Friends, Foes, and Foreign Trees: America’s Great Cherry Blossom Debate

Cherry Trees around the basin

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 13, 1909 On this day, Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson (WIL-sun) sent what seemed like a routine notification to the plant industry office in Seattle. Little did anyone know this simple message…

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The Pragmatic Pen: Leonard Mascall’s Horticultural Legacy

Frontispiece from The Government of Cattle (1662) by Leonard Mascall

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. May 10, 2024 On this day, the earth embraced one of horticulture’s most pragmatic scribes. Leonard Mascall, that indefatigable author, translator, and Clerk to the Kitchen of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was laid…

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