Redstarts and fading daffodils: Gilbert White’s garden notes
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
April 19, 1792
Dearest reader,
On this day, the ever-observant Naturalist Gilbert White of Selborne took quill to journal and noted, yet profoundly:
“Redstart appears.
Daffodils are gone.
Mountain-snow-drops, and hyacinths in bloom; the latter very fine:
Fritillaries going.”
One might call it a gardener’s serenade, delicate in phrasing yet rich with meaning.
What a symphony of the seasons — a transition from the golden trumpets of daffodils to the silken bells of the hyacinth.
White’s entries were not the florid rhapsodies of poets, but the meticulous records of a man enchanted by nature’s rhythm. His journal is a mirror reflecting England’s timeless countryside, where even the humblest redstart tells a story.
Can you not imagine him, coat slightly muddied, bending to observe those “very fine” hyacinths, perhaps with the quiet satisfaction of a gardener who understands that beauty requires both patience and keen attention?
Four years later, in 1796, White returned to his pen and wrote with gardener’s conviction:
“Sowed Holly-Hocks, Columbines, and Sweet Williams.”
Three ordinary plants, perhaps — yet what poetry they hold in their very names!
The Hollyhock, a stately sentinel of the cottage border; the Columbine, graceful and shy as a country maiden; and the Sweet William, jaunty and loyal, a bloom with old-fashioned charm.
Did he imagine, when sowing those seeds, that his words would one day be read and cherished centuries hence?
Every gardener knows that the act of sowing is both a hope and a promise — a trust placed in the unseen earth. Gilbert White might have gazed upon his freshly turned soil and wondered: What joys shall this season bring?
What colors shall return to gladden the heart when the frost retreats once more?
And so, dear reader, I pose the same questions to you.
What have you lately sown — in your garden, or perhaps, in your spirit?
Are your daffodils already “gone,” giving way to other glories?
Do your Sweet Williams wait patiently in the cool earth?
For, as Gilbert White shows us, a garden is more than petals and pollen.
It is a chronicle of time, of care, and of the unbroken conversation between earth and soul.
