Danske Dandridge: The Gardener-Poet of Rose Brake

Danske Dandridge

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 19, 1854 On this day, Danske [“DAN-sker”] Dandridge, poet, historian, and garden writer, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her story begins with a diplomatic posting—her father, Henry Bedinger, served as President James…

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The Gardener’s Pen: Remembering Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Mary E. Wilkins at her home (colorized and enhanced) from the inside cover of The people of our neighborhood (1898)

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. October 31, 1852 On this day, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, one of America’s most remarkable chroniclers of New England garden life, was born in Randolph, Massachusetts. ]Though primarily known for her fiction, Freeman’s…

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Mark Twain’s Literary Garden: Where Wit Bloomed in an Octagonal Shed

Mark Twain portrait

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 30, 1835 On this day, dear readers and fellow gardeners, a most extraordinary seed was planted in the fertile soil of American literature. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, destined to bloom into the incomparable…

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Potatoes and Prose: The Wit and Wisdom of Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 29, 1832 On this day, a literary blossom unfurled in the gardens of New England – Louisa May Alcott, destined to become one of America’s most beloved writers and poets, drew her…

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October’s Son: Thomas Wolfe and the Poetry of Homecoming

Thomas Wolfe, Portrait by Carl Van Vechten, 1937

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. October 3, 1900 On this day, dear readers, we celebrate the birth of a literary luminary whose words have the power to transport us to the very heart of autumn’s melancholic beauty. Thomas…

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Cultivating Wisdom: Thoreau’s Lessons for the Modern Gardener

Henry David Thoreau 1856 (colorized and enhanced)

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode.   July 12, 1817 On this day, dear readers, we celebrate the birth of a most remarkable individual, one Henry David Thoreau. A man of letters, a philosopher of nature, and dare I…

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Waldo in Bloom: The Botanical Journey of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. May 25, 1803 On this day, dear readers, we celebrate the birth of a man whose words have blossomed through the ages, much like the flowers he so adored – Ralph Waldo Emerson.…

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Geraniums and Gothic Tales: Hawthorne’s Horticultural Horror Story

Nathaniel Hawthorne

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. May 19, 1864 On this day, dear readers, we mark the passing of Nathaniel Hawthorne (books about this person), the American novelist and short-story writer whose pen brought us such classics as The…

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Verses of Vernal Promise: Nora Perry’s Springtime Poetry

Nora Perry

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. May 13, 1896 On this day, dear readers, we bid farewell to Nora Perry, an American poet, newspaper correspondent, and writer whose verses captured the essence of spring’s awakening. Though she has left…

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The Activist’s Garden: Frances Harper and the Poetry of Growth

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1893

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. September 24, 1825 Devoted cultivators of both gardens and justice, today we honor the birth of one whose pen planted seeds of change across our nation – Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, whose legacy…

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Angels in the Garden: Wilson Rawls and the Mythical Red Fern

Wilson Rawls author of Where the Red Fern Grows

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. September 24, 1913 My fellow seekers of garden lore and literary magic, on this day, we celebrate the birth of Wilson Rawls, a man who gave us perhaps the most enigmatic plant in…

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Eudora Welty: Cultivating Stories in Soil and Ink

Eudora Welty

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. April 13, 1909 On this day, dear readers, we celebrate the birth of a literary luminary whose words have blossomed like the most exquisite of garden flowers. I speak, of course, of the…

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Thoreau and the Art of Seeing: Garden Wisdom from Walden

Henry David Thoreau

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. August 9, 1854 My darling green-thumbed companions, it was on this day in 1854 that two years of transcendental communion with nature near Walden Pond in Massachusetts was shared with the world in…

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