Hi there, everyone, and welcome to The Daily Gardener, and thank you for listening. I'm your host, Jennifer Ebeling. It's August 3rd. Today we remember the busiest man in London, and we'll also learn about the man honored by the baobab tree.
We'll salute a daughter of Winterthur, and we also recognize a life cut short in the world of tropical botany. We'll take a look back on a letter that was written on this day in 1961 from one garden writer to another. And we'll grow that garden library with a book that puts your focus on the grill for preparing your garden harvest. And then we'll wrap things up with a story about gallant soldiers.
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 from Marty J. in New Jersey, who sent me a picture of his three monarch caterpillars. And he writes, I love The Daily Gardener podcast, and I wanted to share a picture of these guys since it's my very first year raising monarchs.
I was happy to get one, excited to get two, and beyond thrilled when I found my third. And I just had to share. Well, thank you for that, Marty. And I hope they all transition perfectly into monarchs.
Then next up was an email that I received from Lois in Burnsville, Minnesota. And she included a little picture of this statue that she found while she was digging in her garden. And she wrote, look what I just found. Is he related to gardening?
Well, this email made me chuckle. And it reminded me of my friend, Diane, because when they were selling their very first house, they bought a little statue of St. Joseph and they buried him in the backyard. And that little ritual is supposed to help you sell your house.
So, Lois, what I think you have there is a statue of St. Joseph. And you might want to hang on to him because obviously it worked. All right.
If you'd like to participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, just send your garden pictures, questions, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to me, Jennifer, at thedailygardener.org. That's jennifer at thedailygardener.org. And don't forget that to listen to the show while you're at home, all you have to do is ask Alexa or Google to play the Daily Gardener podcast. And she will.
It's just that easy. Here's today's curated news. Well, I love the website, The Empress of Dirt. It's written by Melissa J.
Will. And she recently wrote a post called The Seven Best Tips for Growing Dahlias. And I thought you'd enjoy hearing a little excerpt. Melissa gathered these tips for growing dahlias from numerous sources, including books, research papers, her own experience, and then advice from professional growers whose livelihood depends on their success.
And she provides these seven top tips and then answered frequently asked questions for an excellent overview of everything you need to know to grow dahlias. Now, this is an exhaustive article, but I did pull out a few of some of my favorite tips from Melissa, and I thought I'd share them with you here. But if you're at all interested in growing dahlias, you really should check out this post. So here are a few of Melissa's main points.
Dahlias take 90 to 120 days to flower after planting, depending on the variety that you're growing. Now, generally, the larger the plant and the larger the flowers, the longer it takes. And if you want flowers before late summer, you need to consider starting your dahlia tubers indoors, in pots, four to six weeks before the last frost. And hey, why not?
We're all anxious to get in the garden at that time anyway. So add potting up dahlias to your April or May garden tasks. Another tip that Melissa talks about is pinching back, which is the same as cutting off the main stem, to encourage the plant to become bushier. And she says every enthusiastic dahlia grower will tell you that their storage method works like a charm.
And then she says they are right for their specific conditions. The point is, it's the health of the tuber and the overall environment that you use for storage that counts. Now, the optimal storage temperature for a dahlia tuber is between 40 and 45 degrees, or four to seven degrees Celsius. You're going to run into problems with the heating system in your home because that makes the humidity level in our homes drop, and it's often too low for the tubers.
So Melissa had this great tip. Consider using the plastic food wrap method where each tuber is wrapped individually to keep the moisture in the tuber. And by the way, growers who use this method report a higher number of viable tubers each spring. And don't forget that exposure to some cold is necessary for tubers to develop.
So don't pull them out of the ground before it's gotten cold. That foliage needs to blacken a bit in the first frost of the fall before you dig up those tubers and then wrap them in food wrap for the winter. Okay, two left. We're in the home stretch.
Now, when spring rolls around, a handy rule is that if it's time to plant tomatoes, it's time to plant dahlias. So see if you can begin to link the two in your mind. And then finally, on a brighter note, dahlias are not deer proof, but they're not a favorite of deer. So they're not going to be their first food choice when other plants are available.
