"You don't have a garden just for yourself.  You have it to share." -  Augusta Carter, Master Gardener, Pound Ridge, Georgia Pass-along plants have the best stories, don't they?   They have history.   They have personal history.   One of my student gardeners had a grandmother who recently passed away from breast cancer.   Her mom was no green thumb. But, when her daughter started working in my garden, she let me know that her mom had some plants and her dad was looking for a place for them. Would I be willing to take one?   Sure. Absolutely, I said.   Next thing I knew, a few weeks later, Mom is walking up my driveway caring one of the largest Jade plants I’ve ever seen. The plant was in a container the size of a 5 gallon paint bucket and the plant was just as tall.   I took the plant from her with a promise to take good care of it.   When she turned to leave, I asked her mom’s name. I like to name my pass-along plants after the people I get them from; and, that’s when the tears started.   When she left, I brought it over to the potting bench and let it sit for a few days. Then, my student gardeners and I   set about dividing it and taking care of it. It was a good thing we did it - because the minute we started to take it out of the pot it became very apparent that this plant was severely waterlogged. It wouldn’t of made it have a knot rescued it from the pot. We removed as much potting soil as we could. We split the plant in half and put them into separate clay pots which were very heavily perlited; which was just what the doctor ordered. It’s the perfect environment and now it’s doing fantastic.   But, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it had a little more special meaning to me than just your typical jade plant -because of the look on this woman’s face when she gave me this plant; passing on this little, living thing that her mom had nurtured.   Brevities #OTD Today is Saint Bernard of Clairvaux‘s day; he was the patron saint of beekeepers.   He's also the patron saint of bees and candlemakers.   St. Bernard was a doctor of the church and a French Abbot.  He was apparently a fabulous preacher, with excellent speaking skills. He became known as the "honey sweet" doctor for his honey sweet language; he would draw people in.   When he decided to become a part of the monastery, he had to give up and get up and give a testimony. History tells us that his testimony was so compelling that thirty members of his family and his friends decided to join the monastery. That’s how he became associated with bees; all that sweet talk.   And it was Saint Bernard who said,   "Believe me, for I know, you will find something far greater in the woods than in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you cannot learn from the masters."     #OTD   Today is the birthday of Edward Lee Green; who was born on this day in 1843. Green performed yeoman's work when it came to the plants of the American West; naming or describing or even re-describing over 4,400 species.   Before Green made his way west, he reached out to Asa Gray of Cambridge and George Englemann of St. Louis at the Missouri Botanic Garden. They gave him good counsel and in 1870, he started traveling to Colorado, California, Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona. He eventually settled in Berkeley as a church rector.   In the early 1880s, an interesting thing happened: he left the episcopal church and he became a Catholic.   While he was becoming Catholic, Green began lecturing at the University of California, where he became the curator of the herbarium.   When he and the University's President didn’t agree on nomenclature for the plants, he ended up accepting a job at Catholic University in Washington DC, where he worked until 1904.    At that point, he ended up going to the Smithsonian. When he was there, he transferred his herbarium and published his masterpiece called Landmarks of Botanical History Part One.   Part Two was never completed.     #OTD  It was on this day in