Hi there everyone and welcome to the Daily Gardener and thank you for listening. I'm your host Jennifer Eblin. It's August 18th Today we celebrate the Brigadier General who described the compass plant. We'll also learn about the Norwegian poet who gardened intended 70 apple trees.
We'll remember the gift given to America by the mayor of Tokyo and we'll also honor a very special tree That was discovered on the estate of the first Earl of Campardown. We'll celebrate World Daffodil Day with the Daffodil poem And we grow that garden library with a book called Dream Plants for the Natural Garden It's a classic and then we'll wrap things up with the story of the Georgia state flower But first let's catch up on some greetings from gardeners from around the world and today's curated news Well in my inbox today was a gorgeous picture of Love Lies Bleeding from Judas Anderson and Judith writes I thought I'd send you a picture of my favorite plant Love Lies Bleeding or Amerenthe and she writes I love to see it in the garden. It makes me smile and it's absolutely gorgeous in flower arrangements And then she writes PS my favorite thing about this plant is that it recedes Well, I agree this plant is absolutely beautiful and you know, it's one that's been on my list for years I've never actually grown it mainly because I know it takes a lot of room But I tell you what this picture is motivation because it is just stunning So if you grow Amerenthe or Love Lies Bleeding in your garden send me a picture of it and tell me what you love about it And why I should grow it I would love to hear from you And then I did get a request from Amy Olson who said could you please wish my mom a happy birthday? She was born on the 18th of August and her favorite plant is the Iris and her name is Jan Well, happy birthday Jan and many more.
All right, if you'd like to participate in the Gardener greeting segment Just send your garden pictures your stories birthday wishes and so forth to me Jennifer at the daily gardener Dot org that's Jennifer at the daily gardener dot o-r-g and to listen to the show while you're at home Just ask Alexa or Google to play the daily gardener podcast. It's just that easy Here's today's curated news Well today's post was featured in the Guardian and it was written by James Wong back in the middle of July Now the title caught my attention and I know the answer is going to be a little controversial But bear with me here the title of the post was do house plants really improve air quality? Well as James says in the subtitle received wisdom is all very well, but sometimes the science proves otherwise Here's an excerpt five years ago I wrote a column in this very magazine about how house plants can purify the air based on research carried out by NASA Since then there's been a slew of online articles not to mention industry campaigns and even new gadgets Centered on this claim the only problem with it is that more recent and better quality research has found this to be extremely unlikely Now I won't go into all of the information that's in this article But the bottom line is that the number of plants you would need to have in your home to make any significant dent on air quality Would be a tremendous number of plants although in some cases many of us may fall into that category Who knows but I do agree with how James ends his article here He says other research shows that having plants indoors has a range of other benefits. They boost productivity They can improve mood they regulate humidity all on top of looking beautiful James says if you want fresh air open a window But if you want to witness the joy of nature and feel a daily sense of wonder get some house plants amen to that Now if you happen to be on Twitter James really has a wonderful Twitter feed and you can follow him easily His Twitter handle is at botany geek all one word Botany geek and if you'd like to read James's article for yourself Just search for the word house plant in the Facebook group for the show and this post will pop up All right, that's it for today's gardening news Now if you'd like to check out any of my curated articles or original blog posts for yourself You're in luck because I share all of it with the listener community in the free Facebook group for the show the daily gardener community So there's no need to take notes or search for links the next time you're on Facebook to search for the daily gardener community and request to join I'd love to meet you in the group.
