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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Daniel Defoe and the flowers of support at the pillory

Daniel Defoe

Put in the Pillory  It was on this day in 1703 that the English journalist and author Daniel Defoe was made to stand in the pillory in front of the temple bar. Daniel is remembered for his popular novel Robinson Crusoe which, at the time, claimed to be second to the Bible in its number…

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