Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Studio A Here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacey Hervella me,
Rick weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well,
Happy Birthday America two hundred and fifty years. Part two
of our series on gardens. We'd love to see you visit,
and today we'll cover a number of botanical gardens that
we recommend you visit. Of course, these gardens are tied
to history and the rich history of our country, but
it's really not the history here that we're talking about.
Our goal is to present them as they are today
and to inspire you to visit them. Just a rich
agricultural and horticultural history to our country. Stacy a comment
from one of our viewers that I thought was great
about land grant universities in the United States. I have
often visited the gardens at Michigan State University, a land
grant university. It also makes me think of I think
it's called the J. C. Ralston Gardens at North Carolina
State and North Carolina State has been instrumental in the
development of the horticulture industry here in the United.
Speaker 2: States, absolutely, and J. C. Ralston was too. He unfortunately
passed away far too young. But his dream was to
have a state arboretum for North Carolina and that is
what became the J. C. Ralston Arboretum. And it is
a wonderful place that you should absolutely visit. And you know,
speaking of visits, we hope that you are able to
go to all of these gardens in person and experience
them for yourself and learn about the history. But I
do have to say, in researching all of this, there's
a lot of great web sites. So if you cannot
wait until you can visit them, or you're just sitting
around and want a dream big, do visit their websites.
There are wonderful stories, the history maps, all of that
good stuff. So it's the second best thing to visiting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really absolutely, and that's true. The websites are fantastic. Now,
of course, I guess to start out, you know, again,
you talk about history, you talk about the women's movement
and suffrage and voting rights, and boy, that's kind of
tied into that was the mid eighteen hundreds. It's kind
of tied into the Founder's Memorial Garden. I have never
been there. But i'd like to go.
Speaker 2: Right, I have never been there either. This is in Athens, Georgia,
on the campus of the University of Georgia. And you know,
the gardens that we're picking for this show, right, like,
the comments are already coming in, and we're going to
wait until the whole series is over and we will
do something to address all of the gardens that we
miss our being outcried in the comments. We'll address that
in a future episode. But you know, the one of
the ways that we're trying to pick these gardens is
because of their significance. So it's not always that it's
like the best or most beautiful or special or unique garden.
So that's how a garden like the Founder's Memorial Garden
in Athens, Georgia gets on the list. The Founder's Memorial
Garden commemorates the founding of the first Ladies Garden Club
in America in eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: That is so interesting. What year was that?
Speaker 2: Eighteen ninety one? Wow, So that was the year that
the first Lady's Garden Club was founded. And you know,
to us now, it's kind of interesting because I think
most people think tend to think no offense rick of
gardening is a woman's pastime, which is garbage. It's not
you do not need to be a specific gender to garden.
Speaker 1: I'm not even touching that one.
Speaker 2: But really, you know, and if you couldn't tell, you know,
the gardens that we've talked about is we kind of
traveled through the thirteen original colonies and all of that.
Of course we're in Georgia, so that's still one of
the thirteen original colonies. But you know, gardening was largely
a man's pastime. It was not something that women engaged in,
whether it was because they were dressed in hoopskirts and
petticoats and all of these other things that made it
impossible to actually bend over much less work in the
garden and pull weeds and so forth. So this is
really instrumental in the fact that now it was okay
for women to garden. It was accepted women could get
together in their own societies and talk about gardening and
celebrate gardening and learn about plants. And you know, now
we take the whole concept of garden societies kind of
for granted. They're almost like a quaint concept that don't
you know, hardly exist anymore. But this was massive that
there was the first garden club for women in Athens,
Georgia in eighteen ninety one. So this is a pretty
small garden if you happen to be in Athens, Georgia,
you might even miss it if you didn't know about it.
But this garden was actually chartered in nineteen thirty six
specifically to commemorate the founding of the first women's garden.
It wasn't completed until ten years in nineteen forty six.
So it's kind of a formal garden with a clipped
boxwood parterre, and a parterre is basically, I guess what
most people would consider like a k not garden, very formal,
clipped boxwood hedges, sometimes with plants inside them, So it
has this kind of formality. But it also functions as
a living laboratory for the University of Georgia College of
Environment and Design, so they're doing research on trees. It's
about a five acre site. You can rent it for
weddings and events and all of those types of things.
But again this one is included not because this is
the most stunning guard that you're ever going to see,
but that role in history and the fact that even
in nineteen thirty six, you know, some forty years after
the first Lady's Garden Club was founded, they felt that
that was significant enough to commemorate with its own garden.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Well, I guess my only editorial comment would be
I used to operate a guard center, and I understand
that probably nine out of ten decisions made at a
garden center are made by a woman, not a man.
It's just the way it is, and we love them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I think that that that's my
only kind. I'm grateful that gardening has become much more
democratized because of the Internet.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly.
