unearthed Words November 9, 1953 Here’s a quote from the Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas, who died on this day in 1953 at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. He had consumed 18 straight martinis. Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies. ― Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and writer   Grow That Garden Library <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Garden-Design-Kate-Gould/dp/0857834878/ref=as_li_ss_tl?dchild=1&amp;keywords=Urban+Garden+Design+by+Kate+Gould&amp;qid=1593635959&amp;sr=8-1&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=gardenradione-20&amp;linkId=8d8bc5c735091050d41d90128b7b14ef" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Urban Garden Design by Kate Gould</a> This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Transform your outdoor space into a beautiful and practical escape. In this book, the award-winning garden designer Kate Gould offers refined solutions and crazy-good ideas for urban gardens. I appreciate Kate because she loves the challenge of small spaces, and she is a total maximizer in terms of her approach to design and plant selection. Kate is also passionate about helping her clients create a garden that is both personal and unique. And one of Kate’s superpowers is connecting the outside design back to the home's interior to create a cohesive feel. This book is a stunning guide for gardeners keen to transform small and awkward outdoor spaces into beautiful and practical spaces. This book is 176 pages of spot-on guidance for gardeners who want to transform their little piece of heaven in the city into a private escape from the world. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Garden-Design-Kate-Gould/dp/0857834878/ref=as_li_ss_tl?dchild=1&amp;keywords=Urban+Garden+Design+by+Kate+Gould&amp;qid=1593635959&amp;sr=8-1&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=gardenradione-20&amp;linkId=8d8bc5c735091050d41d90128b7b14ef" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> You can get a copy of Urban Garden Design by Kate Gould  and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $4</a>   Today’s Botanic Spark November 9, 1934   Today is the birthday of the American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author Carl Sagan, born on this day in Brooklyn, New York. Carl helped explain space to the masses through his articles, books, and popular public television series “Cosmos." Here on earth, gardeners delight in his words about the natural world.   We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever. — Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author   A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic. — Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author   The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff. ― Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author, Cosmos

November 9, 2020 Josiah Hoopes, Dmitry Ivanovsky, Alfred Austin, Dylan Thomas, Urban Garden Design by Kate Gould, and Carl Sagan

