April 26, 2019 Placement of Early Spring Bloomers, Eugene Delacroix, Charles Townes, Irma Franzen-Heinrichsdorff, John J. Audobon, Frederick Law Olmsted, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh, Justin Martin, Photo Friday, Anna Eliza Reed Woodcock, and the Michigan State Flower
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Monologue
How close are your earliest bloomers to your front door?
Your crocus, snowdrops, iris, daffodils, tulips, forsythia, daphnes, and magnolias?
When I redid my front garden last year, the designer had put all my earliest bloomers right near the front porch and walk. When I asked her reasoning, she reminded me of our long winters.
Her advice was spot-on: when spring finally arrives, it's much more pleasurable to have those earliest blooms where you can see them first thing when you walk out your front door.
Botanical History On This Day
1798 Eugène Delacroix, the Romantic painter, was born. His earliest surviving flower painting, A Vase of Flowers (1833), glows with dahlias in a crystal vase.
1951 Charles Townes sat on a park bench on a morning of blooming flowers and conceived the theory that would lead to the laser.
1913 Irma Franzen-Heinrichsdorff, German-born landscape architect, is remembered for her vivid account of Elmwood School of Gardening, where eager students worked dawn to dusk and still dressed for dinner.
1785 John James Audubon, naturalist, was born in Haiti. His grave at Trinity Cemetery once hosted robins nesting inside the stone apertures of his Iona cross.
1822 Frederick Law Olmsted America’s foremost parkmaker, was born. He designed democratic landscapes from Central Park to the Emerald Necklace and insisted scenery could enliven the mind without fatigue.
Unearthed Words
Longfellow on the Advent of Spring from Kavanagh (1849), a quiet insistence that we notice the hour-hand of the season, not only the ticking second-hand.
Grow That Garden Library™
Read The Daily Gardener’s review of
The Genius of Place by Justin Martin
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The Genius of Place by Justin Martin
Today’s Garden Chore
Photo Friday: edges of the beds
Your gentle audit of lines and plant choices, with a practical suggestion to edge borders with edible onions or garlic for easy harvesting.
Today’s Botanic Spark
1897 A woman with apple blossoms and a wheelbarrow changed Michigan history when Anna Eliza Reed Woodcock decorated the Speaker’s office and helped persuade the legislature to choose the apple blossom as the state flower.
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