Speaker 2: You know, there are at least as many male gardening
influences as there are female gardening influencers. But again, as
we're talking about history, it's pretty wild to think that
there was a time where it's unbelievab, where you know,
pearls would have been clutched if a woman so much
is dreamed of planting something.
Speaker 1: So goodness, Well, let's move on here, and let's let's
go to southern Florida.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're actually going to take a detour first. We're
going to well we're still in Florida. But I found
out about a garden just to this morning. Well, I
knew about the garden before, but once I started reading
the story of this garden, I said, oh, this has
this is going to make the cut. It's in your
digital notes, it's in your paper notes here, okay. But
when I read this, and then I read the story
of the person who founded this garden, I said, this
is exactly the type of story that we want to
tell on the Gardening Simplified Show for part two. So
it is Bach Tower Gardens and Lake Wales, Florida. Have
you been there? I have been there, Okay, So it's
kind of I looked on the map southwest of Orlando.
It is still deep within theme Park Florida, not far
from Legoland. So if you are in Florida visiting all
the theme parks, you may not have time because you're
running around theme park to theme park. But this is
absolutely a garden worth your visit because the founder of it,
Edward Bach. It's a true American dream story, So get
ready for this. He comes to Brooklyn at the age
of six as an immigrant from the Netherlands. He's educated
in New York City public schools. In Brooklyn, he works
as a quote office boy for Western Union Telegraph in
eighteen seventy six. And you know, this is a the
classic American story. He's attending night school to further his education.
So here's this guy trying to make a living, you know,
older teenager, young twenties, out of school, working at telegraph office,
going to night school. He eventually starts to work his
way up in publishing and advertising sales for magazines. All right,
he now speaking of women and how gardening has changed.
This is going to say, this is almost absurd for
me to say, but it's still part of history. He
becomes the first editor of the Ladies Home Journal in
eighteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: An immigrants from the Netherlands.
Speaker 2: Yes, so he ends up so the Lady's Home Journal
was there. He becomes the editor of the Ladies Home
Journal in eighteen eighty nine, and under Edward box leadership,
the Ladies Home Journal becomes the first magazine in the
world to reach one million subscribers. Which that's crazy to
think of that happening, you know, way back in the
early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds, because things did not
happen as quickly as they do now with the Internet.
Under his direction at the Ladies Home Journal. He coins
the term living room. He renames the concept of Victorian
parlors to living rooms, so they used to be called parlors.
By him, they become living rooms and now that, of
course is common parlance for us and in he was
a big proponent of the early American arts and crafts movement,
and he publishes Frank Lloyd writes home plans in the
Ladies Home Journal, making him and his home style as
popular as they became. Amazing, isn't that incredible. He was
a very forward thinking person. He fought for women's rights,
the right to vote, and he also helped to ensure
that Niagara Falls was preserved from development. So that's the
fun thing about these is you start reading these histories
and there's all these like crazy points connecting everything. So
he moves to Florida and he has a vision to
found a garden and this is a quote directly from
the bach Tower Gardens website, as a gift for visitation
by the American people in gratitude for the opportunity they
had given him. So he wants to give this garden
to the American people to enjoy. He employs Frederic loh
Olmsted Junior. So we talked about Frederick law Olmsted a
lot in the last episode. We're gonna still be talking
about him because we've got some big Frederick law Olmsted
Gardens coming up, and he specifically designs it with Frederick
lah Olmsted Junior, as a sanctuary for birds and native wildlife.
And Olmsted Junior specifically chooses plants and cites them to
quote provide a hearty supply of food and shelter for
migrating birds and other wildlife. Now to this day, the
threatened gopher tortoise and eastern indigo snake make their homes
at Bach Tower Gardens. And there is a picture, and
this is sort of why the thing that I saw
this morning that made me really want to look into
his story. There was a picture of Edward Bach standing
next to a sign that says, quote, a sanctuary is
a place where the rights of all living things are respected.
And that just kind of really summarizes his, you know,
view on life and the viewpoint that he had building
bock Tower Gardens. Now, I think what most people know
Bock Tower Gardens for is his dream of building a carolon.
Now I don't know a lot about carolons. They are.
I am vastly underestimating them to call them a bell tower,
because they are so much more than a bell tower.
I learned a lot about carolons today. Fascinating topic. He
commissioned a carolan at the center. He is buried at
the base of the carolon at bock Tower Gardens and
it's one of only one hundred and eighty five caralons
in the US.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: They have a great page on their website about carolons.
Speaker 1: There's a great carolan at bell Aisle, which we'll be
talking about later.
Speaker 2: And we are if we get to it, because at
this rate it's not looking at.
Speaker 1: Edward Bach.
Speaker 2: Fascinating story in a beautiful garden. I have not visited there,
but I will tell you should I find myself in
the Orlando area again, I will certainly be making a
detour because it looks fabulous. It's about the bird, it's
about the wildlife, and it's about Edward Box. Gift to
the Americans who helped him realize his dream.
