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
May 31, 2019 Why Do You Garden, Charles McIlvaine, Virginia Woolf, Martha Maxwell, Walt Whitman, This Compost, Photo Friday, Hosta Inventory, Calvin Lamborn and the invention of Sugar Snap Peas
Why do we garden? This was a question that was posted in a Facebook group I belong to, and it received over 1400 responses. The most popular were:
- its calming
- to bring beauty into my life
- to con…
May 30, 2019 Extra Garden Tools, Voltaire, Gustav Leopold Miller, the Brush Weeder, Bill Burt, National Mint Julep Day, Cicily Mary Barker, The Lilac Fairyx, Green Thoughts, Eleanor Perenyi, Perennial Vines, and Concealing Unsightly Clothesline Posts
Today I'm heading over at 1 o'clock to Walmart to pick up my mobile order. It has a ton of things I need to get for my student gardeners. When the kids help me out in the garden, I put them in tea…
May 29, 2019 Sun Traps, John Barrymore, Joyce Winifred Vickery, Alfonsina Storni, Mirabel Osler, Succession Seed Annual Flowers, and the Wedding of Townshend and Kate Brandegee
Do you have a little sun trap in your garden?
The perfect spot for an afternoon of lounging while reading your favorite book?
The definition of the sun trap is a small partially-enclosed outdoor spac…
May 28, 2019 Unkind Garden Advice, William Herbert, Hippeastrum, Carl Richard Nyberg, Amaryllis and Alteo, Amaryllis Poem, Minta Collins, Medieval Herbs, Exposed Tree Roots and the Wentworth Lilacs of New Hampshire
Gardeners. Horticultural experts. Professors, even. On the garden path, you can, from time to time, run into people that decimate you faster than a Japanese Beetle on green beans. Let's just …
May 24, 2019 Gardeners and Weeds, Ynes Mexia, Queen Victoria, Frank Cabot, Les Quatre Vents, Linda Leinen, The Naming of Plants, Anna Pavord, The Naming of Names, Photo Friday in the Garden, and Ynes Mexia's Exploits in Mexico and South America
Emerson once wrote, "To science there is no poison; To botany no weed; To chemistry no dirt." As much as I like this quote, I know most gardeners will beg to differ. To gardeners, there areweeds.…
May 23, 2019 Growing as a Gardener, Carl Linnaeus, the Centigrade thermometer, Commelina genus, Sjupp the Raccoon, the Hamburg Hydra, Linnaea borealis or Twinflower, August Strindberg, Planting Cannas, Martin Hoffman, and Linnaeus' Lapland Costume
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "But these young scholars... Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names." There is more to gardening than nomenclature, and…
May 22, 2019 A Gardener's Bedtime Ritual, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Florence Meier Chase, Victor Hugo, Gardentopia, Jan Johnsen, Living Mulch, and the death of Conan Doyle
Here's a gardener's bedtime ritual for this time of year: Take sandpaper or a nail file and nick those nasturtium seeds before you soak them overnight; then sow them outside. They grow well in poor s…
May 21, 2019 Bolting Rhubarb, Alexander Pope, Henri Rosseau, Pope's Grotto at Twickenham, The Land of the Blue Poppies, Frank Kingdon Ward, Installing Garden Paths, and Richard Walter Pohl
Is your rhubarb bolting already? When your rhubarb seems to be bolting too early, ask yourself these questions...
