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The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community

 

Historical Events

1766 John Mulso writes to his friend English naturalist, Gilbert White, in Selborne

Gilbert White was born in 1720, So he was 46 when he received this letter from John.

At the time. Gilbert had been keeping a journal about the goings on in his garden. Gilbert kept a journal for about three decades, and it was eventually published to the delight of readers everywhere. Today people still love reading through Gilbert White's notations, drawings,  and comments.

Gilbert had a knack for observing the natural world and describing in a relatable way all the goings on outdoors. Gilbert was very curious. He was also really personable.

When John Mulso begins his letter with a comment on the garden, he finds a point of agreement. 

Vegetation thrives apace now, and I suppose you are quite intent on your new study.

You will not perhaps relish a Prospect the worse when we force you to look up, as presume you will go with your eyes fixed on the ground most part of the summer.

You will pass with country folks as a man always making sermons, while you are only considering a Weed.

 

John makes a very astute observation - Gilbert liked gardening more than anything else on Earth. Gilbert was like many pastors or reverends of his time who also pursued their hobbies as naturalists or gardeners. During the growing season, it was coming for a naturalist parson to get distracted by their gardens.

 

1809 A retired Thomas Jefferson enjoyed spending most of his time in his garden. (Finally!)

In the spring of this year. Thomas was no longer consumed with the duties of being president. We know that in the last year of his presidency, he spent many hours pining for his garden and accumulating plants from his friend Bernard McMann and other plantsmen.

So in April of 1809, Thomas Jefferson was living his dream and his best life as a gardener. He wrote to his friend, Etienne Lemaire, on this day,

I am constantly in my garden or farms. And am exclusively employed out of doors as I was within doors when I was at Washington.

I find myself infinitely happier in my new mode of life.

 

Isn't that an interesting observation? Comments like that may pass unnoticed, but this change in seasons, the warmer weather, and getting outdoors is powerful medicine. Spending time outdoors plays a role in our attitudes and our moods. We get more vitamin D we feel more energy.

This time of year, we eat the fresh green offerings from our gardens, whether microgreens or asparagus. The rhubarb is popping. You can even eat some hosta leaves, little tiny rolled-up cigars, as they emerge from the Earth. You can cut and fry them up in a pan the same way you would asparagus. (If they're good enough for the deer, they're good enough for us.) They're pretty tasty. The key is to harvest them early - just like you would the fiddleheads. The joys of spring...

 

1851 George Herbert Engleheart, English pastor and plant breeder, was born.

Like Gilbert White, George Herbert Engleheart was a gardener and a pastor. 

In 1889, George began breeding daffodils - some 700 varieties in his lifetime. Sadly many of them have been lost to time, but we know that some survived.

Fans of 'Beersheba,' 'Lucifer,' or 'White Lady' owe a debt of gratitude to Reverend Engleheart. Engleheart spent every spare minute breeding, and his parishioners would often find a note tacked to the church door saying,
"No service today, working with daffodils."

Engleheart's charming note reminds me of the little notes that gardeners hang on their porches or somewhere on their front door saying something sweet, like, " in the garden." And if you don't have one of those signs, you can grab a little chalkboard and a little twine And make your own.

 

1905 On this day,  David Fairchild, the great botanist, married Marian Graham Bell, the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell.

Marian and David Fairchild had a long and happy marriage.

When David went on his plant explorations, Marian would often accompany him. Together the couple had three children.

David Fairchild is considered American botanical royalty for all his collecting and the sheer quantity of his plant introductions, including items like pistachios, mangoes, dates, soybeans, flowering cherries, and nectarines. Without David Fairchild, we would not have cherry trees blooming in Washington, DC. We also might not have kale at Trader Joe's. (David Fairchild is the man who brought kale to the United States.) David also got the avocado here as well.

David Fairchild had a fair amount of luck in his life. He had a generous benefactor in a wealthy woman named Barbara Latham, who funded many of his adventures.

Of course, by marrying Marian, David had access to the connections of his famous father-in-law. 

Today you can continue to learn about David Fairchild and see his legacy at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida. It is filled with many of the plants that David himself collected. And, of course, it's named in his honor.

 

1911 Harry Radlund, a gardener from Kilborne, Wisconsin, shared his garden successes with a plantsman named Henry Field.

In 1911, Henry announced a garden contest for his customers to encourage good gardening. Later, he put their stories together in The Book of a Thousand Gardens.

In the forward, Henry wrote, 

I requested them to send in the stories of their gardens, true unvarnish- ed stories telling what they grew, how they grew it, what paid best, how big the garden was, what troubles they had, and how they overcame them. Also asked them to send in some pictures if possible.
These letters are the result.
And they are the most interesting batch of letters I ever read. 
They are real heart to heart talks, told in their own language and in their own way. And the pictures, well you can look at them for yourself.
Every garden was a real garden not a paper garden. The people were real people like you and I and our neighbors. There were men and women and boys and little girls and old bachelors.
They were all garden cranks and garden lovers.
You can learn more by a study of these letters than by reading all the text books in creation. You get the real stuff here. Real experience.
The only trouble was, I run short of room in the book. It would have taken a book as big as Webster's Unabridged to hold them all in full.

 

Here's Harry's garden story from 1911:

On April 23d, I planted some kale seed from you. We tried to raise kale for ten years but never had any success. This year, the best is about 3 1/2 feet high and about three feet wide without spreading the leaves.
On the same day planted some dill, parsley, onion seed and onion sets. The dill grew good and went to seed, the parsley didn't grow very good. My early cabbage grew good and all the heads were used.
The first planting of radishes was on April 25th, and I have had radishes all summer. The Shenandoah tomatoes in the garden are dandies, the best we ever had. So are the cucumbers. My cauliflower didn't grow very well in the warm weather, but is growing fine now.

 

1948 Leslie Young Carrethers, American poet & artist, died.

So much about Leslie has been lost to time. But one of his accomplishments is little garden poetry books that are very challenging to find nowadays. I got my copies on eBay, and I love them. I think they're so precious and filled with little poetry about various garden plants, trees, and nature.

Now, these books are tiny little pamphlets. Leslie produced about half a dozen or so. They've got adorable little titles, like These Shady Friends (about trees), blooming Friends, and More Blooming Friends. Now Leslie's friends called him Reggie. I didn't realize this until recently when I stumbled on some more research about him. But this clue leads me to think that one of the little books I bought on eBay was one of Reggie's copies because he signed it, making it even more precious to me.

But I