Speaker 1: You saved the threatened gopher toward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I meant to look that up. I'm sure it's adorable.
Speaker 1: When the tortoise arrived, he said, I'll be back. Sorry.
Speaker 2: All right. On that note, we're gonna take a little break.
When we come back, we're going to continue our journey
into Florida Gardens of Police. Stay tuned beautify your home
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Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Shrub,
where we're continuing our tour of gardens that shaped America
and public gardens that you can visit, because we're not
talking about gardens that aren't still around. All of these
gardens are still around. They are open to the public.
Some of them may not be open every single day,
so you do want to check before you go. But
we wanted to kind of share some gardens around the country,
big and small, famous and less famous, that the people
and the garden themselves, and the people who worked in
and designed the garden helped to shape our history, and
that's something you can participate in. So we are moving
to a garden that is named for an extremely significant
American Most people don't know who he is, and that
is Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, Florida. So you
might hear Fairchild and just think, oh, that's just the
name of the garden, but no, it is named for
David Fairchild, who, again a lot of people don't know
who he is, but his impact on American food and
gardening cannot be overstated.
Speaker 1: I agree. There's a good chance I would have not
had avocado toast for breakfast this morning without DN.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine no avocados? And we have David Fairchild
to think. So. David Fairchild was born in Lansing, Michigan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, amazing, Yes, just up the road from
that studio away.
Speaker 2: Not far away. But he did not go to Michigan
State University. I know this will disappoint many of our listeners.
He then moved to Kansas and graduated from Kansas State,
which is still an excellent agricultural program. He then, at
the age of twenty two well worked for the USDA
as a quote seed explorer and this work for the
USDA sent David Fairchild all over the world. He went
to every single continent except Antarctica inert. And this is
in the nineteen twenties, right, This This is not like
hop on a plane in fly first class because you're
a frequent flyer. This is long, long hours in ships
and motion, sickness and storms and all of that. And
he is credited with introducing two hundred thousand ornamental and
food crops to the US unbelieve that is not a
made up number. That is the actual USDA number. At
least two hundred thousand different crops he collected around the
world and brought back to the USDA and brought back
to the US and just profoundly changed the way that
we farm and the way that we garden, and the
way that we eat. So before David Fairchild started bringing
all of these over, Americans mostly had a pretty meat
heavy diet. Now, of course, if you lived in a
warmer climate, you could grow more of your own food,
and people did grow their own food, but you know,
that summer season was pretty small. And yes, people can,
but it's not like you could just go to Meyer
and buy a you know, case of ball jars and
it didn't make an impact on your you know, on
your finances. So he by bringing all of these different
edible crops to the US, he really changed the way
people eat. So just some of his introductions include soybeans, pistachios, mangoes, nectarines, dates,
bamboo no that could be a good or a bad thing,
depending on how you look at it, kale keen, avocados,
Asrick said, and those flowering cherries that are so associated
with Washington, d c. You can thank David Fairchild for those.
Speaker 1: When I was there, we were having a taste testing
of mangoes.
Speaker 2: Oh nice, Fairchild. So we're getting to Fairchild. It is
one of the best, I think, most significant mango collections
in the entire US. They do have a mango festival
every year, and yeah, you can taste how many different
varieties of mangoes. Did you taste?
Speaker 1: Cool? There were a few I don't remember, but all
I remember is they were delicious and juicy, very good.
Speaker 2: When I was there, it was not mango season, but
they did show me around and they have a huge
mango collection. So if you're interested in learning more about
David Fairchild, there is a great recent book called The
Food Explorer by Daniel Stone. My husband read it. He
really enjoyed it. I have not read it, but talks
more about that history. And then, just briefly while we're
mentioning books, in David Fairchild. He and his wife, who
was Marion Bell. She changed her name, of course to
Maryild the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell Hello. She was
the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell. She marries David Fairchild.
They have a house in Maryland as well as in Florida.
We'll get to the Florida partner moment here, but I
have to give this a little side detour because I
know Adriana is gonna want to put this in the
YouTube video as much as I want to talk about it.
He and his wife spend one summer constructing this elaborate
I think it's eighteen foot long camera specifically to photograph insects,
and they publish these photographs in a book that they
entitled the Book of Monsters, because in David Fairchild's eyes,
he said that insects were beautiful, living creatures that deserve
better than to be quote dried up husks in university
drawers and that kind of thing. So you can actually
look at his photos for free on the internet and
we will put some links there so you can see
he and his wife's amazing work along this So Fairchild
Tennic Garden was named for David Fairchild. He was one
of the founders. You can actually see some of the
plants that he brought back to Florida that are planted there.
There's a baobab tree, probably one of very few in
the continental the US that he collected and planted. And
he worked with a bunch of Florida and just botanical visionaries,
including Liberty Hyde Bailey to create this collection in Charter.
