William Withering’s Foxglove Legacy: From Poison to Panacea

William Withering

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. October 6, 1799 On this day, dear garden enthusiasts, we bid farewell to a luminary in the world of botany and medicine. William Withering, that most accomplished English botanist, geologist, physician, and chemist,…

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The Beauty of Spring Bulbs

The Beauty of Spring Bulbs

by Katharine S. White I shall never desert the bulbs, though, and last winter, I think I got more pleasure from a pot of February Gold daffodils than from anything else I raised unless it was my pots of freesias. February Gold, which is a medium-small, all-yellow narcissus of the cyclamen type, for me proved…

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Katharine White on Poisonous Plants

Katharine White on Poisonous Plants

by Katharine S. White The year 1967 started with an all-out alert on the danger of poisonous plants. On January 6th, the Times published a story about a lecture on the subject by John M. Kingsbury, the author of a useful small book titled Deadly Harvest: A Guide to Common Poisonous Plants. At a very…

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January 4, 2021 Invasive Garlic Mustard, Stephen Hales, Johanna Weterdijk, Eleanor Perenyi, Winter Garden Thoughts, A Life in Shadow by Stephen Bell, and Garden Trivia for National Trivia Day

20200101 The Daily Gardener Album Cover

Today we celebrate an English botanist who discovered which way sap flows in plants. We’ll also learn about a female Dutch botanist who fought for equity and is now remembered as a trailblazer. We’ll remember a thoughtful and witty garden writer whose only book became a garden classic. We hear some thoughts on the garden…

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