Derry Moore

Frank Kingdon Ward

Alice Lounsberry

Bernard de Jussieu

Today we celebrate a son of France who developed the first natural classification of flowering plants. We'll also learn about the young female garden writer who teamed up with an Australian botanical illustrator and turned out some fabulous garden classics. We salute the English Poet Laureate who wrote inspiringly about gardens. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a tour book of American Gardens that was just released this past week. And then we’ll wrap things up with the birthday of one of the greatest plant collectors of all time.   Subscribe  Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart  To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” It's just that easy.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Facebook Group 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 November 6, 1777   Today is the anniversary of the death of the French naturalist and botanist Bernard Jussieu. We remember Bernard for developing the first natural classification of flowering plants. And although both Bernard and his brother Antoine were botany professors in Paris, Bernard was the stronger botanist, and there's a famous story about his incredible dedication to botany: One time, after botanizing in Lebanon, Bernard was sailing back to France. Of course, drinkable water onboard a long voyage home would have been a precious commodity. Yet, Bernard Jussieu purportedly shared his precious water with a little Lebanon Cedar seedling he was bringing home. He wanted to plant the little seedling in the Royal Garden, and he was determined to bring the little tree back alive to Paris. The French say the seedling lived to be over 200 years old and grew to eighty feet high. As for Bernard Jussieu, in 1759, he was summoned to Versailles to develop the Royal Botanical Garden at the Petit Trianon. Unassuming and laid back, Bernard quietly began arranging the plants in the garden in a new way. Jussieu's system of organizing plants into a more natural order was revolutionary at the time, and his method was something he wouldn't disclose to others. However, Bernard did put together a catalog of the plants in his garden. Bernard recognized a kindred spirit in his nephew, Antoine-Laurent. Bernard trained him for four years, and when he came of age, Bernard confided his methods of plant classification. As a result, Antoine-Laurent's work extended his Uncle Bernard's ideas around grouping plants. It took Antoine-Laurent Jussieu almost twenty years of refinement and perfecting of his Uncle's work before he finally published it as the Bastille was falling in 1789. Antoine-Laurent Jussieu kept Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature in his book, Genera Plantarum, but he grouped plants by genera and then into families. He called his system natural and strived to let nature be his guide. Today, many plant families can be attributed to Jussieu. Today, there's a metro station near the Paris botanical garden named in honor of the Jussieu family - which boasted five notable botanists in the family over several generations.   November 6, 1868  Today is the birthday of the botanist and garden writer Alice Lounsberry. (Note: Online databases report the date of birth as 1873 - which is incorrect as Alice was already two years old on an 1870 census with her brother and parents.) Alice was a New Yorker, and she developed a love for botany as a young girl. In her mid-twenties, she was already serving as a board member for the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). But Alice is best known for her botanical books written with her dear friend and collaborator - the Australian botanical illustrator Ellis Rowan. So we have Alice and Ellis - and here's the fabulous story of how they met. In the late 1890s, Ellis decided to travel to New York. She caused a bit of a sensation during her first trip to the States a few years earlier. This trip was no different - except that Ellis contracted influenza after her arrival, and she needed to be hospitalized. Like Alice, New Yorkers read about Ellis's illness, and they sent cards and flowers to her hospital room to cheer her. Now Alice had an enormous sense of admiration for Ellis, and she felt she needed to do something more personal for her. So, Alice decided to hand-deliver a box of fresh wildflowers she had handpicked to the hospital and gave them to Ellis's nurse. Ellis was thoroughly charmed by the bouquet and the card which read, "From one flower seeker to another - and an admirer of your work." The following day, Alice visited Ellis. Even though Alice was twenty years younger than Ellis, the two hit it off. They spent an entire afternoon discussing botany and their work. When Alice offered to show Ellis where she liked to botanize for wildflowers, it was the incentive Ellis needed to get her health back on track. When Alice invited her to illustrate a book on Wildflowers she had been asked to write, their fates as writer and painter were jointly sealed. Together, they produced three books: A Guide to the Wild Flowers (1899) describing around 500 wildflowers. A Guide to the Trees (1900) describing nearly 200 trees &amp; shrubs. And, Southern Wild Flowers &amp; Trees (1901) where Alice wrote in the preface:   "To learn something of the history, the folklore and the uses of southern plants and to see rare ones growing in their natural surroundings, Mrs. Rowan and I traveled in many parts of the south, always exercising our best blandishments to get the people of the section to talk with us. Through the mountainous region, we drove from cabin to cabin, and nowhere could we have met with greater kindness and hospitality."    While they were working on their book on Southern Wildflowers, Alice and Ellis's time together was marred by tragedy. They were surrounded by the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains when a telegram came for Ellis. Her only son, Eric, had died in South Africa. He was 22 years old. After finishing these books, the two women went their separate ways. Alice continued to write after working with Ellis - but without Ellis's artwork, her books failed to attract the same level of popularity. In 1910, Alice wrote a book called Gardens Near the Sea. In this book, Alice shared her thoughts on the garden:   “For the garden is not only a place in which to make things grow and to display the beautiful flowers of the earth but a place that should accord with the various moods of its admirers. It should be a place in which to hold light banter, a place in which to laugh, and, besides, should have a hidden corner in which to weep. But above all, perhaps, it should be a place of sweet scent and sentiment.”    After suffering a stroke, Alice Lounsberry died at the age of 81 on November 20, 1949.   Unearthed Words A garden that you make yourself becomes associated with your personal history and that of your friends, interwoven with your tastes, preferences, and character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten, but withal manifest, autobiography. Show me your garden, provided it be your own, and I will tell you what you are like. – Alfred Austin, British poet laureate, The Garden That I Love, 1894   Grow That Garden Library  American Gardens by Monty Don and Derry Moore This book came out just last week, and the subtitle is 100 Contemporary Designs. In this book, the beloved British horticulturist Monty Don and world-class photographer Derry Moore take us on a diverse and mesmerizing tour of American Gardens. Monty and Derry take us on a garden adventure: from Jefferson's Monticello ("MontiCHELLo”) to Longwood Gardens in Delaware to Middleton Place in South Carolina, to Central Park in New York, Bob Hope's Palm Springs garden, Frank Lloyd Wright’s garden, and the Seattle Spheres, and many many more. This book will leave you with a richer understanding of some of America's top gardens with beautiful photography and fascinating garden stories. This book is 224 pages of gorgeous American Gardens, and I think it would make a wonderful gift for the holidays.  You can get a copy of American Gardens by Monty Don and Derry Moore and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $38   Today’s Botanic Spark November 6, 1885   Today is the birthday of the British plant collector and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward. During the beginning of the twentieth century, Frank Kingdon Ward went on twenty-four Indiana-Jones-like expeditions throughout Tibet, China, and Southeast Asia to search for rare and elusive species of plants. Among his many accomplishments, Frank found the legendary Tibetan blue poppy. Frank’s accounts of his adventures are captivating. In 1942, he arrived in New Delhi after a 500 hundred mile walk over mountains and through jungles. The newspaper account said:   "A thin, wiry little man in his 50s, Captain Kingdon-Ward...decided that the Japanese were getting too close for comfort, so he loaded two 60-pound bags of rice on two mules... But instead of taking the short road through the Chaukan pass, [he] decided to travel the 500-mile mule trail through Tibet... [Frank tramped] knee-deep in the snow [and] crossed the Himalayas at the 14,500-foot pass... [Frank said] "It was a pleasant walk and [my] reward is in the finding of dazzling flowers never seen before. You know they may always blush unseen — unless you manage to take them back and make them grow where others can admire them. They are a little bit of the enchantment of Asia transplanted into England or America. It is satisfying enough, if you can feel in an industrial age like the present, that you have brought home a little beauty for others to enjoy."