The Fairchild Botanic Garden, not far from Fairchild Botanic Garden,
is David Fairchild's personal estate. It's called the Campong. It's
part of the National Tropical Botanic Garden System. It's not
always open to the public, but it is open to
the public on certain days. It is be beautiful. It
is such a special place.
Speaker 1: As palm trees.
Speaker 2: The palms are incredible and you can actually see the
very first literally the very first citrus plants that were
ever brought back to the US still growing on that property.
Speaker 1: Amazing, absolutely incredible, and you know many of us, for example,
houseplants in our homes. We will grow ponytail palms, which
is not a true palm, but there are massive ponytail
palms there are also all of the poems really really
struck me when I was there, and I think it's
important to note that with Fairchild, if we're getting to
Fairchild at this point. But that entire region was flattened
in nineteen ninety two by Hurricane Andrew, and I was
there a short time after Hurricane Andrew. As a matter
of fact, I remember walking through some of the fields.
There's many growers down there, and it's very flat, and
there's an area called Aladdin City, which has ties to
us here in Michigan Bay City, Michigan. It was a
company that produced homes that you could purchase, have shipped
and all you had to do is put them together
like a puzzle. And they were flattened by the hurricane
of the Great Miami Hurricane of nineteen twenty six and
then soon after so that you get the Great Depression.
They're out of business. But that's why it's called a
Laddin City. But there are many many growers down there,
and growers that I would purchase from as a purchasing agent.
Like we've talked about Boston ferns as far as the
eye can see, and I've got a picture to share
with some of our YouTube viewers. That area is an
amazing area. And to think of the weather events that
fair Child Botanical Garden has gone through, and the gardens
in that area, and the growers in that area. When
I visited shortly after Hurricane Andrew, the wild dogs and
the pets that were abandoned after Hurricane Andrew. And Hurricane
Andrew actually created the movement to cause us to develop
better methods of caring for pets after such an event
Hurricane even yea, I have so many memories of it,
I don't know.
Speaker 2: It is such a unique area. And there's lizards that
blew in from different countries, like in the Caribbean. They
actually literally blew to Florida and have since become established,
which is a wild thing to think of.
Speaker 1: Can I mention one more? I got to mention this,
So Hurricane Andrew's specimens, so many people, many of these
growers walked away from their farms. The plants are laying
on their side. What happens in the ensuing years, the
plants begin to grow at a ninety degree angle to
the light, and they were sold for premium prices as
Andrew's specimens. We tried to get our hands on dressinas
many of these plants, so you have those, and they've
inspired some of the plant material that you'll find at
parks in Florida, including the Doctor Seuss Park. So oh, anyhow, so.
Speaker 2: What's more American than trying to what is it? What's
the phrase I'm trying to think of, turn like, turn
something bad into something good?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, making lemonade?
Speaker 2: Yea? And what's more American than making lemonade out of lemons?
So but back briefly to the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
The garden was laid out by William Lyman Phillips, which
is a somewhat known name for those of us in
the industry. He got his start as the landscape architect
for the Panama Canal, which I thought you would find interesting, Rick,
and he fell so in love with tropical landscaping and
designing in the tropics that after between the Panama Canal
and Fairchild Botanic Garden, he settled there. He said, this
is where I am, and I have to say that
is my impression too, of going to Fairchild is someone
who has, you know, worked in gardens and visited gardens,
you know, all throughout the East Coast and through other
temperate regions. There is really just no describing how breath
takingly different it is to be in a totally tropical
garden like that, and the way that the plants are
used is completely different. The views are different, the experience
of being in the garden, and not just because the
plants look so different, but because everything is just profoundly different.
And you will really see that if you find yourself
fortunate enough to go to Fairchild at Botanica Garden. It
is way down there, but there's so many wonderful things
to do down in that area.
Speaker 1: Tropical vines, on pergolos, banana trees. I felt like I
was in Costa Rica. That's how it felt to me.
You see any creditin I saw crotons, Absolutely, I saw
crotons the garden at night unbelievable. Make sure to visit
that garden at night. That's incredible too. So oh, I
wanted to quickly mention Bailey palms. Bailey palms, I guess,
are native to Cuba and they have huge Bailey Palms there.
Look it up. What an incredible palm tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely worth a visit. It's also the home
of the American Orchid Society, so if you love orchids,
a great place to visit, just a great place to
visit all around, named for an extremely fascinating person. So
next time you find yourself in South Florida, don't just
get a Cuban sandwich and a mohido. Visit the Fairchild
Tropical Garden as well. Now I knew that was going
to take a full segment. We're going to take a
little break right now. When we come back, we are
moving over to Louisiana, so please stay tuned. At Proven
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Winners shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local
garden center or learn more at Proven Winner's color Choice
dot Com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome back to the
Gardening Simplified Show. Where I'm talking too fast, it's just
because I'm trying really hard to get through all of
these amazing gardens. It has been slower than I expected,
But I also knew that we were going to be
really excited about these gardens that we've covered so far
in memories, so many it's just interesting stories. And this
next garden is no exception whatsoever. We are going to
Longview Gardens in New Orleans, Louisiana. Now, I have been
to New Orleans many times. Wonderful city, just like no
other place on Earth, just an amazing place to visit.
