On this week’s episode, Dee and I talked about Buddleia, more seed catalogs, cicada events this year, and the usual “other topics” as they came to mind. And many interesting topics did come to mind.
But before we get started, we thought you might like to know what tea we were sipping throughout this episode. Dee chose her usual Fortnum and Mason’s Queen Anne tea and I tried new-to-me Choice Organic’s Mandarin Ginger Herbal tea, which is delicious.
Then there was a fun bit of reminiscing. Dee talked about how her youngest daughter loved Dusty Miller, which isn’t one of Dee’s favorites. For a lovely “Ahhh…how sweet” moment, read the blog post she wrote about it back in the day.
Now, with the proper mood set, you can click that link up top and “have a listen” as we are fond of saying.
Our flower topic was another Year of…plant from the National Garden Bureau: Year of the Buddleia. Now, before anyone gets all crazy about Buddleia, aka butterfly bush, being invasive, you can check out this map that shows where Buddleia is invasive, then click on the link from NGB to read about the breeding that’s been going on to develop varieties that produce almost no viable seeds.
For our vegetable topic, we reviewed two more seed catalogs: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds.
On the bookshelf, Dee told me (and therefore told you) about Beautifully Said: Quotes by Remarkable Women and Girls Designed to Make You Think(Amazon link). No, it isn’t strickly gardening related, but it has some nice garden-y moments.
For our dirt, we jerk you away from lovely quotes to the world of noisy insects, in particular, cicadas. Check out this NPR article on the big cicada brood emergence coming to a garden near you this summer, especially if you live in certain areas of Illinois.
Down in our rabbit holes, Dee is pining for a ‘Dodd’s Select’ yaupon holly.
That’s Ilex vomitoria ‘Dodd’s Select.’ If you know where she can get one, she’d be indebted to you forever. (And you know I wish I’d remembered that botanical name while we were talking about it because honestly, is there a worse species name than “vomitoria?” I would have had such fun with that.)
Down in my rabbit hole, I talked about reading The Little Kitchen Garden by Dorothy Giles, written in 1926, edited by Mrs. Francis King, a Lost Lady of Garden Writing who was the subject of my latest substack newsletter article. You know how it goes with these old books. Next thing I know, I’m posting about tomato growing advice from 1926, and just this morning, I posted about the Nine Bean Rows suggested by Dorothy, which gives you a peek into which bean varieties I’m growing this year.
Next week, Dee and I are going to talk about all the vegetable seeds we’ve bought for this year.
And that’s another episode of The Gardenangelists!
Oh, wait, more thing… my newest Lego kit — roses! You can build your own kit of them while you listen!
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