Here's today's brevity's Today is the birthday of the Brigadier General mathematician and botanist Benjamin Alvard who was born on this day In 1813 born in Rutland, Vermont Benjamin was always drawn to nature He graduated from West Point and even spent some time teaching there as a math professor Benjamin fought in the Seminole Wars the Mexican-American War and the Civil War and when he wasn't serving in the military Benjamin returned to his passions of scholarly activity his obituary at Arlington says General Alvard lived most of his life in the field Where he was separated from society and books yet. He became a learned scholar skilled in dialectics ready in conversation and polished in his writing He had a special fondness for mathematics botany history and biography Benjamin published mathematical papers literary articles for magazines like harpers and a botanical paper on the compass plant Silphium lascenietum which was featured in the American naturalist in 1848 Benjamin described the compass plant this way The Silphium lascenietum is a perennial plant of the order composite high the first year It bears only radical leaves but the second year and after it is a flowering herb with four or five leaves on the stem Very rough bristly throughout flowers yellow found on rich prairies in the Mississippi Valley from Minnesota to Texas It was first seen by me in the autumn of 1839 on the rich prairies near Fort Wayne in the northeastern portion of the Cherokee nation Near the Arkansas line now the leaves of the compass plant align north south Which helps the plant minimize the effect of midday sun the north south orientation Guided settlers crossing the prairies who use the plant as a compass during their journey compass plant is edible livestock eat it Native Americans used it to make tea and a dewormer for their horses And they also used it as a teeth cleaner and a breath sweetener Although before you use the compass plant for your teeth or breath take note of this passage from the Illinois author John Madison Who said pioneers found that the compass plant produced a pretty good brand of native chewing gum? It has an odd pine resin taste that's pleasant enough but must be firmed up before it's chewed a couple summers ago I tried some of the sap while it was still liquid It's surely the stickiest stuff in all creation and I literally had to clean it from my teeth with lighter fluid So don't go chewing compass plant now Benjamin was very curious about the polarity of the compass plant in fact another common name for the plant is the polar plant Benjamin initially theorized that the plant took up a lot of iron thereby creating a magnetic polarity in the leaves But he later discounted that theory and the poet long fellow referred to the compass plant in his 1947 poem Evangeline about a young woman who is lovesick over missing her boyfriend now before I read an excerpt from this poem I thought I defined two terms for you Nepenthi is a drug of forgetfulness and asfidel is a gray and ghostly plant in the underworld Patience the priest would say half faith in thy prayer will be answered Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow See how its leaves are turned to the north as true as the magnet This is the compass flower that the finger of God has planted here in the houseless wild to direct the traveler's journey Over the sea like pathless limitless waste of the desert Such in the soul of man is faith the blossoms of passion gay and luxuriant flowers are brighter and fuller of fragrance But they beguylos and lead us astray and their odor is deadly Only this humble plant can guide us here and hereafter crone us with asfidel flowers that are wet with the do's of Nepenthi And today is the birthday of the Norwegian poet and gardener Olaf Hoege who was born on this day in 1908 Olaf was a trained horticulturist and a fruit grower He earned a living as a professional gardener and when he wasn't writing poetry He could be found working in his apple orchard. He had 70 apple trees And I thought you'd enjoy hearing my translation of one of his more popular poems in his home country of Norway It's about a garden cat The cat sits in the yard when you come talk to the cat a little.
He's the one who's in charge of the garden And here's another popular poem for Olaf fans Don't come to me with the entire truth Don't bring me the ocean if I feel thirsty nor heaven if I ask for light But bring a hint some do a particle as birds carry only drops away from water and the wind a grain of salt That a good one and today in 1909 Tokyo mayor Yuki Ohzaki pledged to give two thousand cherry trees to the United States president William Howard Taft Taft decided to plant them near the Potomac River in Washington DC in the West Potomac Park surrounding the tidal basin The trees arrived in Washington DC on January 6th of 1910 And it was on this day in 1918 that a daughter of Redmond Washington Nellie Perigault married Chase G Morris and her father William Pulsifer Perigault gifted the couple a camper down elm In fact William gave each one of his five daughters a camper down elm on their wedding day He'd brought the unique trees with him from Scotland and Nellie and Charles posed for their wedding photo in front of her sister June's camper down elm since they were married on her property Then after the wedding Nellie and Chase planted their own camper down elm in front of their little farmhouse in Carnation Washington Today five generations of the Morris family have lived and played under the family camper down elm Camper down elms have a fascinating history that dates back to 1840 That year on the estate of the first Earl of camper down the estate forester and landscaper named David Taylor noticed a contorted young elm growing parallel to the ground Now what Taylor was looking at was essentially a weeping mutation of the Scotch elm Like other weepers the trees lacked the gene for negative geotropism So the tree couldn't distinguish which way was up? Taylor dug up the young elm and brought it to the gardens of camper down house And eventually Taylor grafted cuttings of the weeping elm to which elms and the result was a tree that became known as the camper down elm A weeping cultivar of the Scotch elm In 1872 the New York florist Adulphus Gobi Burgess gifted a camper down elm to the Brooklyn Parks Commission After receiving the tree from Burgess It was up to Frederick Law Olmsted to decide on a location for it Seeing that the graft was relatively low on the rootstock Olmsted wisely planted the tree on a small hill near the boathouse at Prospect Park Which allowed for plenty of room for the weeping branches By the time the Pulitzer winning poet Mary Ann Moore fell in love with the camper down elm at Prospect Park It was in sad shape Some of the limbs were actually hollow thanks to rats and carpenter ants and the weak areas of the tree made it vulnerable And it began to succumb to a bacterial infection as well as general rot Mary Ann used her fame and her wit to save the camper down elm She wrote a poem about the tree which was published in the New Yorker in September of 1967 the public read her poem and the Bartlett tree company saved the tree. It still stands today Now before I read the poem, I'll offer a few definitions Thanotopsis is the name of a poem written by William Cullen Bryant It's also a Greek word that means thinking about death and Bryant's poem is regarded as a consolation to us Because eventually we all will die Then Thomas Cole and Asher Durand are both in Mary Ann's poem and they were both landscape painters One of Asher Durand's most famous paintings is called kindred spirits and the picture shows two men standing on a rock ledge And shaded by the branches of an enormous elm tree in the Catskill Mountains The men depicted were the painter Thomas Cole and his dear friend the poet William Cullen Bryant And finally a curio is something novel rare or bizarre Here's the camper down elm by Mary Ann Moore I think in connection with this weeping elm of kindred spirits at the edge of a rock ledge overlooking a stream Thanotopsis invoking tree-loving Bryant conversing with Thomas Cole and Asher Durand's painting of them under the filigree of an elm overhead No doubt they had seen other trees, lindens, maples and sycamores, oaks in the Paris Street tree, the horse chestnut But imagine their rapture had they come on the camper down elms massiveness and the intricate pattern of its branches Arching high, curving low in its mist of fine twigs The Bartlett tree cavity specialists saw it and thrust his arm the whole length of the holiness of its torso And there were six small cavities also props are needed and tree food. It is still leafing still there Mortal though we must save it.
