Today I'm heading over at 1 o'clock to Walmart to pick up my mobile order. It has a ton of things I need to get for my student gardeners.    When the kids help me out in the garden, I put them in teams of two and I generally have 6 to 8 kids helping me out in the garden on any given day. That means, I need to have multiples of some of my favorite garden tools.   So, today I'm picking up ate whisk brooms and eight pruners. The whisk broom's are for some of the detailed work we will do along the garden paths. This year we will be adding some polymeric sand.   And the pruners, of course, are for all the pruning will be doing. In fact, one of the first things they learn is to chop and drop; Allowing little pieces of plant material to fall and return to the earth.      Brevities #OTD On this day in 1778, the great French writer Voltaire died. Voltaire’s seventeenth-century novel: Candide: or, Optimism, follows a young protagonist as he ventures all over the world.    Despite all the terrible things that happen to him, Candide never loseshis optimism. Here is the most cited passage from the story: "'All I know,’ said Candide, ‘is that we must cultivate our garden.’  ‘You are right,’ said Pangloss, ‘for when man was placed in the garden of Eden, he was put there 'ut operaretur eum', so that he might work: which proves that man was not born for the rest.’   ‘Let us set to work, for that is the only way to make life bearable.'"   #OTD Today is the birthday of Gustav Leopold Miller, born in 1884, on this day, in Henry, Illinois.   His claim to fame was the invention of the brush weeder. It was described in the Daily Times out of Davenport, Iowa in 1918:   "It's composed of two brushes– whisk brooms in reality. The brushes are placed directly ahead of the principal shovels of the cultivator, felling the weeds about the corn plant...  And as the weeds are laid low, they are covered with earth which is thrown up by the shovels.   Miller donated the first weeder to the Red Cross and at a recent auction, sold one for the price of $60 Which is about 12 times the cost for which it will be retailed."       #OTD  It's the death day of Brian Lawrence Burt who went by "Bill."   He died in 2008. He was an English botanist and taxonomist noted for his contributions to the family Gesneriaceae; the family that Includes African violets.   When Burt started going on and plant expeditions in 1951, the Gesneriaceae family was poorly represented. Thanks to Burt's work, Edinburgh became the hub for the family. It led to the popularity in England of both the African violet and the Streptocarpus. Both became beloved windowsill plants.   If you look online, you will see a picture of Bill Burt, standing In a forest in South Africa on one of his botanizing trips. In his hands, he is holding a very large Streptocarpus grandis leaf that looks to be about 4-feet tall.         #OTD It's National Mint Julep Day.   A mint julep is made with a mint leaf, bourbon, sugar and water.   If you ask any Southerner, spearmint is the mint of choice if you are going to make a Mint Julep.             Unearthed Words   Here's a poem from Cicily Mary Barker; an English illustrator known for her work depicting fairies and flowers.   The poem mentions Laburnum; a small tree that has hanging clusters of yellow flowers. After it flowers it produces slender pods which contain poisonous seeds.   The Lilac Fairy from Cicily Mary Barker   White May is flowering,   Red May beside;   Laburnum is showering   Gold far and wide;     But I sing of Lilac,   The dearly-loved Lilac,   Lilac, in Maytime   A joy and a pride!     I love her so much   That I never can tell   If she’s sweeter to look at,   Or sweeter to smell.       Today's book recommendation: Green Thoughts by Eleanor Perenyi. We lost Eleanor into 2009, at the age of 91.   This book is widely considered by many to be a classic of garden writing. It was Eleanor's only book. She wrote about working in her Connecticut garden.