“There never was a good war or a bad peace.”
Benjamin Franklin wrote that in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks in 1783. Sir Joseph Banks brought two greyhounds with him on Captain Cooks voyage to Terra Australis in the HMS Endeavor. They used them to hunt Kangaroos for meat, but they were really his companion dogs. If you have ever been to Dancing Oaks Nursery a bit to the South West of me, they have a couple Greyhounds that patrol the nursery and it always makes me think of Joseph Banks travelling around the world with a pair of them in the crazy confines of a royal navy vessel in the 1770’s. Banks collected something like 30,000 plant specimens in his career and on the Endeavor voyage alone they took 3 years to do it but they circumnavigated the entire globe. I’ve read the full published journal of that expedition and while it is endlessly fascinating, it took me a while to get through it with all the detail of the daily monotony of three years of life spent on a boat traveling around the world often at a snails pace. One thing that has always fascinated with me about that journey was that they brought along an artist Sidney Parkinson to illustrate everything they found as you couldn’t just snap a picture of the amazing flora and fauna they experienced. He would make watercolours of tiny shrimp, crabs and fish they netted up while crossing the Atlantic ocean in the pitching cabin of the boat. Parkinson died of dysentery and malaria before the trip was completed, and after the trip Banks and Parkinson’s brother Stanfield would fight over the ownership rights to Parkinson’s art and papers.
In that letter, Benjamin Franklin chats about some scientific advancements and mentions a hot air balloon. He also says: “What vast Additions to the Conveniences and Comforts of Living might Mankind have acquired, if the Money spent in Wars had been employ’d in Works of public Utility.” I’m probably happy to see that he was as bad at the overuse of capitalization as I am myself in my writing sometimes. Not much else to say on that subject for now, but I brought it up mainly because I wanted to say that the trip to Philadelphia was amazing and while we saw a lot of cool things, one of them happened to be Benjamin Franklins grave. Check out a little gallery of the trip:
The trip was amazing and when we arrived the sunshine and 60 degree temps made our visit to Longwood seem extra special after they had just been blasted with an epic blizzard. The Longwood gardens were really mind blowing and I was lucky to have Joleen by my side who had once been a Longwood Fellow so gave a great tour. I love visiting conservatories and have been to some of the great ones in New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, etc, but Longwood might have been the best I have every seen stateside. Disneyland scale for sure. The talk to the Delaware Valley Chapter of NARGS turned out to be an adventure when my thumb drive decided it didn’t want to show anyone my photo’s, but thanks to an engaging audience we made it work and somehow pulled off a ted talk ranging from Darlingtonia culture to the Pennsylvanian period of coal formation and how you can get better seed germination by softening the seed coats with a humic acid soak. A huge thanks to Laura Axel, Lisa Roper, Janet Novak and others for organizing this trip and getting us around. .We didn’t get to see a lot of rock gardens, but Janet Novak’s rock wall right along the sidewalk was super cool and an awesome use of the vertical space. I had never been to a big flower show like the Philadelphia show and that was a real treat, massive garden displays. Loads of cool plants, even a category of dresses made out of plants! It was a bit overwhelming and with the huge crowds it felt like another Disneyland experience. The Delaware Valley Chapter of NARGS had a great display of troughs and I was happy to point people to it after my talk to learn more about growing alpine and rock garden plants. Joleen and I celebrated her 49th birthday with some great food and we did even manage to find some cheesesteaks while touring around the rich historical sites of Philadelphia.
Get ready for the spring catalog! All three of these plants, Phlox adsurgens ‘Russels Rouge’, Phlox ‘Mcdaniels’ Cushion’ and Aquilegia bertelonii will be available!
Back on the home front, I had to do some rabbit hunting as a new pest I have never had to deal with here has showed up. As if the voles and camas pocket gophers didn’t provide enough of a horticultural challenge! Hopefully the coyote seen on the game camera this week takes care of them for me. The spring catalog is coming! It will be out by the end of this month and I promise it will be chock full of some of the best alpine and rock garden plants you have ever seen! I did want to ask if anyone absolutely hated the countdown timer or found it useful, I can either do that again, or just tell you that it will be out towards the end of this month with shipping through April and May and into June if necessary. Let me know your thoughts about the countdown timer?
Well, here we are at war again, not that I had any say in it. Doesn’t really matter to me what the reasons are for going to war, I’m just not a fan of it. It’s always disproportionately affects the poor and already disadvantaged. I suppose you can argue either side of this one however you want, I just think that if we could find a way around separating flesh from bone as a way to settle our differences as a species that might be a better way to go about it in the long run. Can’t wait to pay for this one for the next few decades while they bleed us dry with taxes for the war machine, at the pump and at the grocery store and every where else they can make us suffer. When will we ever learn?
“that Mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable Creatures, have Reason and Sense enough to settle their Differences without cutting Throats: For in my Opinion there never was a good War, or a bad Peace.”
Benjamin Franklins letter to Sir Joseph Banks, July 27. 1783