AMERICA’S FIRST BOTANIST
Come on Over
Come on over to John’s garden, one of the best around. John Bartram’s, that is. In case you don’t know him — rather, of him — he was America’s first botanist. Carl Linnaeus, who in the 18th century devised our whole system for classifying plants, called Bartram “the greatest natural botanist in the world.”
John’s garden is a convenient stop during any visit to Philadelphia. You’re going to visit the Liberty Bell, aren’t you? The Bartram garden is only minutes away, just south of Center City.
When John bought this tract along the Schuylkill River in 1728, it was rural land skirting the colonial city. His botanizing took him throughout what is now eastern U.S., and his garden was where Read more
RED LIKE I’D NEVER BEFORE SEEN
First Sightings
The first time I saw cardinal flowers, they were growing in a drainage ditch along a farm field in southern Delaware. Their intense, red color took my breath away, in part, because of their surroundings. After all, this was no well-tended, perennial flower border, where colorful flowers would be expected. No, growing along that ditch, those cardinal flowers were “mere” wildings.
What’s more, the plants were blooming in deep shade, a place usually lit, if then, by white flowers.
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MY SAVINGS ACCOUNTS
Reasons to Save
I’m saving seeds of some of this year’s juiciest tomatoes and most colorful flowers to plant in next year’s garden. Why? Saving my own seed from year to year gives me a bit of independence from seed companies, which, for one reason or another, may stop offering certain varieties.
Picnic Orange pepper from saved seed
It’s also a way way to maintain an annual supply of seeds that seed companies never offer, so-called heirloom varieties that have been handed down for generations from parents to children and from neighbor to neighbor. Read more
