Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee   Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community   Historical Events 1723 Birth of Sir William Chambers (books about this person), Swedish-Scottish architect, based in London.  William designed Somerset House on the Strand in central London. He also designed Great Pagoda at Kew (1761) as a gift for Princess Augusta. The Great Pagoda was built with grey brick and is ten stories tall. It took just six months to build. Initially, the various roofs of the Great Pagoda featured eighty golden dragons. But by 1784, the dragons were removed. And although they most likely deteriorated naturally from the elements, rumors swirled that they were sold to satisfy the Prince Regent's gambling debts (scandalous). William Chambers had a special admiration for Chinese gardens. He went to China on three occasions in the 1740s. He even published a Dissertation on Oriental Gardening. Here are a few of his takeaways from Of the Art of Laying Out Gardens Among the Chinese, Nature is their pattern, and their aim is to imitate her in all her beautiful irregularities. The Chinese are not fond of walking, we seldom meet with avenues or spacious walks. The Chinese artists, knowing how powerfully contrast operates on the mind, constantly practice sudden transitions, and a striking opposition of forms, colors, and shades.  Their rivers are seldom straight, but serpentine, and broken into many irregular points. When there is a sufficient suply of water, and proper ground, the Chinese never fail to form cascades in their gardens. The weeping willow is one of their favorite trees, and always among those that border their lakes and rivers... planted to have it's branches hanging over the water. Another of their artifices is to hide some part of a composition by trees, or other intermediate objects. This naturally excites the curiosity of the spectator to take a nearer view. The Chinese generally avoid straight lines; yet they do not absolutely reject them.    The Great Pagoda underwent a 12-year renovation period that began in 2006. On July 13, 2018, the grand reopening revealed a fully restored Great Pagoda complete with 80 chinoiserie dragons perched on the roofs. The dragons were back. And since the roofs would not have supported wooden dragons or other heavy materials, the dragons were ingeniously made of nylon with the help of a 3D printer. Only the bigger dragons on the lowest roof are made of cedar.   1856 On this day, Henry David Thoreau writes in his journal: 9 am to Fair Haven Pond upriver –  A still warmer day –  The snow is so solid that it still bears me – though we have had several warm suns on it.  I sit by a maple on a maple –  It wears the same shaggy coat of lichens summer & winter.   1863 On this day, John Lewis Russell, an American botanist and Unitarian minister, sent a letter to his adult nephew. By all accounts, John was a lovely man, a great conversationalist, and a font of wisdom regarding the natural world. John Lewis Russell was an expert in lichens and cryptograms. The fungus Boletellus russelli was named in his honor. His friends included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. John's letter to his nephew illustrates his love of nature and personal charisma. When this reaches you spring will have commenced, and March winds... will have awakened some of the sleeping flowers of the western prairies, while we shall be still among the snow-drifts of [the] tardy departing winter.  As I have not learned to fly yet I shall not be able to ramble with you after the pasque flower ("pask"), or anemone, nor find the Erythronium albidum ("er-rith-THRONE-ee-um AL-bah-dum"), nor the tiny spring beauty, nor detect the minute green mosses which will so soon be rising out of the ground.  But I can sit by the Stewart’s Coal Burner in our sitting room and... recall the days when ... when we gathered Andromeda buds from the fr