Today we celebrate a son of France who developed the first natural classification of flowering plants. We'll also learn about the young female garden writer who teamed up with an Australian botanical illustrator and turned out some fabulous garden classics. We salute the English Poet Laureate who wrote inspiringly about gardens. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a tour book of American Gardens that was just released this past week. And then we’ll wrap things up with the birthday of one of the greatest plant collectors of all time.   Subscribe <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-gardener/id1458062597" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Apple</a> |<a href="https://playmusic.app.goo.gl/?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&amp;isi=691797987&amp;ius=googleplaymusic&amp;apn=com.google.android.music&amp;link=https://play.google.com/music/m/Im4i25xyanawqu5fin7oy6smrnm?t%3DThe_Daily_Gardener%26pcampaignid%3DMKT-na-all-co-pr-mu-pod-16" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Google</a> |<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5ODID572hLPggNp9WZBnzC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Spotify</a> |<a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=387618" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Stitcher</a> |<a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-daily-gardener-51539428/?cmp=web_share" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> iHeart</a> To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” It's just that easy.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Facebook Group 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 <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/thedailygardener/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community.</a> 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 November 6, 1777   Today is the anniversary of the death of the French naturalist and botanist Bernard Jussieu. We remember Bernard for developing the first natural classification of flowering plants. And although both Bernard and his brother Antoine were botany professors in Paris, Bernard was the stronger botanist, and there's a famous story about his incredible dedication to botany: One time, after botanizing in Lebanon, Bernard was sailing back to France. Of course, drinkable water onboard a long voyage home would have been a precious commodity. Yet, Bernard Jussieu purportedly shared his precious water with a little Lebanon Cedar seedling he was bringing home. He wanted to plant the little seedling in the Royal Garden, and he was determined to bring the little tree back alive to Paris. The French say the seedling lived to be over 200 years old and grew to eighty feet high. As for Bernard Jussieu, in 1759, he was summoned to Versailles to develop the Royal Botanical Garden at the Petit Trianon. Unassuming and laid back, Bernard quietly began arranging the plants in the garden in a new way. Jussieu's system of organizing plants into a more natural order was revolutionary at the time, and his method was something he wouldn't disclose to others. However, Bernard did put together a catalog of the plants in his garden. Bernard recognized a kindred spirit in his nephew, Antoine-Laurent. Bernard trained him for four years, and when he came of age, Bernard confided his methods of plant classification. As a result, Antoine-Laurent's work extended his Uncle Bernard's ideas around grouping plants. It took Antoine-Laurent Jussieu almost twenty years of refinement and perfecting of his Uncle's work before he finally published it as the Bastille was falling in 1789. Antoine-Laurent Jussieu kept Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature in his book, Genera Plantarum, but he grouped plants by genera and then into families. He called his system natural and strived to let nature be his guide. Today, many plant families can be attributed to Jussieu. Today, there's a metro station near the Paris botanical garden named in honor of the Jussieu family - which boasted five notable botanists in the family over several generations.   November 6, 1868  Today is the birthday of the botanist and garden writer Alice Lounsberry. (Note: Online databases report the date of birth as 1873 - which is incorrect as Alice was already two years old on an 1870 census with her brother and parents.) Alice was a New Yorker, and she developed a love for botany as a young girl. In her mid-twenties, she was already serving as a board member for the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). But Alice is best known for her botanical books written with her dear friend and collaborator - the Australian botanical illustrator Ellis Rowan. So we have Alice and Ellis - and here's the fabulous story of how they met. In the late 1890s, Ellis decided to travel to New York. She caused a bit of a sensation during her first trip to the States a few years earlier. This trip was no different - except that Ellis contracted influenza after her arrival, and she needed to be hospitalized. Like Alice, New Yorkers read about Ellis's illness, and they sent cards and flowers to her hospital room to cheer her. Now Alice had an enormous sense of admiration for Ellis, and she felt she needed to do something more personal for her. So, Alice decided to hand-deliver a box of fresh wildflowers she had handpicked to the hospital and gave them to Ellis's nurse. Ellis was thoroughly charmed by the bouquet and the card which read, "From one flower seeker to another - and an admirer of your work." The following day, Alice visited Ellis. Even though Alice was twenty years younger than Ellis, the two hit it off. They spent an entire afternoon discussing botany and their work. When Alice offered to show