Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here's some valuable things I wanted to share with you to cultivate your gardening skills.
This month, I interviewed Julie Witmer on The Plantastic Podcast. She shares her journey on becoming a passionate garden designer in Pennsylvania. She talks about how she was influenced by figures like Christopher Lloyd and Beth Chatto and her continuous learning and problem-solving in gardening. Julie's expertise shines through with her design business, her homeschooling practices, and helping families design better spaces with plants. We talk about aligning gardens with personal desires and the environment; how with writing, teaching, and engagement she shares her knowledge and love for plants; how to layer plants and how to think about a garden; her daily routines of observing seasonal changes; and how we can make gardening accessible and enjoyable for all. Enjoy the show!
On Awkward Botany, Daniel is celebrating the year of pollination and getting into the weeds of the science of how plants mix up their genes. In a recent post he shared the wonder of viscin threads that Oenothera (evening primrose) and Rhododendron (azalea) species have that hold their pollen grains together.
I never dreamed I would read about some of my favorite southern clematis like Clematis texensis (scarlet leatherflower) and Clematis glaucophylla (white-leaf leatherflower) being grown in Ukraine. But, Margaret Roach wrote a wonderful piece about Floret Flowers documentary "Gardening in a War Zone" about Alla Olkhovska and the 120 clematis she grows in wartime of her country. Enjoy this gift NY Times gift link to the piece.
Joseph Tychonievich wrote a fabulous post on GardenRant about the myth of the straight species or wild type plants. He clarifies the terms associated with cultivars, nativars, and wild plants.
As always, thanks for welcoming me into your inbox each week to share what I’m learning about plants.
Cheers, and keep growing!
Dr. Jared
P.S. An erratum. I wrote recently about my fascination of Erythronium albidum (white trout lily) and shared that I suspected it to be a bulb instead of a corm. Well, I was dividing some the other day, and I took it upon myself to cut open one that I had damaged. Sure enough, there are no scales on the inside. It's a corm! I've updated the blog post with text and a picture.
P.P.S. I got the nicest compliment about my Botanic Bootcamp #1 Success with Seed Sowing. Jackie said, "Lots of great information in clear, concise form. I did Master Gardener training and honestly, you did a much better job communicating the information. I got a lot out of this session. I winter sow a lot of native seeds, but my approach thus far has been a bit haphazard. You have encouraged me to be a bit more methodical about it, but also to just try more experimental sowing to see which method is more successful. Also, I tried starting some vegetable seeds inside last year and it didn't go fantastically. I am now willing to try again. I truly appreciate your enthusiasm." Thanks, Jackie!