Great tip. Now, as I mentioned, this is a wonderful post from Melissa. And if you haven't signed up for her newsletter, you really should. In any case, if you'd like to read this post, all you need to do is type in the word Dahlia 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 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 brevities. Today is the birthday of the English gardener architect and a member of parliament, Joseph Paxton, who was born on this day in 1803. Joseph Paxton was brilliant.
It was Charles Dickens who dubbed him the busiest man in England. Joseph designed the Crystal Palace, a.k.a. the People's Palace, for the first World's Fair. The Crystal Palace was a large exhibition hall, and it was an extraordinary and revolutionary building.
Joseph was the head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire in Chatsworth. Now, you might be wondering how Joseph's job as the head gardener had given him the experience he needed to create the Crystal Palace. Well, the answer is simple. He had built four massive greenhouses for the Duke over a 15-year period from 1833 to 1848.
And that made Joseph one of the top greenhouse experts in the world, and the royalty in England knew it. Now, don't forget that the beautiful Crystal Palace was essentially a large greenhouse. Gardeners will appreciate that Joseph's iron and glass architectural plans were inspired by the transverse girders and supports of the giant water lily, which itself is an architectural wonder. Now, instead of creating a large empty building for exhibits, Joseph decided to build his greenhouse around and over the existing Hyde Park.
The high central arch, the grand barrel vault that you see in all of the old postcards and images of the Crystal Palace, actually accommodated full-size trees that were already in the park when Joseph began to build around them. And Joseph's Crystal Palace was built in a very short amount of time, and this was due again to Joseph's expertise and connections. He had already built relationships with the iron and glass companies in building greenhouses for the Duke, and he even designed many of the components that were needed to create a greenhouse. For instance, the large, beautiful columns in his greenhouses and in the Crystal Palace also served a purpose.
They were drainage. And today, many people are surprised to learn just how big the Crystal Palace was. And the Joseph Paxton biographer, Kate Colquan, wrote about the immensity of the palace. She said, Paxton's design, initially doodled on a piece of blogging paper, was the architectural triumph of its time.
2,000 men worked for eight months to complete it, and it was six times the size of St. Paul's Cathedral and enclosed a space of 18 acres. Well, the only thing that matched the enormity of the Crystal Palace was its overwhelming success. It was open every day except Sundays, all during the summer of 1851.
Queen Victoria and Albert were there on the day it opened, May 1st. And by the closing day on October 11th, six million people had walked past the international exhibits at the Crystal Palace. Now, for his work with the Crystal Palace, Joseph Paxton was knighted, and deservedly so. But if I could knight Joseph Paxton, I would honor him for cultivating my favorite breakfast item, the Cavendish banana, the most consumed banana in the Western world.
Naturally, Joseph cultivated the banana in the greenhouses he built for the 6th Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish, and it's his name that's attached to the banana. But even with the perfect growing conditions, it still took Joseph five years to get a banana harvest. But finally, in November of 1835, Joseph's banana plant finally flowered, and then by the following May, it was loaded with more than 100 bananas, one of which won a medal at the Horticultural Society show in London. Today, bananas still grow on the Devonshire estate, and the Cavendish banana is the most consumed banana in the Western world.
It replaced a tastier variety, which was wiped out by a fungal disease in the 1950s. Today, work is underway to create a Cavendish banana replacement. Without attention to this matter, we will someday see the extinction of the Cavendish banana. Now, if you'd like to read about Joseph Paxton, he's such a fascinating person, you really should check out the biographies that were written by Kate Colquan.
Her first Joseph Paxton biography was written in 2003, and it's called A Thing in Disguise, The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton. And her second book is called The Busiest Man in England, The Life of Joseph Paxton, Gardner, Architect, and Victorian Visionary. And that book came out in 2006. Now, you can get a used copy of either of these books and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $10.
And today is the anniversary of the death of the 18th century Scottish-French botanist and naturalist, Michael Addison, who died on this day in 1806. Michael created the first natural classification of flowering plants. In fact, Jussieu adopted Michael's methodology to create his masterpiece that defined plant groups called genera planterum in 1789. And although today we think mainly of Darwin and Linnaeus, they stood on the shoulders of people like Michael Addison.
