Podcast

April 18, 2019 Plant Pet Names, Paul de Longpré, Elsa Beata Bunge, Maryland State Flower, Black-Eyed Susan, John Gay, Studio Oh, and Planning for Arbor Day

Do you have pet names for your plants? Amy the Amaryllis. Jerry the geranium. Once I bought some dahlias at a private plant sale. Before I drove away, I rolled down the window to ask for the seller’s name; it was Doris. They’ve been my “Doris“ dahlias ever since. So whether they are called Howard or Bertie, Harry or Liz; if you’ve named your plants, you are not alone. The gesture of honoring a loved one, or the little laugh…

April 17, 2019 William Cullen Bryant, Double Take Plants, John Tradescant the Elder, Graham Stuart Thomas, James McBride, Adolph Daniel Edward Elmer, Gilbert White, Mignonette, Sam Postlethwait, and the Celery Bog Nature Area

William Cullen Bryant wrote, “There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.” That pretty much sums up what happens with the plants I’ve dubbed “double-takes”. A double-take plant is the one you first ignore or blow off – but them something about them causes you to take another look; to appreciate what you didn’t see the first time…

April 16, 2019 Truly Lovely Aprils, Robert Frost, Sir Hans Sloane, William Stearn, Ellen Nellie Thayer Fisher, Mary Gibson Henry, Sir Edward Salisbury, Aphra Behn, Penny Colman, and William Austin Dickinson

“The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day.” ~ Robert Frost April can be a challenging time in the garden. How many truly lovely Aprils does one get in a lifetime? I’d venture to say maybe five or six. Often, the gardens are too wet to get into, provided you could even get to them. Even with the rain, the snow hasn’t completely melted away. It’s too cold to turn…

April 15, 2019 The Garden as a World Unto Itself, William Kent, Allan Cunningham, George Harrison Shull, Francis Hallé, Alexander Garden, Francis Quarles, The Atlas of Poetic Botany, The Garden Budget, and Sphagnum Moss

William Kent wrote: “A garden is to be a world unto itself, it had better make room for the darker shades of feeling as well as the sunny ones.” I’ve usually thought about my garden as my happy place. It’s a natural mood changer for me. But I remember one time when I was out in the garden with feelings of a definite darker shade. I was very pregnant with John, and I was wearing a hideous, striped, maternity tank…

April 12, 2019 Plant Tags, Licorice, Zina Pitcher, John J. Audobon, Thomas Nuttal, William Kent, Dr. Edward G. Voss, and Peter White

I was looking at the cute brass plant labels on the Target website the other day – I was trying to find the link to that adorable garden tote I was telling you about, and I thought about the evolution of a gardener when it comes to using plant tags. First, you start out needing the labels – is that dill? What does basil look like again? Then you label only the newcomers or the look-alike parsley or cilantro –…