Is your rhubarb bolting already?   When your rhubarb seems to be bolting too early, ask yourself these questions...   Is your rhubarb an heirloom or a new variety? Older varieties tend to bolt sooner. Try planting a newer variety.   Is your rhubarb very established? The older your rhubarb, the quicker it bolts. If you divide your established rhubarb, it revitalizes your plant and can thwart flowering.   Has it been super cold, hot, or is your rhubarb otherwise stressed? These threatening conditions can cause rhubarb to bolt. Make sure to mulch around your rhubarb to keep it cool as a cucumber.   Unlike other bolting edibles, bolting rhubarb does not affect the taste of the stems. So you can chillax about that.   Now, for what to do with that rhubarb flower... well, I have a friend who cuts them and puts them in a vase and treats them like a cut flower.         Brevities   #OTD It's the birthday of Alexander Pope, a gardener poet who helped inspire the English landscape garden.   Born to a Catholic family, Pope was an only child. He was exceptionally bright, self-taught in numerous languages and the classics.   When Pope was twelve he contracted Potts disease (a form of tuberculosis); the illness impacted his spine - he was a hunchback- and he was only four and a half feet tall.   He had a passion for gardens and garden design. Little details from Pope's garden plans show his regard for ancient Rome as he had incorporated both a vineyard and a kitchen garden.   Pope's Palladian villa and garden were separated by a road. Pope cleverly used a tunnel to go under the road in order to create private access to the garden from his home. The tunnel became his grotto; a masterpiece of mirrors, candles, shells, minerals and fossils.   He described the thrill of finishing the grotto in a letter to his friend Edward Blount in 1725:   "I have put the last hand to my works... happily finishing the subterraneous Way and Grotto: I then found a spring of the clearest water, which falls in a perpetual Rill, that echoes thru' the Cavern day and night. ...When you shut the Doors of this Grotto, it becomes on the instant, from a luminous Room, a Camera Obscura, on the walls of which all the objects of the River, Hills, Woods, and Boats, are forming a moving Picture... And when you have a mind to light it up, it affords you a very different Scene: it is finished with Shells interspersed with Pieces of Looking-glass in angular Forms... at which when a Lamp ...is hung in the Middle, a thousand pointed Rays glitter and are reflected over the place."   Pope's villa and grotto became a tourist destination. After he died, new owners of his property were so annoyed by the attention that they destroyed both the garden and the villa. Today, plans are underway to restore the grotto to its former glory.         #OTD It's the birthday of Henri Rousseau was born on this day in 1844.   Rousseau didn't start painting until he was 40 years old. He submitted his work to the Salon in 1886 and was ridiculed. Nonetheless, he returned every year for the rest of his life with new pieces. One harsh critic said that Rousseau painted with his feet.   Rousseau became famous for his jungle paintings. Although he had never been to the jungle, he had been to the botanical garden at Paris. The place was his muse. Rousseau said,   "When I step into the hothouses and see the plants from exotic lands, it seems to me that I am in a dream.”       Unearthed Words   Alexander Pope on His Grotto at Twickenham   Thou who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave Shines a broad Mirror thro' the shadowy Cave; Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs distill, And pointed Crystals break the sparkling Rill, Unpolish'd Gems no ray on Pride bestow, And latent Metals innocently glow. Approach! Great Nature studiously behold; And eye the Mine without a wish for Gold. Approach; but awful! Lo! th' Egerian Grot, Where, nobly-pensive, St. John sate and thought; Where British sighs from d