And Michael was the first person to question the stability of a species. And when he saw breaks or deviations in nature, he came up with a word for it, and it's one we still use today, mutation. One of the most profound experiences in Michael's life was the five-year period that he spent living in Senegal, where he collected and described many new plants and animals. The experience also provided the foundation for his most famous work, the two-part plant families that he wrote in 1763.
In the book, Michael classified plants by evaluating a variety of plant characteristics in contrast to Linnaeus' more straightforward sexual system. Again, Michael's perspective on this was revolutionary and was embraced by Jussieu and other botanists. Today, it's called the natural system of classification. Linnaeus recognized Michael's contributions by naming the genus Adansonia, which features the spectacularly unique baobab trees of Africa, Australia, and Madagascar.
The baobab is remarkable and memorable. It has a sussical quality, and it's one of the most massive trees in the world. In Africa, they're called the queens of the forest, or the roots of the sky. That last name refers to a legend that tells how long ago, in a fit of anger, the devil pulled the baobab tree out of the ground, only to shove it back into the earth upside down, leaving its roots shooting up into the air.
Although they seldom grow taller than 40 feet, and they're usually sparsely branched, the trunks have an astounding girth, and they can be almost 30 feet wide. In fact, some large baobab cavities have served as jails, post offices, and even pubs. For instance, there's a massive baobab tree in Zimbabwe that's called Shadrick's Office by the locals. It was used as a safe by a famous poacher for sashing his ivory and rhinoceros horns.
And inside these enormous trunks, baobabs can store up to 32,000 gallons of water. The outer bark is about six inches thick, but inside, the cavity is spongy and vascular. This is why animals like elephants chew the bark during the dry season. Finally, the flowers of the baobab bloom at night, and they're bat-pollinated.
The fruit of the baobab looks like an oblong coconut with a brown, velvety, hard outer shell. But inside, the flesh is sweet and tastes a bit like yogurt. The baobab fruit contains more vitamin C than oranges, more calcium than milk, more antioxidants than blueberries or cranberries, and more iron than steak. And here's a fun fact.
The cooking ingredient, Cream of Tartar, was initially made from baobab seed pulp. Today, it's mostly sourced as a byproduct of making wine. In 1774, Michael Addison wrote another masterpiece, an encyclopedic work covering all of the known plant families. Sadly, it was never published.
But that work was clearly meaningful to Michael, who requested that a garland for his Paris grave be made up of flowers from each of the 58 plant families featured in his book. And Michael's work, his papers and herbarium, were clearly treasured by his surviving family. The added... The added...
privately held his entire collection for over a century before transferring everything to the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in the early 1960s. In fact, the Hunt Institute was so energized and grateful for the gift that they republished Michael's masterpiece, Plant Families, in two volumes in 1963 in honor of their bicentennial. And today is the birthday of Louise DuPont Crowninshield, who was born on this day at the Winter Tour Museum in 1877. Louise spent her entire life working on projects related to ecological preservation, charity, and horticulture.
Aside from her philanthropic efforts, Louise is remembered as the last DuPont to live in the residence at Winter Tour before it became a museum and library. The Winter Tour estate covers a thousand acres of rolling hills, streams, meadows, and forests. A lifelong lover of nature and a natural designer, Henry Francis DuPont got his bachelor's in horticulture from Harvard, and he thoughtfully developed Winter Tour, and he planned for the gardens to be a showpiece. When it came to sourcing plants, Henry spared no expense to source top plants from around the world.
And today, you can visit Winter Tour Garden and see for yourself the quarry, the peony, and the sundial gardens, as well as the azalea woods and the enchanted woods. And you can get a lovely used copy of a book called Henry F. DuPont and Winter Tour, a daughter's portrait, and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for under $2. Couldn't believe it when I saw that price.
It's vintage. And today is the anniversary of the death of the American botanist Alwyn Howard Gentry, who died on this day in 1945. It's been 75 years since Alwyn's life was tragically cut short when his plane crashed in a fog into a forested mountain during a treetop survey in Ecuador. At the time, Alwyn was just 48 years old, and he was at the peak of his career.
He was regarded as a towering figure in tropical biology, and he ranked among the world's leading field biologists. Alwyn was also the senior curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Theodore Parker III was also on the plane with Alwyn. Parker was a world expert ornithologist.
