gardening mishaps Archives

A Most Unlikely Garden Drama: Bunny Mellon, Magnolias, and the Day a Shovel Nearly Disrupted the Free World

Bunny Mellon with two of her loves (her dog, Patrick, and topiaries) (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. March 31, 1962 Dearest garden lovers, today’s tale is proof that even the most tranquil plot can play host to history’s grandest dramas. On this day, a landscape worker hit a line connecting…

Ogden Nash’s Birthday: Humor and Struggles in the Victory Garden

A well-maintained vegetable garden featuring a greenhouse and various cultivated plants, including what appears to be lettuce and other greens.

by Ogden Nash Today, my friends, I beg your pardon, But I’d like to speak of my Victory Garden With a hoe for a sword, and citronella for armor, I ventured forth to become a farmer. On bended knee, and perspiring clammily, I pecked at the soil to feed my family, A figure than which…

30,000 Specimens and One Boiled Leg: Aven Nelson’s Yellowstone Legacy

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. July 26, 1899 On this day, dear garden friends, a tale of botanical ambition and scalding mishap unfolded in the steaming wilderness of Yellowstone, where two young men learned that Mother Nature’s garden…