Ep. 15 Lost Ladies of Garden Writing with Carol Michel

Plants Always Win

Ep. 15 Lost Ladies of Garden Writing with Carol Michel

March 25, 2025

Carol Michel is a garden author and co-host of The Gardenangelists podcast. She boasts of having the world’s largest hoe collection…which is overshadowed only by her library-worthy collection of gardening books. Among the hundreds of volumes on her shelves are hard-to-find copies of books by a number of American women who were horticultural experts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but who have been all but forgotten by history. To honour them, Carol started a Substack called the Lost Ladies of Garden Writing. On this week’s episode of Plants Always Win, she invites us into some of their stories.

Publishing styles and garden trends change over time, but some things stay the same. People want to know how to make their poinsettia re-bloom, how to get rid of pests, how to find the hottest new cultivar. Carol uses genealogical records, newspaper archives, and Google Books to piece together the lives of the women who were answering those questions in decades past, then shares them with her subscribers. It’s a project of passion and dedication, and it has given her some extraordinary stories to tell!

Lost Ladies featured in this episode include:

Cynthia Westcott, who saved the Azaleas of the southern United States
Grace (G.A.) Woolson who was, as America’s foremost fern expert, often assumed to be a man
Viola Brainerd Baird, whose 1940s Wild Violets of North America is still unmatched
Kate Brewster, whose book The Little Garden for Little Money was somewhat hampered by her own wealth
Alma C. Guillet moved from Toronto to New York City and catalogued all the trees and shrubs in Central Park
Mrs. L.L. Huffman, who wrote under her husband’s initials and was actually called Minnie Enola

Some better-known ladies of garden writing are also mentioned:

Cassandra Danz, A.K.A. Mrs. Greenthumbs
Elizabeth Lawrence, whose Charlotte, North Carolina garden was so beloved it’s now part of a bird sanctuary
Jean Hersey, whose book The Shape of the Year is still read and enjoyed

To enjoy more garden gab with Carol, find her in the following places:

The Lost Ladies of Garden Writing Substack, which is updated weekly with new lost ladies
Her helpful weekly gardening newsletter, In the Garden with Carol J Michel
The Gardenangelists Podcast, which she co-hosts with Dee Nash
Her website, caroljmichel.com, where you will also find her books of humorous and helpful gardening essays:
Potted and Pruned: Living a Gardening Life
Homegrown and Handpicked: A Year in a Gardening Life
Seeded and Sodded: Thoughts from a Gardening Life
Creatures and Critters: Who’s in my Garden
Digging and Delighted: Live your Best Gardening Life

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Credits

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Timestamps

00:30 Introducing Carol Michel

01:30 The World's Largest Hoe Collection

04:45 Carol's Gardening Book Library