And I've never been to this garden, but I can
tell you the next time I go to New Orleans,
I am making it a top priority because it's actually
it's not quite in like the downtown area, but it's
very close. It's very close to City Park, which is
accessible on the street car, and just a beautiful free
park that you can visit with a beautiful sculpture garden.
But Longview is the estate of Edgar and Edith Stern.
Now Edith Stern was Nay Rosenwoald. She was the heiress
to the Sears Roebuck fortune, so she had plenty of money.
Her husband, Edgar Stern, was a native New Orleanian and
took her down there. She fell instantly in love with
New Orleans, which is very easy to do. It's such
a beautiful place. And so they built their home in
nineteen twenty four. Very modest by today's standard, but quite
grand then and kind of like a marriage of New
Orleans architecture and Northern architecture.
Speaker 1: Sears used to sell homes out of their catalogue, and
I can tell you that this home did not come
from a Sears catalog.
Speaker 2: No I live. Yeah, yeah, so I know. But yeah,
it's a beautiful home. Now, what's really cool is they
started living in this house. They said, hey, this house
is great, but you know what, we just don't have
enough connection to the outdoors. We want a more seamless
connection from the home to the outside. We love being outside. Yes,
so they hired Ellen Biddleshipman. Now, in the previous episode,
we talked about Beatrix Farrand at Dunbarton Oaks in Washington,
d C. Ellen but l Shipman was almost a contemporary,
a little bit later than Beatrix f Rand, but one
of the most important female lands or earliest land female
landscape architects in the US. So they can mission Ellen
Biddle Shipman to come down there and design the gardens,
and she creates at Longview the very first concept of
what we would now call garden rooms and an effort
to kind of really connect the garden to the house.
So these rooms kind of work off the architecture and
structure of the house. There are views that open up
from doors, and this is such a wild thing for
us to think about because now it's all very natural
for us to have this sort of seamless flow from
the outdoors to the inn and vice versa. But back
then it was pretty much unheard of. And so what
Ellen Biddle Shipman did was to create these garden rooms,
create these grand views. There is not a single window
in the house that does not have a view onto
the garden that relates directly to the garden and how
it is used. So Ellen Biddleshipman said of her planting
design for Laweview quote, it was as if she were
painting pictures as an artist. This is very much different
than the way other people were planting. They were just like, Okay,
we need some shade here. Put this here. She really
treated the landscape as an artistic composition. She also this
is one of the few surviving at Longview, one of
the few surviving examples of Ellen Biddle Shipman's interpretation of
William Robinson's wild garden stuff. That's something we've talked about
in previous episodes. One of my favorite things. William Robinson's
wild gardens are difficult to preserve if they were created
in the nineteen thirties by a garden designer, because how
do you do that. You know, they don't have the
structure and maybe the clear design. So this is one
of the few places you can see her wild gardens,
and I think overall the garden is just a really
interesting study, much like we were saying about Fairchild in
what happens when an East Coast native or a Midwestern
native finds herself in the South. How do you marry
these concepts of the designs and gardens that you know
and love with a totally different plant palette. And you know,
whereas in the Midwest or in the Northeast, you might
have a grand allet of oaks or Linden's or something
like that. Longview has a beautiful grand a lay of
live oaks, of course because it's New Orleans, gorgeous, just
a really really special place. It was extensively damaged during
Hurricane Katrina. They thought that they might have to close.
But fortunately the Garden Conservancy, which is a wonderful organization
who is doing so much to preserve American gardens. And
we will talk more about the Garden Conservancy when and
if we eventually get to California. And we talked about
the Ruth Bancroft Garden, but extensive damage at Hurricane Katrina.
They thought they might have to shut it down or
you know, even demolish it. But the Garden Conservancy stepped in,
volunteers stepped in, and they were able to renovate the
gardens and it is open for you to visit today.
Speaker 1: Important to note there yes extensive damage during Hurricane Katrina.
They need help again, they need funds, they need volunteers
because they got belted this year. On June seventeen, am
hit by an EF one tornado and they are still
so there are parts of the garden that are currently closed.
They are open, but again they've sustained damage just recently
so what a wonderful place, fascinating you look at the
vista and the oaks. It makes me think of Gone
with the Wind.
