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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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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