Victoria Day commemorates the May 24, 1819, birthday of Britain’s Queen Victoria (who since has had a whole era named for her—the Victorian era). The British have always celebrated the birthday of the ruling monarch. After Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, the people of Canada continued to mark her birthday to show loyalty to the British Empire. In the early 1890s, this day was known as Empire’s Day. In 1947, the name was changed to Commonwealth Day. Today it is again known as Victoria Day, and it is a legal holiday in all Canadian provinces except Quebec.
Traditional weather lore has it that St. Dunstan was a great brewer who sold himself to the devil on the condition that the devil would blight the apple trees to stop the production of cider, Dunstan’s rival drink. This is said to be the cause of the wintry blast that usually comes about this time.
Question of the Day
I’m intrigued by the idea of a cutting garden, but I’m uncertain how one keeps such a garden generating new flowers. Any advice?
Different gardeners have different ideas about what a cutting garden should be, but generally speaking, it includes unpretentious rows of flowers, sometimes added to a large vegetable garden, that are intended to be decimated. They are the overflow, beyond the more formal borders, edgings, and patio beds that you want to keep looking their best. A cutting garden is best situated in some sunny, out-of-the-way spot. A skilled gardener will plan successive plantings to provide a steady supply of cuttings as the summer progresses. Some good choices for cutting gardens are the taller, longer-stemmed, not-so-neat varieties of flowers that adorn a bouquet but can make a formal border look disheveled. They may be annuals or perennials. Shasta daisies, feverfew, baby’s breath, statice, zinnias, cosmos, strawflowers, poppies, delphiniums, sweet peas, and ornamental grasses are all good choices.
Advice of the Day
To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.
Home Hint of the Day
Never fertilize a lawn when the grass is wet or even damp. If you do, the fertilizer will burn the grass.
Word of the Day
Hail
Hail falls mainly in the summer. It forms in thunderstorm clouds, which can extend high into the atmoshpere where extremely cold temperatures prevail. When a cloud releases rain, the rain can be forced upward, where it freezes into tiny ice pellets. If updrafts keep buffeting the pellets, layer upon layer of frozen water will be added to the pellets until, finally, hailstones are released.
Puzzle of the Day
How do you mend a broken jack-o’-lantern?
With a pumpkin patch.
Died
Anne Boleyn(Henry VIII’s second wife)–
Robert B. Thomas(founder of The Old Farmer’s Almanac)–
Nathaniel Hawthorne(writer)–
T. E. Lawrence(Lawrence of Arabia”“)–
Ogden Nash(poet)–
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis(U.S. First Lady)–
Walter Lord(author)–
Charles Grodin(actor, talk show host)–
Born
Johns Hopkins(philanthropist)–
Carl Akeley(artist, biologist, & conservationist)–
Malcolm X(civil rights activist)–
Lorraine Hansberry(playwright)–
Francis Richard Scobee(astronaut)–
Nora Ephron(author & director)–
Pete Townshend(musician)–
Andre the Giant(wrestler & actor)–
Jodi Picoult(author)–
Kevin Garnett(basketball player)–
Connor Wong(baseball player)–
Events
Dark Day in New England –
Author Oscar Wilde released from jail –
First Jumping Frog Jubilee in Calaveras County, California –
7.1-magnitude earthquake occurred in Imperial Valley, California –
Boston Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester threw a no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals. It was the first major league no-hitter of the season –
In Kansas, paraplegic Anna Sarol — with the assistance of braces, a walker, and her siblings — took steps across the graduation stage to receive her high school diploma. She had worked towards this moment ever since a gymnastics accident nearly four years before had left her paralyzed from the waist down. –
Weather
Dark Day: Darkness fell at noon throughout New England due to smoke from western forest fires. –
99 degrees F at Central Park, New York City –
Heavy rain and golf ball-size hail destroyed 80 percent of the crops in northwestern Texas –