Speaker 2: Yes, and this was Yeah, this was a new home
that they commissioned in sort of their own unique style,
rather than take over some place that had been around
for a really long time. And I do want to
say I'm glad you brought that up about the tornado
because a lot of times, depending on who you're traveling with,
you go to these gardens and you might see in
an admission fee that gives you a little bit of
a sticker shock. But cards are not easy to maintain.
Any of us can tell you that. I think we're
preaching to the choir here, and you know, having horticulturists
who know what they're doing, and having people, you know,
buying plants and the labor and all of.
Speaker 1: Them maintaining herbariums and that sort of thing. Yes, so
very important.
Speaker 2: So don't let something like a tornado at long if
you stop you from visiting. They need your money more
than ever, so please do make an effort. And the
house is open to you. So it's not just the garden,
because obviously if the house and garden are connected. You've
got to see the garden from the house. You can't
just see the house from the garden.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, and by the way, got to mention this
because I've driven through there. If you're going to visit Longview.
Right nearby is the National World War Two Museum.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And some people would question why is the World War
Two Museum in New Orleans not in Washington or someplace
like that. And it's because of mister Higgins who the
Higgins boats of World War Two. It was Dwight Eisenhower
who said it was Higgins boats that won the war
for them, these these landing crafts that allowed them to
put troops on shore distant shores. So that's why the
World War II National World War Two Museum is there.
Andrew Jackson Higgins of New.
Speaker 2: Orleans, I did not know that. All right, All right,
now we are going to take a big leap north
to the Missouri Botanic Garden. Have you been to the
Missouri Botanic.
Speaker 1: Gary, Yes, I have, and the place is huge. Yeah,
have your good walking shoes ready to go.
Speaker 2: Try to go on a nice day when it's not
you know, one hundred some degrees.
Speaker 1: But it is. Yeah, that's true, it can get very
warm there, but it's important that we touch on it
because it's I'm told, one of the nation's oldest botanical gardens,
open to the public in eighteen fifty nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it was founded by a private citizen who
was out, you know, riding his horse, and said, hey,
this looks like a fine prospect. Yeah, and kind of
staked his claim and built various structures. In addition to
being one of the nation's oldest continuously functioning botanical gardens,
the eighteen eighty two Lineean House, a very old greenhouse,
is one of the oldest continuously operating greenhouses in the US.
And now I looked at pictures of this whatever you
know picture you have in your mind's eye as a greenhouse,
get it out of there and look up the line
In house, because it is like nothing else I have
ever seen. It is so cool and so interesting, and
really I think says a lot about how steel, for example,
has changed the way that we can build. And then
when you see the actual conservatory, the newer, you know,
more contemporary conservatory at the Missouri Botanic Garden, what you
will notice is that it was one of the first
conservative conservatories built without internal pillars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating. I think they call it the climate.
Speaker 2: Trun yes, yeah, which does not do it justice. But
it doesn't have internal pillars, so you don't have these big,
you know, structural pillars kind of impede your views across
these very you know climate domes that they have for
all of the different areas. And that's something that's so
you know, natural to us. Now, of course it can
be built that way, but for it's time, it was
truly revolutionary, and especially when you contrast that with the
Linnaean House. Now, one of the things that I think
is most important about the Missouri Botanic Garden, whether or
not you live within driving distance or will be driving
by it to visit, it is by far one of
the absolute best resources for North American home gardeners.
Speaker 1: You've got it for home gardening, the plant Finder resource,
all of that type of thing, the support that they provide.
They're committed to conservation science, awareness of plants. You bet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a great website. I can tell you
I rely on it personally all the time to get
accurate information and to help me understand plants better. And
so whether or not you ever get to visit the
Missouri Botanic Garden. Definitely visit their website. You may have
already visited it just because you searched for a plant
question and it came up. But I think one of
the best things that they are doing in their role
is quote the Nation's Botanic Garden, because that is kind
of their sub headline. There is just providing us reputable
scientific information about plants and how to grow them that you.
Speaker 1: Can trust exactly. Oh and tied into that because you know,
I love bulbs. They do a great job with bulbs,
spring and summer bulbs. Because now we've moved far enough
north into Missouri where they can do that, and wow, fabulous.
Speaker 2: All right, we already have to take another Breakay, we
only got to two gardens. All right, We're going to
do that and when we come back, we'll have to
finish up the show. But we've got a couple more
great ones for you, so stay tuned. Thanks for listening
to the Gardening Simplified podcast, brought to you by Proven
Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs and
evergreens are trialed and tested by experts with your success
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. So much to
talk about, so little time to talk about it. As
a matter of fact, next week we'll go to Chicago,
the City of Big Shoulders Carl Sandberg, and boy, there
are some great gardens in the Chicago area. But Stacey,
let's jump over to where are we going Minnesota?
