Today in botanical history, we celebrate an American botanist, professor, and writer, an American short-story writer, and her last novel, and the amateur botanist honored with the Australian Native Plants Award. We'll hear an excerpt from Neil Gaiman's book, Season of Mists. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a master book on wreaths. And then we'll wrap things up with a garden classic that came out on this day in 2013.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there's no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Curated News How your electric toothbrush can aid pollination | The Guardian | James Wong   Important Events October 1, 1874 Birth of LeRoy Abrams, American botanist, professor, and writer. Born in Sheffield, Iowa, he moved west with his parents as a small boy. As a graduate student, he botanized around Los Angeles. A biographical sketch of LeRoy said, [He] crisscrossed southern California in a wagon, on the back of a mule or burrow, and on foot to make field observations... and collected specimens from Santa Barbara to Yuma, from Needles to San Diego, and from the Salton Sink prior to its flooding to the summits of Old Baldy. He published Flora of Los Angeles and Vicinity (1904), encompassing a fifty-mile radius around LA. In 1909, LeRoy married a fellow student at Stanford named Letitia Patterson. The couple handbuilt and enjoyed their mountain cabin on the west side of Fallen Leaf Lake. When their only daughter died a few short years after her college graduation, they shouldered their grief together. LeRoy served as the director of the Natural History Museum at Stanford, where he taught botany for thirty-four years. The final volume of his four-volume work An Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States was completed posthumously. LeRoy was a loving teacher. His students called him "Father." When, at 51, the great botanist Ynes Mexia decided to pursue a career in botany, her first course was on flowering plants, and her professor was LeRoy Abrams.   October 1, 1972 On this day, The Tampa Tribune profiled American short story writer Eudora Welty and shared some backstory on what would be her last book: Miss Welty was writing "Losing Battles" at home with her [dying mother] and two nurses and laughing a great deal (the book is beyond grief and funny as owls in heaven), and the nurses did not approve of anything. And right in the middle of it, the nematodes did in the roses, which had been packed in that garden tight as a trunk, but nothing that could be tried availed at all. Ordinarily, an attack on her roses would have brought [the older] Mrs. Welty right out of the kitchen, as they say, but she was past those battles then. Her characters in her stories are like the roses: some make it, some don't.   October 1, 2019  On this day, amateur botanist Glenn Leiper received the Australian Native Plants Award. He co-wrote a popular field guide of native plants in sou