August 13, 2019 Nasturtiums, Peter Kalm, the Snowberry, Edward August Von Regal, Benedict Roezl, John Gould Veitch, Tove Jansson, The Orchid Hunter by Leif Bersweden, Add More Groundcover,  Albert Ruth and the Twinflower

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Monologue

Boy, nasturtiums are such wonderful plants, aren't they?

August is a time when your nasturtiums look fabulous, even after a summer of blooming their hearts out. Right about now, your nasturtiums will bloom better if you remove a few of the center leaves. Opening up the plant a little bit will promote airflow - and allow the sun to shine on the base of the plant.

Nasturtiums are 100% edible.

You can add the petals to any salad - just as you would watercress.

In fact, you can make a beautiful sandwich with nasturtium flowers and a little salad dressing.

Jane Eddington shared this idea in the Daily News, a New York newspaper, in 1928.

She wrote,

“If you have never tried a nasturtium leaf spread with a thin mayonnaise between two thin slices of bread and butter, you do not know how pleasant a little bite–in two senses–you can get from this 'Indian cress 'filling."

And before I forget, I found this wonderful article on nasturtiums that was featured in the Hartford Courant out of Hartford, Connecticut, in August of 1914.

It had all of these wonderful recipes for nasturtiums

It not only gave some good advice about nasturtium capers and nasturtium sandwiches, but also a nasturtium sauce for fish, meat, and vegetables, a nasturtium vinegar, and a nasturtium potato salad. I’ll have all of that in today's show notes -if you’re geeking out on nasturtiums.

And, here is a little insight into how nasturtiums like to coexist with us: the more we cut nasturtiums - to bring in as cut flowers, or to eat them raw, or as capers - the more they will bloom. Regular cuttings seem to encourage more lateral development, and therefore, you get more flowers.

Win-win.

If you protect your plants with burlap or sheets on cold fall evenings, your nasturtiums might surprise you and bloom well into November.

Botanical History On This Day

1750 Peter Kalm arrives at Niagara Falls, which marked a Linnaean moment in North American botany. Kalm was the Swedish student of Carl Linnaeus, and he visited the famous cataract to gather plants later named in his honor.

1805 Meriwether Lewis discovers snowberry when his search for the Shoshone turned into a botanical find—Symphoricarpos albus, the wax-white berry that later delighted Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.

1815 Eduard August von Regel was born, the Swiss-born Russian botanist who transformed St. Petersburg’s Imperial Botanic Garden and championed the geographical arrangement of plants.

1823 Benedict Roezl was born, the towering orchid collector with an iron hook for a hand who endured robberies, jaguars, and decades of fieldwork to deliver hundreds of orchids (and thousands more plants) to Europe.

1870 John Gould Veitch died at just 31, the gifted nurseryman-plant hunter of the mighty Veitch dynasty who collected in Japan and Australia for the nursery that changed British horticulture.

Unearthed Words

When August turns suddenly dark—Tove Jansson on the summer that is “no longer alive”.

Grow That Garden Library™

Read The Daily Gardener review of The Orchid Hunter by Leif Bersweden

Buy the book on Amazon: The Orchid Hunter by Leif Bersweden

Today's Botanic Spark

1892 A misidentified specimen became a botanical mystery when Albert Ruth’s “partridge berry” revealed a lost twinflower—Linnaea borealis—from a Smoky Mountain location no one has ever been able to find again.

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