Speaker 2: Well, first, we're actually going to Indianapolis, Indiana. Yes, yeah, yeah, Now,
this is a garden that not a lot of people
have heard of it. In fact, the only reason I
had heard of it was because one of my colleagues
from horticulture school used to be the horticulturists there, and
unfortunately I never got around to visiting her, which I
very much regret because she has since moved to a
wonderful garden in Maine. But Minnetrista was founded as the
home of the Ball family, as in Ball Job. Yes,
so they were originally founded in Buffalo, New York, and
the whole family, all the brothers, all five of them
I think there were up and moved to Muncie, Indiana,
just sort of north east of Indianapolis, and they all
built homes on this big property to run their glass
jar empire, but they were all into gardening and eventually
transitioned the garden to the public as a public garden,
so you can still see many of the Ball family's
original homes. There's all sorts of different unique gardens there,
sort of Midwestern home educated home gardening education and that
kind of thing. But what really fascinated me as part
of the American story, even though this isn't directly related
to gardens, it kind of is. Minnietrista is where the
Bob Ross Painting Show was films Wow, and it is
the only Bob Ross museum, the official Bob Ross museum
where you can actually see his paintings. You can see
the studio where the show was filmed, because this is
actually in one of the homes of the Ball family,
so that's where they set up the studio. You can
see his palette, you can see his paint brushes and
all of this other wonderful stuff. So it's one of
those gardens that you know, like we all have ball
jars in our house, right, Like you can't even if
you don't, can you don't not have a ball jar
in your house, you can't avoid it. I think it's
like a requisite of being in a arrangement exactly. And
so it was founded, you know, on those glass jars,
and then then we get Bob Ross in here. So
just you know, America a land of contrasts.
Speaker 1: Yes, happy birthday.
Speaker 2: You know what. Speaking of birthdays, it's our two hundred show.
Speaker 1: That's right, episode number two hundred. Not quite as old
as the United States.
Speaker 2: No, not in episode years, in episode years. Yeah, So congratulations,
a congratulations. I can't believe we've made it two hundred shows.
That's awesome. Yeah, all right, Well we are going to
take a quick d two were we're not going in
great geographical order, but there was too much to say
about Chicago's We're going to say that for next week.
But we're going to be staying here in Michigan with
the One the Only bell Isle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can visit it. You're not going to
have an entry fee to visit the beautiful Nature Center
and the Pete Odolph Garden there. You will have to
pay to drive drive there. There's a state park.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a state park. So if you have a
state park fee, if you have a state park pass
on your license plate, you can go there for free. Now,
Belle Isle is a place that's truly near and dear
to my heart. My grandparents grew up in the Detroit area,
so it was a place that they took us a lot.
It was the first public garden that I was ever
at in my entire life. I clearly remember my very
first visit to the beautiful Anna Script's Whitcomb Conservatory with
my grandma, and it is still just as beautiful and wonderful.
But when I was reading about the history of Belle Isle,
I found out something really interesting. So it was originally
called Swan Island by the unnish Nabe people of Detroit,
and it was its formation was attributed to Sleeping Bear.
Of course, we all know about Sleeping Bear dunes up north.
Sleeping Bear was the spirit he protected his daughter by
keeping her in a wooden box. Unlike Michigan. Now, for
those of you who are not native Michiganders or aren't
familiar with what Michigan looks like, Michigan looks like this.
So Belle Isle is over here in the river between
Canada and Detroit, way over here by the thumb, kind
of like Michigan is over here where we are. So
it's pretty interesting to me that this, you know, group
of Native Americans had the you know, this mythology over
clear over on the other side of the state. So
Sleeping Bear was protecting his daughter over on like Michigan.
No one could get to her. The north and west
winds fought for her. It created a huge storm. It
swept up the box that he was keeping her in.
Not a great dad move, I don't think. Pieces of
it lodged at the mouth of the Detroit River and
they became one on another Swan island because of all
of the swans, And the legend says that the daughter
still inhabits the island in the form of a white dough.
So if you were ever on Belle Isle and you
see a white dough, I don't know what to tell you,
but it would be fascinating. There used to be deer
around on the island. I remember that from when I
was a kid. But the thing about Belle Isle, as
far as it being a contemporary gardener, an important garden,
it was designed by the one, the only, Frederick Law Olmsted,
because of course it was so it's really hard, I think,
to explain how in demand Frederick law Olmsted became after
Central Park, like nobody could get enough of the guy.
This guy could not get to enough places. Every single
city wanted their own version of Central Park, and I
think it became basically like a bidding war to try
to get Frederick law Olmsted to come and do a
project in your.
Speaker 1: City, because Belle Isle is considered Detroit's backyard.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and so it served very much a similar
role that Central Park did, which was fresh air and
recreation for a burgeoning urban industrial climate. I mean, you
have to remember back in eighteen seventy nine when bell
Isle was founded as a public park. You know, just
try to think about everything that was happening. All the industry.
Detroit was making, stoves, Detroit was making I can't even
list all of the things. This was well before automobiles even,
but Detroit was a massive industrial capital and it probably stunk.
