Hi there everyone and welcome to the Daily Gardener and thank you for listening. I'm your host Jennifer Eblin. It's August 19th. Today we salute the English orphan girl who wrote her own destiny with science fiction writing.
And we'll also remember the English gardener who is still ghosting us after many decades. We'll revisit a letter from the garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence to her sister Anne and we'll celebrate National Potato Day with some potato poems. Looking forward to that. Carbohydrates guys.
We're going to grow that garden library with a gorgeous book about dahlias and then we'll wrap things up with the birthday of a beloved American creator of Lightverse. One of my favorites. But first let's catch up on some greetings from gardeners from around the world and today's curated news. Well first up is an email that I received this morning from Henry Jansmup over at the Vickers Garden and I have to say that in general Henry's garden is staggeringly beautiful and the picture that he sent me this morning was in response to my question yesterday if listeners would please send me pictures of their love lies bleeding and then tell me whether or not I should grow it here at the cabin because it's been on my list for quite a while and I have to say that any doubts or hesitation I had about growing this plant have now gone completely out the window after seeing Henry's picture.
But Henry wrote I grow amaranthus caudatus or lovelized bleeding as a traditional cottage garden plant and for my wife's enjoyment and then he offered this fantastic tip. He said I found it needs a sheltered spot from the wind or staking for support as the branches or even the main trunk will easily snap with the weight of the wet red panicle tassels and once you see this picture you can easily understand how that might happen. I mean this plant is just huge but it is so so gorgeous. So I'm convinced I'm a believer and thank you Henry for sending me this picture and also your thoughts on this plant and by the way you refreshed my memory as well because I believe yesterday when I was speaking about this plant I used the word amaranth to describe it but it actually is amaranthus caudatus.
That's the correct botanical name for this plant. The common name is lovelized bleeding but the botanical name is amaranthus caudatus. Just set the record straight there. And again thank you Henry for reaching out.
I really appreciate it and you have an absolutely gorgeous garden. Beautiful. Then next was an email that I received from Karen in prior Lake Minnesota and she wrote I've always wanted an herb garden but I don't know what to do with the herbs. Can you give me some ideas especially for some lesser known herbs?
Well Karen you've hit on one of my favorite topics. You know immediately one of the things that comes to mind for me is nasturtium. You know a lot of people add nasturtium to their herb gardens but they don't realize that the nasturtium is edible. In fact the flowers taste like ratches.
Nasturtium flowers are absolutely stunning in salads and they come in beautiful colors like peach yellow or orange. And don't forget that the leaves are edible too. You know another plant that comes to mind for me is borage. Borage has those electric blue blossoms.
They're so so beautiful but they're also edible. It got kind of a sweet taste. Now they're beautiful in a cold soup or a salad. I've seen them added to dessert.
You just place a little borage flower on top of the whipped cream and voila. You're done and it looks amazing. And another great use for a borage flower is to just let them float around at the top of your summer drink. It's just a nice little finishing touch.
You know back in the day when we used to entertain company that would be your main motivation. But now I say all of these nice little gestures are just as important when we have to physically distance from our friends at home. And why not enjoy something like a little borage flower in your lemonade while you're sitting on your porch. So another great option for you.
And I'll give you one more quick one here before we wrap things up. And this is an idea for how to use lemon verbena. You know you can add lemon verbena to a bath. It's very very lovely very refreshing.
And you can also add it as an additional hint of citrus to any summer time drink. So think about a lemonade or a summer refresher. Even some punches would be great for lemon verbena. And you know another great idea is to add it to La Croix.
So if you drink a lot of the La Croix waters, especially the citrus flavors, you can definitely enhance them a little bit with some lemon verbena. So there you go. Three ideas for some less common plants that you might want to grow in an herb garden. All right.
That's it for today's Gardener Greetings. Now if you'd like to participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, just go ahead and send your garden pictures, your stories, birthday wishes, recipes and so forth to me at my email, Jennifer at thedailygardener.org. That's Jennifer at thedailygardener.org. And if you'd like 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.
And she will. It's just that easy. Here's today's curated news. Well, Flower Magazine recently held a little competition.
It was a virtual design challenge and it was won by Michael Drolay. He submitted his vibrant vision for a Paris apartment and it featured plenty of botanicals, which is why I wanted to share it with you guys. Now, one of the things that Michael did is that he pushed the boundaries by using a Taylor King fabric as a wall covering. And I love this kind of creativity, especially for gardeners.
You know, living during a pandemic can really stifle your creativity. So images like this, seeing how Michael approached this project are very energizing. And you know, I've been spending lots of time looking through all kinds of botanical art albums. And I just know that someday I'll have a room and one of the walls is going to be a collage of all of my favorite botanical art.
