Today we celebrate a botanist who helped us understand why plants are green: chlorophyll. We'll also learn about the dedicated Landscape Architect who was a protégé of Beatrix Farrand. We hear some tips for keeping a well-stocked winter larder. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a 2021 journal that you can use to keep track of your year - and it has some fantastic original sketches from a garden great on nearly every page. And then we’ll wrap things up with a story that helps us see weedy plants through a different lens - and we’re fools if we can’t be more balanced in our perspective on these plants.   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   Curated News Starting Your Seeds for the First Time | That Bloomin’ Garden | Kristin Crouch   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.   Important Events February 4, 1847 Today is the anniversary of the death of the French botanist and physiologist Henri Dutrochet. After studying the movement of sap in plants in his home laboratory, Henri discovered and named osmosis. Henri shared his discovery with the Paris Academy of Sciences on October 30th, 1826. Like the cells in our own human bodies, plants don’t drink water; they absorb it by osmosis. Henri also figured out that the green pigment, chlorophyll, in a plant is essential to how plants take up carbon dioxide. Hence, photosynthesis could not happen without chlorophyll. It turns out chlorophyll actually helps plants gather energy from light. And if you’ve ever asked yourself why plants are green, the answer is chlorophyll.  Since it reflects green light, the chlorophyll makes the plant appear green. As for Henri, he was a true pioneer in plant research. He was the first to examine plant respiration, light sensitivity, and geotropism (How the plant responds to gravity, i.e., roots grow down to the ground.) Geotropism can be confusing at first, but I just think of it this way: The upward growth of plants - fighting against gravity - is called negative geotropism, and downward growth of roots, growing with gravity, is called positive geotropism. And there’s a little part of the plant at the very end of the root that responds to positive geotropism, and it’s called the root cap. So, what makes the roots grow downward? The small but mighty root cap - responding to positive geotropism.   February 4, 1899 Today is the birthday of the Beatrix Farrand protégé, the American Landscape Architect Ruth Harvey. After graduating from Smith College, Ruth attended the first landscape architecture school to allow women: the Cambridge School of Domestic Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Before she earned her Master’s degree in Architecture, Ruth had already started working for Beatrix Farrand - and it was this relationship that would lead Ruth to her professional destiny: Dumbarton Oaks. Dumbarton Oaks was a farm that was purchased by Robert and Mildred Bliss in 1920. A creative