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 1743 Birth of Joseph Banks (books about this person), English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences. Joseph is best known for his study of Australian flora and fauna as the botanist on board the Endeavor with Captain James Cook. Before returning to England, Cook worried the Endeavor wouldn't make it around the Cape of Good Hope. In a fateful decision, Cook brought the ship to Batavia, a Dutch colony, to fortify his boat. Batavia was rife with malaria and dysentery. As a result, Cook lost 38 crewmembers. Joseph and fellow botanist, Daniel Solander, became gravely ill but managed to survive. Even as they battled back from illness, they still went out to collect specimens. As gardeners, we owe a great debt to Joseph. When he returned to England, Joseph Banks advised George III on creating the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew. And, in 1778, when Linnaeus died, Joseph acted with haste to buy Linnaeus's belongings on behalf of the Linnaeus Society. When the king of Sweden realized Linnaeus' legacy was no longer in the country, he sent a fast ship to pursue the precious cargo. But Joseph was too quick, and that's how Linnaeus's collection came to reside in London at the Linnaeus Society's Burlington House and not in Sweden. Earlier this month, there was breaking news that the HMS Endeavor was discovered lying at the bottom of the Newport Harbour in the United States. In 1778, 35 years after the Endeavor brought Joseph Banks and Captain Cook to Australia, the ship was sold. HMS Endeavor was renamed Lord Sandwich, and then during the Revolutionary War, the British deliberately sunk her off the coast of Rhode Island.   1955 Birth of Steve Jobs (books about this person), founder of Apple. A lover of simplicity and elegance, Steve once said, The most sublime thing I’ve ever seen are the gardens around Kyoto.   To Steve, the ultimate Kyoto garden was the Saiho-ji ("Sy-ho-jee") - and most people would agree with him. The dream-like Saiho-ji garden was created by a Zen priest, poet, calligrapher, and gardener named Muso Soseki ("MOO-so SO-sec-key") in the 14th century during the Kamakura ("Comma-COOR-rah") Period. The Saiho-ji Temple is affectionately called koke-dera or the Moss Temple - a reference to the over 120 moss species found in the garden. Steve Jobs wasn't the only celebrity to find zen at Saiho-ji - David Bowie was also a huge fan. And when it comes to design, there's a Steve Jobs quote that garden designers should pay attention to, and it goes like this: Design is a funny word.  Some people think design means how it looks.  But... if you dig deeper, it's really how it works.   1963 On this day, The Anniston Star out of Anniston, Alabama, published a little retrospective on the adventures of Joseph Rock, the great Austrian-American botanist, and explorer, who had passed away almost three months earlier in Honolulu at 79. Joseph was born in Austria but ended up immigrating to the United States and eventually settled in Hawaii, where he was beloved. He became Hawaii's first official botanist. Before he died, the University of Hawaii granted Joseph an honorary doctor of Science degree. In addition to plants, Joseph had a knack for languages. He cataloged and transcribed Chinese manuscripts and wrote a dictionary of one of the tribal languages. He had an enormous intellect and was multi-talented. In addition to being a botanist, he was a linguist. He was also regarded as a world-expert cartographer, ornithologist, and anthropologist. From a gardening standpoint, Joseph Rock introduced blight-resistant Chestnut trees to America. He also brought us more than 700 species of rhododendron. Some of his original rhododendron seeds were successfully grown in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Joseph spent much of his adult life - more th