- Is your rhubarb an heirloom or a new variety? Older varieties tend to bolt soone…
May 20, 2019 Knives in the Garden, National Pick Strawberries Day, Horatio Hollis Hunnewell, Chelsea Flower Show, Paul Martin's Lazy Salad Days, John Milton's Song on a May Morning, Wild Fruits by Thoreau, Edge Gardening, and Ludwig Leichhardt
Have you ever used a knife as a garden tool? Serrated knives are my favorite. The word serrated has latin origins meaning “saw shaped”; think of the serrated edges of Maple leaves. If you are a…
May 17, 2019 Ready to Garden, Botticelli, George Glenny, Requirements for Plant Explorers, Bernadette Cozart, Rocky Mountain Field Botany Course, Market Garden Workshop at Green Cauldron Farm, James Hunt, The Golden Circle, Hal Borland, and another Photo
Are you feeling it yet? The urge to get going in the garden? I was reading a book from 1915 about spring, it started this way, "If you are not dead, you will feel the sap start within you..." Eve…
May 16, 2019 Plant Tags, Growing Zones, Luigi Fenaroli, Charles Theodore Mohr, University of Winnipeg, Sara Teasdale, May, Wild at Home, Hilton Carter, Fall Blooms, the Kentucky State Flower, and Goldenrod
Do you know what to look for on a plant tag? The first major thing I look at is growing zone. Often the plant tag will give a range for the growing zone like 5-9 or 3-7. This is why knowing your …
May 15, 2019 Plant Height, Isaac Newton, President Lincoln, the USDA, Charles Sprague Sargent, the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve, Ettie C. Alexander, the NOLA Museum of Art, Emily Dickinson, Ina Coolbrith, Top-dressing, and Elizabeth Cady Stanto
Plant height is one of the factors often indicated on plant tags. But mature height often takes ten years - especially if you're talking about trees and shrubs. Most plants benefit from some amo…
May 14, 2019 Garden Experts, Mary Delany, Edward Jenner, John Cushnie, Hal Borland, Ruth Hayden, Slowing Growth in Shade, and the Mayapple
Most gardeners share a common secret: they never feel like they know enough about gardening to call themselves an expert. If you feel this way after years of gardening, you're not alone. Over tw…
May 13, 2019 Class on Herbs, Enid Annenberg Haupt, Allison Hargraeves, the Corpse Flower, National Public Gardens Week, John Burroughs Journals, Vassar College, Beth Chatto, Growing Herbs in Shade, and Enid Haupt's 1971 New York Apartment
Have you ever taken a class on gardening? If you're in the Calgary area, there's an excellent class taking place tonight from 7 to 9 PM It's part of the "Garden On" Lecture series. Tonight's fo…
May 10, 2019 Botanical Intuition, Leonard Mascall, John Hope, Alan Grimmel, Canada's Compost Week, The Friends School Plant Sale, Cecelia Payne, Botanical Sketchbook, Helen and William Bynum, Photo Friday, and Mascall on Tree Placement
Have you ever intuited the name of a plant? A few years ago, I traveled to San Diego. I was sitting on a bench outside the hotel and I spied the most amazing blossom - three bright orange petals an…
May 9, 2019 Your Impact on Your Garden, Alexandre Cassini, Lewis and Clark and Le Page, the Delaware State Flower, Hewett Watson, A Nation in Bloom, Matthew Biggs, Prune Time, and Erwin Frink Smith
Take two gardeners. They grow up learning to garden from the same person. They read the same books on gardening. They go to the same gardening workshops. They tour the same public gardens. …
May 8, 2019 Plant Problems, the US Botanic Garden, Emil Christian Hansen, Paul Kremer, Veggie by Orbitec, Sir David Attenborough, Chris Woods, Gardenlust, Angelica archangelica, and a 1912 Recipe for Rhubarb Pudding
You know the saying bad things come in threes? The dishwasher stops working. You get in a car accident. Your credit card gets stolen. Well, when it comes to our plants; like us, they can be exp…
May 7, 2019 Deep Dives in the Garden, Gerard van Swieten, Rochester Parks Commission, RHS Radish Trial, Henry Teuscher, Bartram's Garden, Rabindranath Tagore, Penelope Lively, Life in the Garden, Garden Trials, and Charles Darwin
Deep dives. Gardeners love to fall in love with particular plants. We can fall so hard, that we tune out other possibilities for our gardens. Then, in a fascinating twist, our deep dives can su…
May 6, 2019 Warm Night Temperatures, Jean Senebier, Lomatium, Alexander Von Humboldt, Temperate House, Massachusetts Hort Society, Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature, Mother's Day Flowers, and the Hudson Garden Club
We are on the cusp of continuous warm nights. Warm soil temps will take a few more weeks. Recently, I had a gardener ask me about their hearty hibiscus that was planted last year. They were worr…
May 3, 2019 National Garden Meditation Day, Walter Elias Broadway, Henry Shaw, Saks 5th Avenue, Valley of Flowers Festival, Charles Joseph Sauriol, American Eden, Victoria Johnson, Panoramic Photos, and Remembering Plant Names
Today is National Garden Meditation Day. Forget about your troubles Go to the garden (if you're not there already). Feel the breeze or the sprinkles. Smell the rain. Look at all the signs o…