It's just a little idea that I've had percolating for a while now. Now, the other thing that I think you'll enjoy seeing that's part of Michael's design is that he went ahead and he created a plan for the outdoor patio of the apartment. So he went above and beyond here. And before I forget, I really want to encourage you to click on the link for this post and read it in detail because that's where you'll see Michael's beautiful design.
But you'll also get to see a sample of this wall covering that he used from Taylor King. And the wall covering is called Secret Garden Passion. It's a floral textile. It is a fabric.
It's not a wallpaper, but this is what he used to cover the walls and this textile is really quite something. So if you'd like to check out Michael's winning design and read the post in full over at Flower Magazine, all you have to do is search for the word design in the Facebook group for the show and this post will pop up. Well, today over at the blog, I wrote a post in honor of National Potato Day, which is today. And I thought you would enjoy hearing some fun potato facts.
First, the average American eats approximately 126 pounds of potatoes every single year. And I have to say, we just had my daughter's graduation party and the restaurant that brought the potatoes over, they brought scalloped potatoes. And I'm telling ya, I can believe this 126 pound statistic after having those potatoes because they were so good. Talk about comfort food.
In any case, that's a big number, 126 pounds. And I suppose we've got to include french fries in the mix for that as well. And second, did you know that up until the 18th century that the French believed potatoes caused leprosy? So to combat that belief, there was an agronomist named Antoine Parmintier.
And he single-handedly changed the perception of the potato. Now, you might be wondering how he managed to do that. How did he get the French people to believe that the potato was safe to eat? Well, that's a great question.
And the answer shows just how clever Antoine was. The first thing he did is that he cleverly posted guards around the perimeter of his potato fields during the day. And then he put out the word throughout the town that he didn't want people to steal his potatoes. Then he purposefully left them unguarded in the evening.
And as he suspected, people did just what he thought they'd do. They began sneaking in to the garden by the light of the moon and stealing potatoes by the sackful. And then they started eating them and the rest is history. And here's a fun potato fact for you.
Marie Antoinet wore potato blossoms in her hair. And they actually are rather attractive if you ever get a chance to see a potato blossom. And then finally, the Idaho potato or the Russet Burbank was developed by none other than Luther Burbank in 1871, one of my favorite botanical figures. And by the way, today is also World Photography Day.
So grab your camera or your iPhone and head out to your garden and take some pictures. Alright, that's it for today's Gardening News. Now, if you'd like to check out any of my curated news 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, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Here's today's brevity. Today is the birthday of the botanical writer and illustrator Jane Loudon or Jane Webb if we're talking about her maiden name.
She was born on this day in 1807. Jane married the prolific writer of all things gardening, John Claudius Loudon. Together, they became magnificent partners in the world of botanical writing and publishing. Now, Jane was truly a special person.
She was a fantastic writer in her own right, but she also possessed an inner determination. She was a survivor. When her father lost the family fortune and died penniless when Jane was only 17, it was the beginning of her career writing science fiction. Along with Mary Shelley, Jane was an early pioneer in science fiction writing.
And it's hard to believe, but this endeavor would set her on her life's path to garden writing. Jane's book, The Mummy, was published anonymously in 1827 in three parts. In her writing, Jane incorporated predictable changes in technology and society. For instance, she predicted that the women of the future would wear pants.
And Jane also featured something agricultural that she imagined would come to pass. A steam plow. Jane's vision of easier and less laborious farming is what attracted the attention of John Claudius Loudon, her future husband. Now, Loudon wrote a favorable review of her book, but he also wanted to meet the author personally.
Loudon didn't realize that Jane had written the book using a nom de plume of Henry Colburn. Much to Loudon's delight, Henry was Jane and they fell in love and married a year later. Now, if you enjoy Victorian illustrations, you'll positively swoon for the frontispiece of Jane's 1843 publication, Gardening for Ladies with a calendar of operations and directions for every month in the year. This piece shows a mother and her young child standing on either side of a lush arbor and they're both holding garden tools.
It's really a beautiful sketch. Jane's garden books were very, very popular. She connected with her fans because she was always earnest and genuine. Jane wasn't raised as a gardener.
She learned it as an adult. And when it came to gardening, Jane was what you would call a conscious competent. She knew what she knew and it made her an excellent gardening teacher. Jane was aware of this when she wrote, I think books intended for professional gardeners are seldom suitable to the wants of amateurs.