Parker's fiance survived the crash, and she told a reporter that both Alwyn and Parker had survived the crash as well, but sadly, they were both trapped in the wreckage of the plane, and without immediate medical attention, they passed away together the following morning. The only consolation for the many who knew and loved them was that Alwyn and Parker both died doing what they loved. Throughout his professional life, Alwyn had been in awe of the powerful pull of the rainforest, writing, quote, the Amazon is a world of lush green vegetation and abundant waters, and it's inspired naturalists, fortune hunters, dreamers, explorers, and exploiters. According to Conservation International, Alwyn had collected more specimens than any other living botanist of his time, a staggering 70,000 plants.
To this day, botanists rely on Gentry's Guide to the Woody Plants of Peru for understanding and direction when it comes to neotropical and tropical plants. And it was on this day in 1961 that Catherine Stewart wrote to her fellow garden writer, Elizabeth Lawrence. She wrote, My dear Elizabeth, by now you will have given me up entirely as a friend. It is shocking that I have not written to you in so long, and especially that I've never answered your letter offering me some of Mr.
Krippendorf's hellebores. Perhaps you can forgive me, though, when you hear all of the things that have been happening to me since May 24, the date of your letter. Turns out Catherine had an appendectomy. And by the way, I should mention that Catherine was married to E.B.
White. His name was actually Andy, and he was the author of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web. So when you hear her referring to Andy, that's who she's referring to. Catherine continued, I enclosed some of Andy's snapshots of the garden in early spring.
As you can see, it isn't a garden. No plan, no style, no proper arrangements of colors. But at least the pictures give you the feel of the land in a cold late main spring. Everything is different now.
The picket fence hardly shows for the flowers. The gray windbreak is covered with the blossoms of Mademoiselle Baron Veilard, Jack Marie, and Mrs. Cole Mondley. And on the little terrace, the hybrid roses are full of bloom.
We lost one of our big balm of Gilead trees in a fierce wind and rainstorm. And Andy has made the most ingenious birdbath from a section of its big trunk into which he poured cement. Yesterday, we could watch two song sparrows and a yellow warbler take their baths in it under the pear tree. Even if I can't garden, I can enjoy the flowers in a maddeningly remote way.
My first water lily is in blossom in the pasture pond. And today, my first ever hardy cyclamen is in bloom under the Persian lilac. It is enchanting and a triumph, as I have failed so often with them. I finally raised this one indoors last winter and set it out this spring.
I don't even know the variety, for the tag is lost. It has pink blossoms and variegated leaves. Everything else is at sixes and sevens. Iris needs separating.
One long perennial bed is too crowded. One is too skimpy, thanks to winter losses. It's been a year of frustration. Andy finally sold our beautiful Herefords, and there goes my source of manure.
Oh dear, we are crumbling badly. But just writing you gives me hope, and I am determined that I shall get back to normal again. We really feel encouraged. Ever affectionately, Catherine.
In unearthed words, today is National Watermelon Day, and here are some wonderful poems about watermelon. This first one is from the American lyricist Frank Levy-Santon. Go along, Mr. Winter.
Crawl into your frosty bed. I'm longing like a lover for the watermelon red. And here's one from the American-German poet and novelist Charles Bukowski. It's called Watermelon.
And the windows opened that night. The ceiling dripped the sweat of a tin god. And I sat eating a watermelon, all false red. Water like slow-running tears.
And I spit out seeds and swallowed seeds. And I kept thinking, I'm a fool. I'm a fool to eat this watermelon. But I kept eating anyhow.
And here's one of my favorite poems about the watermelon. It's from the American Serbian poet Charles Sinek. Green Buddhas on the fruit stand. We eat the smile and spit out the teeth.
And here's an ode to watermelon by Anonymous. Now comes the king of fruits again. Luscious feast for judge or felon. Glorious sun-kissed watermelon.
Green is emerald in its rind. But cutting through it, thou shalt find sweetest mass of crimson beauty, tempting angels from their duty. And here's a little something that was written in The Citizen Republican out of Scotland, South Dakota. It is pure water, the sealed, and put up by nature herself, who needs no government label to certify the cleanliness of her methods and the innocence of her sun-kissed chemistry.
