The Daily Gardener
The Daily Gardener is a podcast about Garden History and Literature.
The podcast celebrates the garden in an "on this day" format and every episode features a Garden Book.
Episodes are released M-F.
- Update frequency
- every day
- Average duration
- 20 minutes
- Episodes
- 545
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2024
June 28, 2019 Giant Flowers for Paul Bunyan Day, Harry V. Harlan, Importing Seeds, Henry Nehrling, Cicely Mary Barker, Plant Families by Ross Bayton, Pruning Spring-Flowering Shrubs, and the Effects of Culture
Today is National Paul Bunyan Day. In Minnesota, most folks fondly remember the tales of Paul and Babe - his big blue ox. Speaking of big, Many gardeners have a fondness for giant plants. They are pe…
June 27, 2019 National Onion Day, Thomas Say, William Williams, William Guilfoyle, Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, The Glory of the Garden by Rudyard Kipling, Practical Botany for Gardeners by Geoff Hodge, Make a Garden Map, and Brevities
Today is the very first National Onion Day. It was founded by the National Onion Association which represents almost 500 growers from across the United States. The association celebrated its 100t…
June 26, 2019 Moving a Bumblebee Nest, Charles Newbold, Charles Christopher Perry, The Rolling Stones, Margaret Morse Nice, Annette Wynne, Diana Wells, Planting Sunflower Seeds, and San Francisco Gardener John McLaren
Have you ever needed to move a bumblebee nest? We discovered a nest under the basketball hoop on the driveway when the guys came to sealcoat. To move it, I waited until dusk. Then I grabbed a ter…
June 25, 2019 Empress Wu Hosta, David Douglas, William Robert Guilfoyle, Nathaniel Lord Britton, George Orwell, Gardener's Latin by Bill Neal, Floral Pins, and Eric Carle
Did you know that the most popular giant hosta is Empress Wu? At maturity the plan is 5 feet tall with an 8 foot spread. Pictures don't really do the Empress Wu hosta justice. Because of its si…
June 24, 2019 Where to Plant Lilies, Thomas Blanchard, Stephen Endlicher, Kona Coffee, Queen Elizabeth's Cerus Atlantica Glauca, Paul McCartney, John Ciardi, Plant Names Simplified by Arthur Johnson, Joe Pye weed, Aven Nelson and the Rocky Mountain Herb
Did you know that lilies enjoy being planted in part shade? They don't really like to be baked in full sun. If you plant them in a little bit of shade, it will allow your plant to experience less…
June 21, 2019 The Best Time in the Garden, Abraham Mignon, Cyrus McCormick, Frederick Law Olmsted, Summer Solstice, Donald Culross Peattie, Flowering Earth, National Selfie Day, and Advice on Weeding from 1843
When is the best time to divide? To prune? To transplant? In general, the answer I most often give is that the best time to do anything is when you're standing there with a shovel, or a knife, or a…
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
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…
June 19, 2019 Iris, Joseph Banks, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Theodore Payne, Elbert Green Hubbard, James Matthew Barrie, Reader's Digest New Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, and New Work Gloves
Irises are in full bloom right now. Although, there are around 300 species of iris, Bearded Iris and Siberian Iris are two of the most common types of irises grown. Iris takes its name from the Gre…
June 18, 2019 Little Free Herbary, Karl Theodor Hartweg, Edgar Shannon Anderson, Professor H.Y. Mohan Ram, Carol Klein, Great British Gardens, Vita Sackville-West, The Names of Plants by David Gledhill, Doyle's Thornless Blackberry, and Jumpin Jack Flas
June 17, 2019 Reusing Potting Soil, Edwin Hunt, James Weldon Johnson, Alexander Braun, Nellie McClung, the University of Wisconsin's Arboretum, Emily Dickenson, Joanne Shaw, The Plant Hunters by Carolyn Fry, Geranium Care, and Lajos Kossuth
Do you change the oil in your window boxes and containers every spring?