It is so very difficult for a person who has been acquainted with a subject all his life to imagine the state of ignorance in which a person is who knows nothing of it. Thus, though it might at first appear presumptuous of me to attempt to teach an art of which for three-fourths of my life I was perfectly ignorant. It is in fact that very circumstance which is one of my chief qualifications for the task. And today people often forget that Jane was not only a writer and a wife but she was also a caretaker.
Jane's husband John had many physical challenges. His arms stopped working as he grew older after an attack of rheumatic fever. As a result, Jane became his arms and she handled most of his writing. And as with all the trials she faced in her life, Jane handled John's challenges head on and with pragmatism.
And as for those who felt gardening wasn't ladylike, Jane wrote, A lady with the assistance of a common laborer to level and prepare the ground may turn a barren waist into a flower garden with her own hands. Eventually John's right arm got so bad that surgeons needed to amputate it. They found him in his garden when they came to perform the surgery. John replied he intended to return to the garden immediately after the operation.
Two weeks before Christmas in 1843, Jane was helping John write his last book called A Self-Instruction to Young Gardeners. Around midnight, John stopped dictating and he suddenly collapsed into Jane's arms and died. True to form, Jane completed the book on her own. The orphan girl who never knew financial security, Jane Loudon is remembered with affection to this day for her beautiful illustrations and garden writing for the people.
And today is the birthday of Ellen Ann Wilmot, who was an English horticulturist who lived in Brentwood. She was born on this day in 1858. Ellen was the oldest in her family of three daughters. In 1875, her parents moved to Warley Place, which was set on 33 acres of land in Essex.
Ellen lived there for the rest of her life. Now, each member of the Wilmot family enjoyed gardening, and they often garden together as a family. Ellen once wrote, I had a passion for sowing seeds and was very proud when I found out the difference between beads and seeds and gave up sowing the former. The Wilmot's created an alpine garden, complete with a gorge and a rockery, and they also created a cave for their ferns.
Now, this was an activity that Ellen's father had approved, and that garden commemorated Ellen's 21st birthday. When her godmother died, Ellen received some pretty significant money, and when Ellen's father died, Warley Place went to her. With her large inheritance and no love interest save her garden, Ellen planted to her heart's content. It was a good thing that Ellen had so much money because she sure liked to spend it.
She had three homes, one in France, Warley Place, and another in Italy. And given the size of Warley Place, it's no wonder that Ellen hired over 100 gardeners to help her tend it. Now, Ellen was no shrinking violet. She was very demanding and impatient, and she had a reputation for firing any gardener who allowed a weed to grow in her beds.
And she only hired men, at least before the war, that is. There's a famous quote from her that's often cited, women would be a disaster in the border. Ellen's gardeners worked very hard, putting in 12 hours a day, and Ellen made them all wear a uniform that included a frog green silk tie, a hat with a green band, and a blue apron, so she could easily spot her gardeners as they worked in the garden. Ellen's favorite flower was the Narcissus, and she asked her gardeners to let their children scatter them all around the garden.
With such a large staff and maniacal devotion, Ellen's garden at Warley Place was revered, and her guests included Queen Mary, Queen Alexandra, and Princess Victoria. Ellen delighted in novel plants, and to acquire them, she also paid for plant hunting expeditions. And as a customary perk, since Ellen was financing these ventures, the plants that were discovered on these expeditions were often named in her honor. For example, Ellen sponsored the great Ernest Henry Wilson, and when he returned, he named three plants for her, a blue plumbago, a yellow cori lopsus, and a pink rose.
And when Ellen received the Victoria Medal of Honor in 1897, she was honored alongside Gertrude Jekyll, and receiving this medal was a major accomplishment for these women during this time in history. Yet at the end of her life, Ellen died penniless and heartbroken. She had spent her entire fortune on her gardens. After Ellen died, the house at Warley Place was demolished, but Warley Place, along with its grand row of 17th century chestnut trees, managed to stay protected, and it became a nature preserve.
And there's a little story about Ellen that I thought you would enjoy. Ellen always carried a handbag. Now, in this handbag, she allegedly always carried two items, a revolver and thistle seeds. Well, obviously, the former was for her protection, but the latter was put to a far more sinister use.
Allegedly, when Ellen would go to other people's gardens, she discreetly scattered thistle seed about the garden during her visit. And to this day, the giant prickly thistle has the common name, Miss Wilmot's Ghost. And on this day, in 1934, Elizabeth Lawrence wrote a letter to her sister Anne, and in the letter, she mentions their mom, Bessie, who shared both her daughter's love of the garden. Elizabeth wrote, I am so happy to get back to my rickety corona.
Ellen's elegant new typewriter made anything I had to say unworthy of its attention. The zinnias you raised for us are magnificent. There are lots of those very pale salmon ones that are the loveliest of all, and some very pale yellow ones that Bessie puts in my room. The red ones are in front of Bultonia and is still be white.
