Today we celebrate the Father of Paleobotany and the botanical illustrator honored by King Charles X. We'll learn about the botanical painter who got sick of painting flowers (he'd painted 800 of them) and the botanical illustrator who worked for Curtis's Botanical Magazine and Kew Gardens. Today’s Unearthed Words feature the hidden (and often unappreciated) transformations happening in our garden during January. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that helps us understand plant physiology through an intimate and entertaining memoir. I'll talk about a garden item that can help you propagate your house plants, and then we’ll wrap things up with the birth flowers of January. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Curated Articles Horniman Museum's gardener Wes Shaw - Gardens Illustrated Horniman Gardens, Forest Hill, London - Spotlight: Wes Shaw "The last place that blew me away was GARDENS BY THE BAY in Singapore. Amazing conservatories, landscaping & planting - taking horticulture to a new level. While I was there, I saw gardeners abseiling down the side of green walls and volunteers using tweezers to pick over the beds. Gardens should continuously change and evolve. I never see the point of keeping something looking the same as it did at some point in the past. What’s the next big project task you’ll be tackling in the garden? We are planning a Winter Garden for an area of the Horniman Gardens that needs a bit of a refresh.”   High Society: The Expert’s Guide To Alpines Here's a great post from @AlysFowler featuring Richard Wilford - an alpine lover and head of design and collection support at the Royal Botanic Gardens @KewGardens. "What Richard doesn’t know about alpines isn’t worth knowing. 'We’ve got a very tall house to grow some very small plants' he jokes. Alpines are surprisingly easy and hardy and perfect for tricky corners and small plots. As their name suggests, alpines are from areas of high elevation, so they love full sun, cool roots, and cold nights." Check out Richard Wilford’s Five Easy Alpines: Sempervivum: will grow on sunny rocks, cracks in walls, and stony places. Put a little compost into the niches first, then nudge them in. Alpine pinks Dianthus alpinus: a tiny mat-forming evergreen with bright pink flowers. It likes free-draining conditions and suits pots, gravel path edges, and window boxes. Erinus alpinus, or alpine balsam: forms neat rosettes of narrow leaves and loves crevices. Campanula cochlearifolia (fairy thimbles or ear leaf flowers): Nodding blue flowers - Keep its feet well-drained. Phlox douglasii: A low-growing perennial - it grows in dry woodlands. It needs a dry winter, but good drainage and a sheltered spot by a wall will work.   Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There’s no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1801 Today is the birthday of the French botanist and the Father of Paleobotany Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart ("Bron-yahr"). Adolphe-Théodore was born in Paris. His father, Alexander, was a geologist. There’s no doubt his father’s work helped Adolphe-Théodore become a pioneer in the field of paleobotany. A paleobotanist is someone who works with fossil plants. Plants have been living on the planet for over 400 million years. So, there are plenty of fossil plants to study and catalog. As one of the most prominent botanists of the 19th century, Adolphe-Théodore worked to classify fossil plant forms, and he did so even before Charles Darwin. Adolphe-Théodore’s work provided content for his book on the history of plant fossils in 1828. Adolphe-Théodore published his masterpiece when he was just 27 years