August 18, 2020 Houseplants and Air Quality, Benjamin Alvord, Olav Hauge, Ozaki’s Cherry Trees, the Camperdown Elm, World Daffodil Day, Dream Plants for the Natural Garden by Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, and the Cherokee Rose
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Curated News
Do houseplants really improve air quality? | The Guardian | James Wong
Here's an excerpt:
"Five years ago I wrote a column in this very magazine about how houseplants can purify the air, based on research carried out by Nasa. Since then, there has been a slew of online articles, not to mention industry campaigns and even new gadgets, centred on this claim. The only problem with it is that more recent and better quality research has found this to be extremely unlikely...
However, other research shows that having plants indoors has a range of other benefits. They can boost productivity. They can improve mood. They can regulate humidity – all on top of looking beautiful. If you want fresh air, open a window. If you want to witness the joy of nature and feel a daily sense of wonder, get some houseplants."
Follow James on Twitter @Botanygeek
Botanical History On This Day
1813 Benjamin Alvord, a brigadier general, mathematician, and botanist who studied the prairie’s Silphium laciniatum—the “compass plant” whose north–south leaves guided travelers.
1908 Olav H. Hauge, Norwegian poet, orchardist, and keeper of seventy apple trees, whose spare verse tends gardens of thought as faithfully as soil.
1909 Tokyo’s Gift of Cherry Trees began when Mayor Yukio Ozaki pledged 2,000 saplings to President Taft—blossoms that would grace Washington, D.C., around the Tidal Basin.
1918 The Camperdown Elm Legacy—a wedding-day tree tradition in Washington state and, in Brooklyn, a famous weeper saved by poet Marianne Moore’s rallying verse.
Unearthed Words
World Daffodil Day calls for the brightest of blooms in verse. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
Grow That Garden Library™
Read The Daily Gardener review of Dream Plants for the Natural Garden by Piet Oudolf & Henk Gerritsen
Buy the book on Amazon: Dream Plants for the Natural Garden
Today's Botanic Spark
1853 The Cherokee Rose became Georgia’s State Flower—a thorny beauty with a tangled identity, distinguished (for the keen observer) by its three leaflets.
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