Last night, I met with my Social Media team and we were having so much fun coming up with designs and quotes and all kinds of things for merchandise for the show.  We're putting together t-shirts, tote bags, and stickers. With any luck, we'll have Daily Gardener gear and merchandise ready to go live for you on November 1st. So keep that in mind. If you're a fan of the show, you can add The Daily Gardenermerchandise to your wishlist for the holidays. Stay tuned for updates on that.       Brevities #OTD  Today is the birthday of the German botanist, Johann Baptist Ziz, who was born on this day in 1779. The genus Zizia, which has three species, was named for him. Zizia plants are one of my favorites; they bloom for a long time and they are a great source of pollen and nectar.   Zizia is in the carrot family with stems 1-3 feet tall. The flowers are a compound umbel with many small flower heads. The root of Zizia was used by Native Americans used to treat pain. In the wild, Zizia is found in meadows, the edge of woods, and thickets. In the garden, it's a nice plant for part shade and it makes for a lovely ground cover plant. Zizia aurea is known by the common name Golden Alexanders. Aurea from the Latin word for "golden-yellow". Golden Alexanders are easy to grow and a host plant for the black swallowtail butterfly. They also attract loads of other pollinating insects like the golden Alexanders mining bee—which was named for its special relationship with the Zizia. The early leaves of Zizia aurea have beaded magenta edges which adds to their charm in the garden. In private plant sales over the past decade, Zizia aurea sells like hotcakes. They make a beautiful cut flower. Golden Alexander pairs beautifully with exuberant purple blooms like the False Blue Indigo or Salvia 'May Night'.     #OTD   Today is the birthday of the English naturalist, William Swainson, who was born on this day in 1789.   Swainson subscribed to the quinarian system; a taxonomic theory that grouped animals and plants into groups of five or multiples of fives. He stubbornly adhered to the system even after Darwin's origin was gaining traction.   In 1840, Swainson immigrated to New Zealand with his second wife and all but one of his children. He faced numerous setbacks while there, including the fact that many of his belongings, including his books and proofs which were aboard a separate ship, were lost at sea. Once in New Zealand, he struggled financially, survived a fire, and an earthquake.   Before he died, Swainson sent a letter to his son Willie. He wrote:   "I am much pleased with your increasing fondness for gardening and shall always be happy to send you anything I can spare from this place. A garden as Bacon says ‘is the purest of human pleasures,’ and truly do I find it so, as in youth, so in age, and no other outdoor recreation is so delightful to me.”     #OTD   Today is the birthday of the Florida botanist Hardy Bryan Croom who was born on this day in 1797. Croom was trained as a lawyer, but since his inheritance from his father was substantial, he never practiced. As Croom matured, he began pursuing specialties like geology, mineralogy, and botany. When it came to botany, there was no botanist Croom admired more than John Torrey with whom he corresponded. In 1834,  Croom became an early landowner in Tallahassee. At the time, Florida was still a territory. Hardy Croom loved the Tallahassee region and he set about building a home there for his family. In fact, Croom bought not one, but two plantations with his fortune. As he traveled between them, he would study the exciting natural flora and fauna. One day, as he traveled between the two plantations, Croom was waiting for a ferry along the east bank of the Apalachicola River when he discovered a new tree species and a new little plant growing in the shade canopy. Croom named the tree Torreya taxifolia in honor of his mentor, John Torrey.  One of the oldest tree species on earth, th