It has the tiniest trace of earth salts. It has a delicate aroma. It is slightly a food, generously a drink, and altogether poetry. Not altogether is a poetry.
Not in respect of price. Not even the most hard-working of the poets can afford to buy the early watermelon. And finally, here's this beloved quote from the American designer, illustrator, and writer of children's books, Eric Carle, from his book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon.
That night, he had a stomachache. It's time to grow that garden library with today's book, From Garden to Grill, by Elizabeth Orsini. This book came out in 2017, and the subtitle is, Over 250 Vegetable-Based Recipes for Every Grillmaster. From kebabs and salads to made-from-scratch sauces and seasonings, bring your garden to your grill with more than 250 mouth-watering vegetarian grilling recipes.
Elizabeth's recipes feature a grilled zucchini salsa, kale and feta pita pizza, foil-packed vegetables, my favorite, grilled romaine salad, grilled veggie paninis, portobello mozzarella caps, and much more. And whether you are dedicated to a lifetime of healthy living or just love bringing that freshly grilled char to seasonal veggies, this is the cookbook for you. This book is 320 pages of grilled garden goodness. You can get a copy of From Garden to Grill by Elizabeth Orsini and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $13.
And it's a great book. It's one of my favorites. And it's sitting on my kitchen counter right now. Finally, here's something sweet to revive the little botanic spark in your heart.
On this day in 1948, The Guardian posted a brief snippet about the Gallant Soldiers plant. Now, before I read the post, here is a primer. The name Gallant Soldiers is loosely derived from its Latin name, Gallant Soga parviflora, and it's also known as quickweed. Gallant Soldiers is a herbaceous plant in the Asteraceae or daisy family.
And over the summer, a single specimen of Gallant Soldiers can produce over 7,000 seeds. So they'll be marching on. Gallant Soga was named for Mariano Gallant Soga, who was a botanist and a Spanish doctor for royalty during the 1700s. And by the way, he famously observed that women who wore corsets had more health problems than peasant women who did not wear them.
Now, Gallant Soga, the plant, is a trooper when it comes to medical uses. Gallant Soga is a super coagulator. It's an antibiotic agent and a healer. And the next time you run into stinging nettle, grab some Gallant Soga and you'll be all smiles.
Rich in iron, Gallant Soga is also edible. In fact, every part of the plant except the root can be eaten. In the United States, foragers are beginning to add Gallant Soga to their list. But in China and South America, Gallant Soga is already regularly added to soups, stews, and salads.
On the Forager Chef website, it says Gallant Soga can be used raw or cooked. Got a call from a farmer that the spinach was killed by hail? Don't worry. Just toss in some Gallant Soga in that pasta.
While you're at it, put it in the salad mix and on the fish entree. Then throw the purchased microgreens in the compost where they belong, as fodder, to growing interesting edible weeds. Like so many other greens sans watercress, it's shelf life shames conventionally harvested salad greens. And I would regularly get two weeks of shelf life from what I picked, or even more.
Gallant Soga tastes mild, and it fades into the background. There's not even a hint of bitterness. It's a blank canvas for whatever you like. This means from a health diet perspective, you can consume mass quantities cooked, unlike other aggressive growers like garlic mustard, whose bitterness I tend to blend with other plants.
Great information there. So now that you know about Gallant Soga, or Gallant Soldiers, let's hear that post from The Guardian from 1948. In some gardens near Kew in Richmond, there flourishes an unusual weed, which nine out of ten people will call Gallant Soldiers. It is escaped from Kew, where it was introduced some years ago from Peru, under the name Gallant Soga Parviflora.
Now, local gardeners made the name easier to pronounce, but the corruption did not stop there. Sir Edward Salisbury, the director of Kew Gardens, tells how he found a gardener one day pulling out Gallant Soga from his borders. He asked its name. The gardener replied, I don't rightly know, but I have heard it called Soldiers of the Queen.
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 Raley, Maddie 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, thedailygardener.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 thedailygardener.org. I'm your host, Jennifer Ebling, and as always, have a great day in the garden, and we'll see you tomorrow.