It is our crowning curio In unearth words today is World Daffodil Day And there's really one poem that's regarded as the mother of all Daffodil poems And it's this one by William Wordsworth the English Romantic poet I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high over veils and hills When all at once I saw a crowd a host of golden daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees fluttering and dancing in the breeze continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way They stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay Ten thousand saw I at a glance tossing their heads in sprightly dance The waves beside them danced but they outdid the sparkling waves and glee a poet could not but be gay in such a juckened company I gazed and gazed but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought For oft when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood They flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude and then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils It's time to grow that garden library with today's book dream plants for the natural garden by Pete Adolf and Hank Gertzen this book came out in 2013 and it's still one of the very best books on modern garden design Join two of the world's most influential garden designers Pete Adolf and Hank Gertzen as they describe their ideal perennials bulbs grasses ferns and small shrubs for your natural garden this comprehensive compendium classifies 1,200 plants according to their behavior their strengths and their uses which makes this book so practical and so helpful and With these plants and their expert advice you can create the garden of your dreams This book is 144 pages of natural garden goodness and you can get a copy of dream plants for the natural garden by Pete Adolf and Hank Gertzen and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $35 Finally here's something sweet to revive the little botanic spark in your heart on this day in 1853 Georges governor Nathaniel Harris approved the joint resolution to make the Cherokee rose Georgia's state flower And I thought you'd enjoy hearing this little excerpt from the Atlantic Constitution in 1970 They shared a little story about the Cherokee rose Four years ago, Georgia's commissioner of agriculture Tommy Ervin decided it was high time for a Cherokee rose to be on the grounds of the state Capital Secretary of State Ben Fortson then in charge of the grounds agreed now It isn't easy to find a Cherokee rose for sale So a notice was put in the market bulletin inviting someone to donate a Cherokee rose for the capital Within a few days the commissioner's office was swamped with almost two hundred and fifty rose bushes The super abundance spoke well for the generosity of Georgians and their eagerness to cooperate But not so well for their knowledge of the state flower for less than 0.1% Was actually the Cherokee rose the others were McCartney's past year in prairie roses silver moons Bengal's multi floraz and grandma's favorite But there were enough plants for public grounds all over the state with one or two real Cherokees for the capital grounds Now only a horticulturist can identify a Cherokee rose for sure But Mrs. Wills once suggested a simple way for the average person to distinguish between the Cherokee and the McCartney Which is often confused with it because the blossoms are similar The Cherokee she said has only three leaves on a stem and the McCartney has five Thanks for listening to the Daily Gardener and remember for a happy healthy life garden every day The Daily Gardener is produced in lovely Wyoming, Minnesota with the help of Paige Mance, Brooke Beerbaum, Keanu Rayleigh, Matty Doyle, Natalie Decker and Eric Begay You can find the Daily Gardener on all your favorite social media You can follow the show on Instagram and listeners always have a standing invitation to join the free Facebook group for the show Just search for Daily Gardener Community the next time you're on Facebook and request to join all the stories and books that are featured on the show Can be found over at the Daily Gardener.org the Daily Gardener.org And while you're there be sure to sign up for my free Friday newsletter Last but not least you can share your own Gardener greetings on the show by emailing me at Jennifer at the Daily Gardener.org I'm your host Jennifer Ebling and as always have a great day in the garden and we'll see you tomorrow