Mums, Pumpkins, Lawns, and Many Topics In Between

Season 5, Episode 46, September 27, 2023

and

Sep 26, 2023

Some of the mums Dee saw at Longwood Gardens

With Dee just returning from the garden fling in and around Philadelphia, PA, what are the chances that we stayed on topic on this week’s episode?

That’s what we call a rhetorical question. No need to answer it, but if you are curious, you can listen to this week’s episode to find out the answer.

Honestly, we didn’t stray too far off-topic, but then we chose topics that would tie into Dee’s travels. Kind of.

But before diving into “flowers, veggies, and all the best dirt,” we shared about our favorite things in our gardens this week.

For Dee, it’s her Munstead Wood Rose from David Austin Roses which is blooming now. Click on the link to see what Dee means by a red/blue rose.

My favorite thing was finding a toad in my garden last week. I was so excited I wrote one of my “near-daily” blog posts about it.

For the flower topic, I picked mums because I knew Dee would see and hear a lot about mums at Longwood Gardens. For more information about their huge fall mum display, check out two articles on their website: Longwood Gardens Chrysanthemum Festival and Fan Displays at Longwood. To hear about it, listen to the podcast.

Then you can read about mums in two Family Handyman articles I wrote last fall: Are Mums Perennials? and How to Care for Mums.

More mums in the Longwood Gardens Conservatory

We also went to our bookshelves to do more research on mums in several books which we’ve discussed in past episodes:

Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening by Matt Mattus, (Amazon link), Flowers and Their Meanings by Karen Azoulay (Amazon link),
The Story of Flowers and how they changed the way we live by Noel Kingsbury (Amazon link)

For the vegetable topic, we stayed “in season” by talking about pumpkins, which aren’t the easiest vegetable to grow. After listening to why we think that about them, if you want more info, I wrote a Family Handyman article you can check out: How to Grow a Jack-O-Lantern.

Dee also found some great information on how to cook squash/pumpkin blossoms:
Making Hubbard Squash Blossoms on Family Dinner on Magnolia and Stuffed Squash Blossoms – FARMER JONES FARM® AT THE CHEF'S GARDEN.

On the bookshelf, we both received review copies of The Writer’s Garden: How Gardens Inspired the World’s Great Authors by Jackie Bennett (Amazon link). This is a new and expanded edition of the book originally published in 2014. We loved the first edition back then, and we love the new edition now. It’s a great book to dip in and out of and read about the connections between writers and their gardens.

(Update! Check out the video of our book review! With Masha!)

For our dirt, we discussed a NYT article by Margaret Roach: A Viable Alternative to Conventional Lawn? Cornell May Have Found One.

And down in our rabbit holes, Dee did more research on mums, which are way more interesting once you read about their history or listen to our podcast. And I got an offer to buy a “very rare” book written by the mother of Hanna Rion, a lost lady of garden writing we talked about earlier this summer.

All that and more in 47 minutes!

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