Ellis where she liked to botanize for wildflowers, it was the incentive Ellis needed to get her health back on track. When Alice invited her to illustrate a book on Wildflowers she had been asked to write, their fates as writer and painter were jointly sealed. Together, they produced three books: A Guide to the Wild Flowers (1899) describing around 500 wildflowers. A Guide to the Trees (1900) describing nearly 200 trees &amp; shrubs. And, Southern Wild Flowers &amp; Trees (1901) where Alice wrote in the preface:   "To learn something of the history, the folklore and the uses of southern plants and to see rare ones growing in their natural surroundings, Mrs. Rowan and I traveled in many parts of the south, always exercising our best blandishments to get the people of the section to talk with us. Through the mountainous region, we drove from cabin to cabin, and nowhere could we have met with greater kindness and hospitality."   While they were working on their book on Southern Wildflowers, Alice and Ellis's time together was marred by tragedy. They were surrounded by the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains when a telegram came for Ellis. Her only son, Eric, had died in South Africa. He was 22 years old. After finishing these books, the two women went their separate ways. Alice continued to write after working with Ellis - but without Ellis's artwork, her books failed to attract the same level of popularity. In 1910, Alice wrote a book called Gardens Near the Sea. In this book, Alice shared her thoughts on the garden:   “For the garden is not only a place in which to make things grow and to display the beautiful flowers of the earth but a place that should accord with the various moods of its admirers. It should be a place in which to hold light banter, a place in which to laugh, and, besides, should have a hidden corner in which to weep. But above all, perhaps, it should be a place of sweet scent and sentiment.”   After suffering a stroke, Alice Lounsberry died at the age of 81 on November 20, 1949.   Unearthed Words A garden that you make yourself becomes associated with your personal history and that of your friends, interwoven with your tastes, preferences, and character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten, but withal manifest, autobiography. Show me your garden, provided it be your own, and I will tell you what you are like. – Alfred Austin, British poet laureate, The Garden That I Love, 1894   Grow That Garden Library <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Gardens-Monty-Don/dp/3791386751/ref=as_li_ss_tl?dchild=1&amp;keywords=American+Gardens+by+Monty+Don&amp;qid=1593635712&amp;sr=8-2&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=gardenradione-20&amp;linkId=380fd891aac10568ce96e403984694cb" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> American Gardens by Monty Don and Derry Moore</a> This book came out just last week, and the subtitle is 100 Contemporary Designs. In this book, the beloved British horticulturist Monty Don and world-class photographer Derry Moore take us on a diverse and mesmerizing tour of American Gardens. Monty and Derry take us on a garden adventure: from Jefferson's Monticello ("MontiCHELLo”) to Longwood Gardens in Delaware to Middleton Place in South Carolina, to Central Park in New York, Bob Hope's Palm Springs garden, Frank Lloyd Wright’s garden, and the Seattle Spheres, and many many more. This book will leave you with a richer understanding of some of America's top gardens with beautiful photography and fascinating garden stories. This book is 224 pages of gorgeous American Gardens, and I think it would make a wonderful gift for the holidays. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Gardens-Monty-Don/dp/3791386751/ref=as_li_ss_tl?dchild=1&amp;keywords=American+Gardens+by+Monty+Don&amp;qid=1593635712&amp;sr=8-2&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=gardenradione-20&amp;linkId=380fd891aac10568ce96e403984694cb" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> You can get a copy of American Gardens by Monty Don and Derry Moore and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $38</a>   Today’s Botanic Spark November 6, 1885   Today is the birthday of the British plant collector and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward. During the beginning of the twentieth century, Frank Kingdon Ward went on twenty-four Indiana-Jones-like expeditions throughout Tibet, China, and Southeast Asia to search for rare and elusive species of plants. Among his many accomplishments, Frank found the legendary Tibetan blue poppy. Frank’s accounts of his adventures are captivating. In 1942, he arrived in New Delhi after a 500 hundred mile walk over mountains and through jungles. The newspaper account said:   "A thin, wiry little man in his 50s, Captain Kingdon-Ward...decided that the Japanese were getting too close for comfort, so he loaded two 60-pound bags of rice on two mules... But instead of taking the short road through the Chaukan pass, [he] decided to travel the 500-mile mule trail through Tibet... [Frank tramped] knee-deep in the snow [and] crossed the Himalayas at the 14,500-foot pass... [Frank said] "It was a pleasant walk and [my] reward is in the finding of dazzling flowers never seen before. You know they may always blush unseen — unless you manage to take them back and make them grow where others can admire them. They are a little bit of the enchantment of Asia transplanted into England or America. It is satisfying enough, if you can feel in an industrial age like the present, that you have brought home a little beauty for others to enjoy."

November 6, 2020 Bernard de Jussieu, Alice Lounsberry, Alfred Austin, American Gardens by Monty Don and Derry Moore, and Frank Kingdon Ward