How's your garden doing? Is there something blooming that is stealing your heart? In my garden, I'm especially enjoying the Yellow wax-bells or Kirengeshoma palmata ("kih-ren-gesh-OH-mah palm-AY-tah"). Heidi Heiland installed these for me last summer during my garden renovation. They are right up by my front door in a North-facing garden - and I see them every day as I go in and out the front door. I have to say that this plant has slowly won my heart. All season, I watched this perennial grow into a clump of maple-leaves (the leaves look just like the maple tree but smaller and a lighter green.)  Then as August comes on, you begin to see these pendulous pale yellow buds. They are quite enchanting and they hang there through September.  Fine Gardening  describes the plant this way: "This hardy, clump-forming perennial bears pendulous, shuttlecock-shaped soft-yellow blossoms in late August and early September. The plant has attractive, glossy, 4- to 8-inch-long, maple-leaf-shaped leaves. Noteworthy Characteristics This unusual flowering perennial is native to mountainous areas of Japan and Korea. Survives the -20ºF winters of USDA Zone 5, as well as winters of warmer climates. Care Grow in rich, moist, acidic soil. Shelter from wind." Anyway, when you think of yellow blossoms    in the garden, that spectrum of color can be pretty wide; there are so many shades of yellow. I'm personally not a fan of the super bright yellows and I end up eliminating flowers if their bloom is too jarring to my taste. But, I've decided that the soft pastel, creamy-buttery yellow of yellow wax-bells, has to be hands-down my favorite yellow in the garden.         Brevities #OTD   Today is the birthday of America's first pteridologist, Daniel Cady Eaton, who was born on this day in 1834. A pteridologist is a person who studies ferns. The botanist Charles Frost told a charming story about how Eaton had fallen in love with ferns after going on a walk with his fiancé. At some point on their walk, she had apparently called Eaton's attention to a beautiful fern and Eaton's desire to please her was the origin of his hyper-focus on ferns. Eaton was born in to a botanical family. His grandfather, Amos, was an American pioneer in the field of botany. Amos actually was a teacher to John Torrey. His father was also interested in collecting. For his undergraduate work, Eaton went to Yale and then received another degree at Harvard. While he was in college, he excelled in Latin and he loved and used the language for the rest of his life. Eaton studied under Asa Gray. Asa Gray would have learned about botany as a student by reading Amos Eaton's textbooks. In any case, Daniel and Asa were kindred spirits; so much so, that Eaton dedicated his work on "The Ferns of the United States of America and British North American Possessions" to his beloved instructor.      #OTD   Today is the birthday of the Landscape Architect Arthur Shurcliff who was born on this day in 1870. Shurcliff's path to Landscape Architecture was not clear cut. His dad had been a successful businessman. Arthur was supposed to follow in his dad's footsteps and become a Mechanical Engineer. But after receiving his degree from MIT, the field of Landscape Architecture was making waves thanks to the Olmsteds, Charles Eliot, and the Chicago World's Fair. Since no formal degree programs existed at the time, Shurcliff cobbled together his own curriculum at the Lawrence School of Science at Harvard.  All his life, Shurcliff loved being outside. He loved camping and canoeing. He loved scenery. He love sketching the landscape.  Looking back on his decision to pursue Landscape Architecture, Shurcliff remembered, "All led me away from mechanics toward scenery, toward planning and construction for the scenes of daily life..." In 1904, Shurcliff opened his own firm. Shurcliff designed recreational spaces in and around Boston like the  Rose Garden, the Washington Garden at old North, and the pa