March 24, 2026 Mark Catesby, Humphry Repton, Fern Leaf garden column Chicago Tribune, Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols, and William Morris
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Today’s Show Notes
Today is about the work behind the beauty.
A plant hunter paddling inland in a cypress canoe.
A designer who invented the original “before and after.”
A houseplant columnist who sounds like your smartest friend.
And an artist who let the birds steal the strawberries and called it inspiration.
Today’s Garden History
1683 Mark Catesby was born.
The English naturalist, artist, and explorer quietly reshaped how gardens on both sides of the Atlantic would look. He helped close the gap between North American botany and English landscape design.
The magnolias.
Catalpas.
Flowering dogwoods.
Mountain laurels.
Plants that feel familiar today did not simply appear in European gardens.
Someone had to go get them.
Mark traveled through the American South, from the Carolinas down through Florida and into the Bahamas, often by cypress canoe, working alongside Native guides.
He collected seeds, specimens, and observations, and sent them back to England to friends like Peter Collinson.
He was not just drawing plants.
He was showing how life fits together.
Mark became the first naturalist to consistently illustrate animals with the plants they depended on.
Birds feeding.
Frogs sheltering.
Ecosystems intact.
In that way, he stands alongside Maria Sibylla Merian as a founder of ecological illustration.
Mark had favorites.
He loved male birds for their brighter plumage.
And he was endlessly fascinated by the American bullfrog, whose call, he wrote, sounded like a bull bellowing from a quarter mile away.
In Virginia, he noted that locals believed bullfrogs kept spring water pure, and so they were protected, never harmed.
And then there were the passenger pigeons. Mark witnessed them firsthand. Three days of continuous flight. The sky filled with birds so dense there was no break in their passing.
Those skies are silent now.
But because of Mark, we still know what they once held.
His work was trusted by Carl Linnaeus, relied upon for naming and classification, and foundational for generations of plant hunters who followed.
Mud on his boots.
Paint on his hands.
Wonder intact.
1818 Humphry Repton died.
The English landscape gardener bridged the grand parklands of the eighteenth century and the flower-rich gardens that followed. He was the first to call himself a landscape gardener.
Humphry understood something many clients did not yet know: people struggle to imagine change. So he invented a solution.
His famous Red Books, leather-bound volumes with watercolor flaps, allowed clients to lift a page and see the “after” laid directly over the “before.”
It was the original garden reveal.
The thing we still regret forgetting to do: take the picture first.
Humphry also reintroduced flower gardens near the house.
Terraces.
Gravel walks.
Ornamental planting.
A softened transition from architecture to landscape.
And then there was his quiet ecological insight: “The thorn is the mother of the oak.”
He observed that thorny scrub protected young trees from grazing animals, allowing forests to regenerate naturally.
Today, that principle sits at the heart of rewilding.
Back then, it was simply careful looking.
Humphry taught gardeners how to see and how to help others see, too.
Unearthed Words
In today’s Unearthed Words, we hear a newspaper garden column from the houseplant writer known as Fern Leaf, born on this day in 1877.
Her work appeared in the Chicago Tribune, in the Home section, in a city dense with flats, windowsills, and parlor plants.
You feel her competence right away.
She moves briskly through letters about houseplants.
Firm.
Kind.
Practical.
The voice of someone who has learned by doing.
She reminds readers that plants, like people, need rest. That forcing blooms year-round comes at a cost.
And then, gently, the column turns.
One chair at The Home is vacant now, she writes. A fellow contributor has died.
Fern imagines placing bright blossoms on her grave, flowers that had brought them together in print, now offered in memory.
She signs off simply:
“More anon.”
And you can almost hear the page’s regular readers, this close-knit circle of correspondents, answering back from kitchens and parlors all over the city:
Yes, please.
More.
Book Recommendation
Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols
It is Beverley Nichols Week here on The Daily Gardener, and each book this week features Nichols’ distinctive garden voice, witty, observant, and unapologetically in love with beauty.
Merry Hall tells the story of Beverley taking on a ruined Georgian manor and its five-acre garden in post-war England.
It is about restoration.
Of land.
Of buildings.
Of spirit.
Along the way, he introduces one of his most memorable creations: Oldfield, the curmudgeonly gardener who worked for the previous owners and has very strong opinions about how things ought to be done.
The book is funny.
Snarky.
Warm beneath the wit.
And underneath it all is something true.
A garden changes us whether we realize it or not.
Botanic Spark
And finally, here's something sweet to ignite the little botanic spark in your heart.
1834 William Morris was born.
The English artist, poet, and designer found refuge in the garden.
A place of solace after heartbreak.
A place where attention softened into care.
At Kelmscott Manor in rural Oxfordshire, England, William netted his strawberries to protect them from birds.
The thrushes slipped underneath anyway.
Instead of driving them off, he fell in love with them.
Their cleverness.
Their joy.
They inspired his most famous design, Strawberry Thief, a dense tangle of leafy vines, ripe fruit, and watchful birds caught mid-mischief.
William forbade his gardeners from harming them.
Their pleasure, he decided, was worth more than the harvest.
Final Thoughts
Some gardeners carry seeds across oceans.
Some lift flaps so others can see the future.
Some answer letters.
Some give everything they know away.
Most do their work quietly.
And the garden remembers them anyway.
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener.
And remember, for a happy, healthy life, garden every day.
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