Joseph Dalton Hooker Archives

December 10, 2020 The Conference Pear, Emily Dickenson, the 1909 Cherry Tree gift from Japan, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Carolyn Kizer, Growing Beautiful Food by Matthew Benson and Henry Nicholas Ridley

Today we celebrate the birthday of a beloved American who, in her lifetime, was known more as a gardener than a poet. We’ll also learn about the gift from Japan that resulted in the Plant Quarantine Act in the United States. We’ll remember the botanist knighted for his incredible scientific services to the British Empire.…

February 5, 2020 Growing Turnips, Piet Blanckaert Terrace Garden, John Lindley, Meriwether Lewis, Friedrich Welwitsch, the New England Botanical Club, James Van Sweden, February Poems, Winter World by Bernd Heinrich, Okatsune Hedge Shears and the Happy Huntsman’s Tree

Today we celebrate the savior of the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, and the fir tree described by Meriwether Lewis as “Fir No. 5.” We’ll learn about the man who discovered a plant that was called “the ugliest yet most botanically magnificent plant in the world” by Joseph Dalton Hooker. And, we celebrate the 124th birthday…

January 14, 2020 Wes Shaw of Horniman Gardens, Richard Wilford on Alpines, Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Henri Fantin-Latour, Walter Hood Fitch, A Garden of Marvels by Ruth Kassinger, 3-Vase Propagation Station, and January’s birth flowers

Today we celebrate the Father of Paleobotany and the botanical illustrator honored by King Charles X. We’ll learn about the botanical painter who got sick of painting flowers (he’d painted 800 of them) and the botanical illustrator who worked for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine and Kew Gardens. Today’s Unearthed Words feature the hidden (and often unappreciated)…

December 10, 2019 Wild about Weeds, Botany at the Bar, Sweet Potatoes, Emily Dickinson, Howard Scott Gentry, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Carl English, A Year in Our Gardens by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy, Herb Drier, and The Ungrateful Garden

Today we celebrate the gardener poet known for writing “hope is the thing with feathers”, and the man who became the world authority on agaves. We’ll learn about the Victorian botanist who was the first to speak in favor of Darwin’s theory and the man who created the Ballard Lock Garden in Seattle. We’ll hear…