I knew how awful the garden would be. I've come back to it before, and I knew Bessie wasn't going to do anything by herself. But that doesn't mitigate the despair that you feel when you see it. I worked for two days and almost got the weeds out of the beds around the summer house.
There isn't much left. There has been so much rain that the growth of the weeds was tropical. In unearthed words, today is National Potato Day, so here are some poems about the humble potato. This first one is by Joseph Stroud, the American poet, and it's called The Potato.
Three days into the journey, I lost the Inca Trail and scrambled around the Andes in a growing panic. When on a hillside, below the snow line, I met a farmer who pointed the way. Machu Picchu Aala, he said, he knew where I wanted to go. From my pack, I pulled out an orange.
It seemed to catch fire in that high blue Andean sky. I gave it to him. He had been digging in a garden, turning up clumps of earth, some odd misshapen nuggets, some potatoes. He handed me one, a potato the size of the orange, looking as if it had been in the ground a hundred years.
A potato I carried with me until at last I stood gazing down on the Eurobomba Valley. Peeks rising out of the jungle, into the clouds, and there among the miss was the Temple of the Sun and the lost city of the Incas. Looking back now, all these years later, what I remember most, what matters to me most, was that farmer alone on his hillside who gave me a potato, a potato with its peasants face, its lumps and lunar craters, a potato that fit perfectly in my hand. A potato that consoled me as I walked, told me not to fear, held me close to the earth.
The potato I put in a pot that night, the potato I boiled above Machu Picchu, the patient, knarled potato, I ate. And here's a poem from the American poet Jane Kenyon called Potato. In haste one evening, while making dinner, I threw away a potato that was spoiled on one end. The rest would have been redeemable.
In the yellow garbage pail, it became the consort of coffee grounds, banana skins, carrot peelings. I pitched it onto the compost where steaming scraps and leaves return, like bodies over time to earth. When I flipped the fetid layers with a hayfork to air the pile, the potato turned up unfailingly as if to revile me, looking plumper, firmer, resurrected instead of disassembling. It seemed to grow until I might have made a shepherd's pie for a whole hamlet, people who passed the day, dropping trees, pumping gas, pinning hand me down clothes on the line.
It's time to grow that garden library with today's book, Dahlia's by Naomi Slade. This book came out in 2018 and the subtitle is Beautiful Varieties for Home and Garden. And I love what the publisher wrote about this book. The Dahlia is a fabulous cutting flower for the home garden.
Cut one bloom and ten more appear on the plant. Blooming late summer to the first frost of autumn, the native of Mexico provides explosions of color in home gardens. The author of this book, Naomi Slade, is a biologist by training and a naturalist by inclination, and she has a lifelong love of plants. And the photographer for this book is one of my favorites.
It's none other than Georgiana Lane. Georgiana is a leading garden photographer, and her styled floral photoshoots are absolutely jaw-dropping. This book is 240 pages of Delicious Dahlia's. It's a gorgeous gift for gardeners from Naomi and Georgiana.
And you can get a copy of Dahlia's by Naomi Slade and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $10. Now that's a steal, and I just ordered my copy last week. Finally, here's something sweet to revive the little botanic spark in your heart. Today is the birthday of Ogden Nash, who was born on this day in 1902.
Ogden is the American poet who said, Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. And he also said, Parsley is garcely. Now Ogden wrote a number of poems about gardening and flowers, but his poem called, My Victory Garden has to be the all-time favorite. Here it is.
Today, my friends, I beg your pardon, but I'd like to speak of my victory garden. With a ho for a sword and citronella for armor, I ventured forth to become a farmer. On bended knee and perspiring clamily, I pecked at the soil to feed my family, a figure than which there was none more dramaticer, alone with a bug in my faithful sciatica. I toiled with the patience of Job or Buddha, but nothing turned out the way I was.
Would you like a description of my parsley? I can give it to you in one word, garcely. They're making play shoes out of my celery. It's reclaimed rubber and purplish yellowy.
Something crawly got into my chives. My lettuce has hookworm. My cabbage has hives. And I mixed the labels when sewing my carrots.
I planted bird seed. It came up parrots. Do you wonder then that my arteries harden whenever I think of my victory garden? My farming will never make me famous.
I'm an agricultural ignoramus. So don't ask me to tell a string bean from a soybean. I can't even tell a girl bean from a boy bean. 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, Mattie Doyle, Natalie Ducker, 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 thedailygardener.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 jenniferatthedailygardener.org. I'm your host, Jennifer Ebling, and as always, have a great day in the garden, and we'll see you tomorrow.