It was dirty, absolutely, it was stinky. Everybody was working
in factories. So to have this place that if you've
ever been there, right, it's close ish to the city,
but it's not in the city, so you're far enough
away that you can kind of get some fresh air.
It's in the river. And so he designed it it's
very different than Central Park, but some beautiful original features
like that gorgeous fountain. The bridge over to Belle Isle
is so so lovely and really, I think, and this
is true of of many of the gardens that we've
talked about, and even just when we talked about Longview today,
that feeling of transition, you know, when you're going down
the long drive at Longview Gardens, when you're crossing the
bridge at Belle Isle, it starts to prepare you for
this really different experience that you're going to have, you know,
while you are in that garden. So it really does that. Now.
The Antascripts Whitcomb Conservatory was opened in nineteen oh four.
It is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the US.
It has something that not enough if you ask me
public garden conservatories have. It has a fern grotto. Have
you been there? Have you been to the.
Speaker 1: Remember?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it is just Adriana knows what I'm
talking about because she's from the Detroit area too. It
is extraordinary and it's small, like I don't want to
build it up for people and they go, oh, is
that all there is? And I will say both and
our other coworkers who are from Detroit had this similar experience.
It's just a magical little space. Now, when I was young,
you could actually go down there. Now you can only
kind of look over it. But it is a fern
collection and it's very much in keeping with this nineteen
oh four style. And so many of these old conservatories
and gardens they kind of update, right they they become
more contemporary, they make changes. They say, oh, ferneries, you know,
that's so nineteen oh four. But they've really maintained it
and it is just an extraordinarily beautiful special place. There's
really I've been to gardens all over the world, and
the fernery at the Antiscripts wo Come Conservatory will always
have an extra special place in my heart. And you know,
the conservatory itself is built so interestingly rout with a
fish pond around it.
Speaker 1: Yes, And part of what makes bell Isle so special
to me is Pete Odolf. And when we go to
Chicago next week, we'll talk about the Leury Garden three
acre perennial garden there, thirty two thousand hardy perennials and grasses.
Of course, Pete love to use ornamental grasses as structure
within a garden, So that's a great garden to visit there.
Also it makes up three acres there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's right in front of the conservatory, so
you don't have to go all over bell Isle to
see all of the wonderful gardens. I have not been
there to see the Pete Udolph Garden yet. I know
it was off to a very slow start. Initially it
was delayed by funding and bell Isle has been a
place that has been be set by a bunch of
different problems like that. But it seems like it's on
the right track now. It's absolutely worth a visit. And
so it was beset from initially funding problems, then COVID,
then flooding correct and then finally it has come to fruition.
And I'm sure it's still establishing because it's been around
maybe three or four years.
Speaker 1: It's establishing. But it's the first public garden to incorporate
all three of Odolf's iconic planting styles, block matrix and
group planting. And again, I love Pete Odolph because he
sounds just like my ninety six year old there. It's
Dutch accent. I just love it. Amazing.
Speaker 2: Is your dad as stylish as Peterodolpha.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 2: He's very stylish. And as you said, there's a Carolon
on Bellisle. Bellisle really is almost like, you know, compared
to Central Park, which is kind of very sublime and massive,
and you have these moments of you know, even though
you're in the city, just kind of being lost in nature.
You never really lose that sense of connection to the
city in Detroit or at bell Isle, but it's still
there's just so much to do, and there is Carolin.
It's the oldest continuously operating aquarium in the US, and
I love and Adriana is cheering on the bell Isle
Aquarium as well. If you grew up with a bell
Isle aquarium, there's just no substitute for it. I know,
probably a lot of people would visit it and go
like really, but for those of us who grew up
with it, it is truly an extraordinary place. And just
you know, I'm not just saying this because it meant
a lot to me personally, but Michigan does not have
a lot of public gardens by and large, you know,
sadly we have very few compared to a lot of
other states that we've been through where we've had multiple
so we'll take what we can get, and I think
that Belle Isle is definitely something that we can be
proud of.
Speaker 1: Absolutely happy two hundredth episodes.
Speaker 2: Yes, happy two hundred Yeah. Well, Rick, I have to confess,
I thought we'd get a lot farther in the episode
today than we did, but you just can't stop us
from having.
Speaker 1: Again just scratching the surface.
Speaker 2: I know we really are. As Adriana said, maybe this
is just the show now. No, not really. We will
eventually be back to our regularly scheduled programming with lots
of good information about plants. But for now, we hope
you pick out some gardens that you've heard about, spend
a little time looking at them. Make sure you watch
the YouTube version of the show so that you can
see all the photos and that kind of thing that
Adriana is including in the episode, so you can get
a little flavor of all of the amazing places that
we're talking about. So thanks Rick, thank you, thanks Adriana,
and thanks to all of you. We hope you have
a wonderful week.