May 24, 2019 Gardeners and Weeds, Ynes Mexia, Queen Victoria, Frank Cabot, Les Quatre Vents, Linda Leinen, The Naming of Plants, Anna Pavord, The Naming of Names, Photo Friday in the Garden, and Ynes Mexia’s Exploits in Mexico and South America
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Monologue
Emerson once wrote,
To science there is no poison;
To botany no weed;
To chemistry no dirt.
As much as I like this quote, I know most gardeners will beg to differ.
To gardeners, there are weeds. As I mentioned in an earlier episode this month, we often forget one key variable in gardening: the gardener.
Each of us, as gardeners, has our own point of view on weeds.
On May 12, 1957, Vita Sackville West reached the same conclusion when she said,
"It was borne in on me, not for the first time, how the weeds of one country are the flowers of another.
Recently in the tropics I had been shocked on seeing my host and hostess as they wandered round their garden tearing up green oddments as we should tear up groundsel, . . . saying, ‘That wretched thing! All over the place as usual!’
This was Gloriosa superba, which we have to grow carefully in heat if we want it at all."
Botanical History On This Day
1870 Ynes Mexia, Mexican American botanist and legendary plant collector, was born. She was a late bloomer whose fearless fieldwork yielded over 150,000 specimens and hundreds of newly identified species.
1819 Queen Victoria was born. She later lent her name to plants, gardens, and a floral legacy that still blooms, from violets to the great Victoria waterlily.
2018 The documentary The Gardener was screened in Québec, celebrating Frank Cabot and his masterpiece garden, Les Quatre Vents. Borrowed ideas, courageous decisions, and devotion shaped his lifelong pursuit of beauty.
Unearthed Words
The poem "The Naming of Plants" by Linda Leinen offers a playful, poetic meditation on taxonomy — reminding us that every plant carries not just a genus and species, but a secret name known only to itself.
Grow That Garden Library™
Read The Daily Gardener review of The Naming of Names by Anna Pavord
Buy the book on Amazon: The Naming of Names by Anna Pavord
Today's Botanic Spark
Ynes Mexia’s legacy lives on through the many plants named in her honor — a testament to a woman who braved jungles, cliffs, illness, and danger in pursuit of botanical immortality.
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And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.
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