May 2, 2023 John Cabot, Leonardo da Vinci, Meriwether Lewis, John Abercrombie, Thomas Hanbury, Hulda Klager, A Gardener’s Guide to Botany by Scott Zona, and Novalis

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Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee  Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter |  Daily Gardener Community Botanical History On This Day 1497 John Cabot, the Canadian Explorer, set sail from Bristol, England, on his ship, Matthew. 1519 Leonardo da Vinci, the mathematician, scientist,…

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The Newfoundland and the New Frontier: Seaman’s Tale

Captain Meriwether Lewis

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. May 2, 1803 On this verdant day, the United States, a fledgling nation, expanded its borders significantly when Napoleon ceded the vast Louisiana Territory to the Americans for a mere pittance. A botanist’s…

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May 9, 2022 Henri Cassini, Meriwether Lewis, James Matthew Barrie, Sophie Scholl, Patina Living by Steve Giannetti and Brooke Giannetti, and Charles Simic

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Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee    Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter |  Daily Gardener Community   Botanical History National Public Gardens Week This week marks the beginning of National Public Gardens Week (May 6-15). This celebration started in 2009 as…

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December 7, 2020 Edward Tuckerman, William Saunders, Phipps Conservatory, Henry Rowland-Brown, The Art of the Garden by Relais & Châteaux North America and Willa Cather

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Today we celebrate the botanist who saved the Lewis and Clark specimen sheets. We’ll also learn about the successful botanist and garden designer who introduced the navel orange. We’ll recognize the Conservatory stocked by the World’s Fair. We’ll hear a charming verse about the mistletoe by a poet entomologist. We Grow That Garden Libraryâ„¢ with…

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Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis

Shoshone to Snowberries Today Meriwether Lewis discovered the Snowberry or Symphoricarpos albus. I love the story of how Lewis came across the Snowberry. Meriwether was really looking for the Shoshone Indians, but he found the Snowberry instead. Meriwether wrote in his journal that he discovered something like a small honeysuckle, except that it was bearing…

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August 13, 2020 The 10 Berries Birds Love, Peter Kalm, the Snowberry, Edward von Regal, Benedict Roezl, John Gould Vietch, Richard Willstätter, August by Maggie Grant, Not Your Mama’s Canning Book by Rebecca Lindamood, and Albert Ruth’s Twinflower

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Today we celebrate an early Swedish explorer of Niagara Falls. We’ll also learn about a plant that Thomas Jefferson loved. We salute the Russian botanist who arranged plants by geography. We also recognize the Czech, who became the most famous collector of orchids in the world. And, we’ll remember the lives of a British plant…

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February 10, 2020 Midwinter Trees, Plant Health Resolutions, Jan Gronovius, Benjamin Smith Barton, Winifred Mary Letts, Jack Heslop-Harrison, Snow Poems, A Land Remembered by Patrick D Smith, Wood Markers, and Laura Ingalls Wilder

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Today we celebrate the man who suggested naming the Twinflower for Linnaeus and the botanist who gave Meriwether Lewis a crash course in botany. We’ll learn about the English writer who wrote, that, “God once loved a garden we learn in holy writ and seeing gardens in the spring, I well can credit it.” And…

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Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis

The Douglas-Fir Today Meriwether Lewis described a tree he referred to in his journal as “Fir No. 5.” The tree in question was the Douglas-fir. Later, on February 9, Lewis added more details about the fir and sketched the distinctive bract of the cone in his journal. On their way back across the northern Rocky…

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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

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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. We also celebrate the 124th birthday…

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February 3, 2020 Yellow Milkweed, Carnivorous Plants From Columbus Ohio, Frederick Traugott Pursh, Carl Ludwig Blume, February Garden Poems & Prose, You Can Grow African Violets By Joyce Stark, And National Carrot Cake Day

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Today we celebrate the man who wrote the Flora of North America from across the pond in London much to the chagrin of American botanists. We’ll learn about the Dutch botanist who discovered the phalaenopsis orchid and the coleus on the island of Java. Today’s Unearthed Words review some sayings about the month of February…

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Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis

The Snowberry Today, in 1805, Meriwether Lewis discovered the Snowberry or Symphoricarpos album. I love the story of how Lewis came across the Snowberry. He was really looking for the Shoshone Indians, but he found the Snowberry instead. Lewis wrote in his journal that he discovered something like small honeysuckle, except that it was bearing…

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Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis

The Expedition of The Missouri RIver  It was on this day in 1803 that President Thomas Jefferson sent a formal letter to his private secretary and aide, Meriwether Lewis.   Lewis was a captain in the first United States infantry. Jefferson wrote him to request that he might lead an expedition of the Missouri River.…

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June 20, 2019 The Zip Slicer, John Bartram, Meriwether Lewis, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, Benjamin Lincoln Robinson, Isabella Abbott, Alice Mackenzie Swaim, The Hillier Manual of Trees & Shrubs, the Chelsea Chop, and Coe Finch Austin

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There is nothing that can beat eating fresh food from the garden.   It seems every meal around here has fresh basil lettuce from the garden and little cherry tomatoes. Today, I was at my favorite olive oil store, and they sell this little gizmo called the Zip Slicer. You load it up with your…

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Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis

The Cottonwood Explorer On this day, in 1805, Meriwether Lewis was just one day away from reaching the Great Falls of Missouri.   He wrote his own brief description of a species that was previously unknown to science.  He wrote, “The narrow-leafed cottonwood grows here in common with the other species of the same tree…

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