You really don't need to - I don't. Here's what I do:
I remove about a quarter to a third of the soil in my containers, and I p…
June 14, 2019 Sunflowers, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ruth Stout, President Harding, G. K. Chesterton, Emily Dickinson, In Bloom by Clare Nolan, Photo Friday, and Making Pineapple Flowers
Are you planning to grow Sunflowers this year? Five years ago, Hans-Peter Schiffer toppled the Guinness World Record for third year in a row - growing a sunflower that was 30'1" tall! Over atthe…
June 13, 2019 Repurposed Planter Idea, Martha Washington, George Thurtell, David Douglas, William Butler Yeats, Charles Joseph Sauriol, The Flower Fix by Anna Potter, Love in a Mist, Nigella, and James Clerk Maxwell and his Peacock Gardeners
My aunt Debbie in Des Moines sent me some fantastic pictures of a great portable elevated plantar idea. She was at Lowes and they had taken two old Weber grills and had spray-painted them different…
June 12, 2019 The Most Fragrant Plants, Meriwether Lewis, Karl Freiherr von Drais, Edward Newman, the Michigan Botanical Club, Frank Nicholas Meyer, June Poetry, Carl Linnaeus, Joseph Banks, Patricia Fara, Perlite, and the Shady Acres Herb Farm
Fragrance in the garden... The most fragrant blossoms include:
- Cheddar pinks (a member of the carnation family)
- Lavender
- Peony
- Gardenia
- Honeysuckle
- Hyacinth
- Lilac
- Mock Orange
- Daphne
- Bee balm
…
June 11, 2019 Garden Journal, National Corn on the Cob Day, John Constable, Julia Margaret Cameron, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Love Peacock, The A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants by Christopher Brickell, Chamomile, and ET
Garden journal - two columns Failures and Successes we learn equally from both Brevities #OTD NATIONAL CORN ON THE COB DAY – June 11
- Corn is called maize by most countries, this comes from the…
June 10, 2019 The Significance of Lilacs, National Herbs and Spices Day, Jardin des Plantes, Robert Brown, Gorgeous George and Judy Garland's Hibiscus, Frances Theodora Parsons, Natural Selection, Dan Pearson, Box Cutters, and Inspiration from John Burr
My neighbor, up at our cabin, has this amazing copse of lilacs. We've become good friends and he invited me to take some cuttings of his lilac as a gesture of goodwill. (He also give me all of hi…
June 7, 2019 Garden Journal Format, Louis Claude Richard, Daniel Boone, Fletcher Steele, Jack Harlan, Jean Arp, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Robin Karson, Photo Friday, and the Southeastern Plant Symposium
I ran across a fascinating old journal as I was researching this show - what I especially loved about it was the layout. If you want to copy it here's what you do:
- Dedicate a page of your jo…
June 6, 2019 Annuals Budget, National Gardening Exercise Day, Andrea Cesalpino, VC Andrews, Gordon Hayward, Hannah Rebecca Hudson, We Made a Garden, Marjorie Fish, Asparagus, the Hawaii State Flower, Hibiscus, and the Hawaiian Airlines image
I made another trip to the garden center today; that's my fourth of this week. The reason I keep going back, is they're clearancing out the annuals already. When it comes to my garden budget, I…
June 5, 2019 New Gardens, Sir John Richardson, Allan Octavian Hume, World Environment Day, Saalu Marada Thimmakka, Alice Mackenzie Swaim, The Gardener's Bed-Book, Richardson Wright, Pruning Spring-Flowering Shrubs, and Psalm 27
Is your garden new to you this year? Recently at a garden center, I ran into a woman who had just moved. She was tentatively buying just a few plants - curious to see what would work in her new spa…
June 4, 2019 Ground Cover Roses, King George III, Nathanial Bagshaw Ward, Katherine Esau, Sarah Martha Baker, Ruth Kassinger, Paradise Under Glass, Planting Peony, and Esau's Fables
Ground cover roses. I had someone ask me about them recently. They are fantastic for a rose that has a low spreading habit. But, they are really not a classic ground cover in terms of their ability…
June 3, 2019 Half-Hardy Plants, Aristides Simoni, David Douglas, Josephine Baker, Nathaniel Parker Willis, Kiftsgate Court Garden, Vanessa Berridge, Perennials for Wet Areas, Ardenoir, and Charlotte to Grace O'Brien
Half-Hardy Plants. That's a term you don't run into very often - but when you do, it can be confusing. Just this morning, I swung by a garden center to check out their clearance plants and I ended …