May 14, 2019 Garden Experts, Mary Delany, Edward Jenner, John Cushnie, Hal Borland, Ruth Hayden, Slowing Growth in Shade, and the Mayapple

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Monologue

Most gardeners share a common secret: they never feel like they know enough about gardening to call themselves an expert.

If you feel this way after years of gardening, you're not alone.

Over two centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson sent a letter to his friend, the painter Charles Wilson Peale. He's lamenting the limitations of his garden at Monticello. He concludes with one of my favorite garden quotes of all time:

"But tho, an old man, I am but a young gardener."

Botanical History On This Day

1700 Mary Delany was born. She astonished Europe by creating nearly one thousand botanical paper mosaics between the ages of 71 and 88. Her works are so exacting that botanists suspected she dissected plants before rendering them in tissue paper.

1796 Edward Jenner inoculated eight-year-old James Phipps with cowpox, an experiment that quietly launched vaccination and forever changed the course of human health.

1943 John Alexander Montgomery Cushnie was born, later becoming a beloved landscape designer and radio voice on Gardeners’ Question Time, famed for wit as sharp as his spade and advice that often ended with “just dig it up.”

Unearthed Words

1900 Hal Borland, chronicler of the seasons, was born on this day, a writer who understood patience through trees, persistence through grass, and the unbreakable promise that spring always keeps its turn.

Grow That Garden Library™

Read The Daily Gardener’s review of Mrs. Delany: Her Life and Her Flowers by Ruth Hayden, a luminous portrait of an artist who found her greatest creative freedom late in life.

Buy the book on Amazon: Mrs. Delany: Her Life and Her Flowers

Today's Botanic Spark

Hal Borland writes about the Mayapple or Podophyllum peltatum as both symbol and solace, a woodland plant of love and danger, beauty and poison, reminding us that even in sorrow, the forest may yet offer happiness.

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And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.