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 1661 Birth of Georg Joseph Kamel ("CAH-mel"), Czech pharmacist, naturalist, and Jesuit missionary. Georg was born in Brno (pronounced "burr-no"), the city where Gregor Mendel lived in a monastery and experimented with peas. In 1688, after graduating from a mission school in Vienna, he was sent to the Philippines, which was then a Spanish colony, and he ended up spending the rest of his life helping the people as a doctor and botanizing in his free time. Early on, he once confided in a friend. There is no physician here but four brorthers who know little more than my pair of trousers. Georg also worked as a pharmacist and a botanist at the College in Manila. He set up the first pharmacy in the Philipines, and he ran it according to Austrian standards. Georg Joseph Kamel was a true naturalist. He enjoyed learning everything he could about the natural world. His work as an herbalist led him to explore the medicinal potential of the plants he encountered, and he valued the way locals treated ailments. For instance, he believed that low doses of the Saint Ignatius bean - the source of strychnine - had medicinal value since Filipinos used it to treat cholera. But modern research has proved otherwise, and even trace amounts of strychnine damage the liver and the kidneys. Thanks to his work treating the sick, Georg was well known. He treated the poor for free, and he happily received many plants from grateful locals to plant in his medicinal garden. Between his own collecting efforts and the plants received from locals, Georg completed the first flora of the Philippines. Georg sent a copy of his flora to his peer and friend, John Ray, who, in turn, included the Philippine flora in the appendix of the third volume of his great work-  the Historia Plantarum - the history of plants. Georg also named several plants. He called the ubiquitous ornamental houseplant the kalanchoe ("kal-an-KOH-ee"), which was based on the Philipino name for the plant. Georg also was the first person to describe the tea plant or the Camellia, which is why Carl Linneaus named the Camellia in honor of Georg Joseph Kamel. He used Georg's Latinized last name, Camellus, for the genus name Camellia, which translates to "helper to the priest." Sadly, Georg Joseph Kamel died young at 45 from an intestinal infection.   1748 Death of William Kent (books about this person), English landscape gardener, artist, and designer. Before William's picturesque approach to landscapes, gardens were formal, following Dutch or French design principles that used a geometric and orderly layout. But William started out as a painter and not a landscape architect, and when he worked on landscapes, he approached them as a living canvas. He once wrote, All gardening is landscape painting. For William to make art out of the earth, he needed scenery, and he went to great lengths to accomplish his visions. He moved soil to create rolling hills; he used swaths of land for lush lawns, groves of trees for interest and contrast, and paths with benches for the characters/visitors that he envisioned arriving on the scene. William planned for people to walk or ride through his landscapes in the same way that people might dot the landscape of one of his paintings. William often placed elements in the garden against a green backdrop, a hillside, or a group of evergreens, to accent the piece's beauty. Much of what William Kent attempted to do has become mainstream. As gardeners, we often must contend with unattractive areas in the landscape: fences, sheds, or utility areas. Well, William Kent faced these same concerns for his beautiful landscapes. At Rousham, William employed a haha or wall sunken into a ditch instead of fencing to keep the gardens separate from grazing land. He also improved the exterior of an eyes