I realize you are very excited to get going in your own garden. But don't forget to schedule some time this spring to visit other gardens. The gardens of friends, neighbors, or public gardens can provide you with inspiration and teach you something new - even when you didn't think you'd learn anything. #BTW This entire week, April 27-May 4, is Historic Garden Week at Monticello ("MontiCHELLo”) in Virginia . If you visit today, April 30, you can learn more about their flower and vegetable gardens.      Brevities   It's National Raisin Day.  California is the biggest supplier of the sun-dried grapes. The California Associated Raisin Company (later known as Sun-Maid) was created with the idea for an ingenious co-op and the credit for this novel approach went to vineyardist, oilman, and attorney Henry H. Welsh. Welsh came up with the idea for a three-year grower contract, subject to a two-year renewal, binding the raisin grower to deliver all of his crop for a guaranteed price.  Naturally low in fat, raisins contain healthy nutrients... unless you're eating the yogurt- or chocolate-covered raisins. In their natural state, they are good for humans, but not for dogs. Small quantities of grapes and raisins can cause renal failure in dogs.     #OTD On this dayin 1789, Washington was sworn in as the first president of the United States.   A gardening President, George Washington oversaw all aspects of the land at Mount Vernon.   Washington had a personal copy of Batty Langley'sNew Principles of Gardening. Inspired by the 18th century author, Washington adopted a less formal, more naturalistic style for his gardens and he supervised a complete and total redesign of his Mount Vernon.   On Mount Vernon's website, they review in detail the four gardens that make up Washington's landscape: the upper (formal) garden, the lower (kitchen) garden, the botanical (personal or experimental) garden, and the fruit garden and nursery.      #OTD On this day in 1873, bryologist William Starling Sullivant died. Sullivant was born to the founding family of Franklinton, Ohio. His father, Lucas, was a surveyor and had named the town in honor of the recently deceased Benjamin Franklin. The settlement would become Columbus.  In 1823, William Sullivant graduated from Yale College, his father would die in August of that same year.  Sullivant took over his father's surveying business, and at the age of thirty, he began to study and catalog the plant life in Central Ohio.  In 1840, he published his flora and then he started to hone in on his calling: mosses. Bryology is the study of mosses. The root, bryōs is a Greek verb meaning to swell. It's etymology of the word embryo. Bryology will be easier to remember if you think of the ability of moss to swell as it takes on water.  As a distinguished bryologist, Sullivant not only studied and cataloged various mosses from across the United States, but also from as far away as Central America, South America, and from various islands in the Pacific Ocean.  Mosses suited Sullivant's strengths; requiring patience and close observation, scrupulous accuracy, and discrimination. His first work, Musci Alleghanienses, was: "exquisitely prepared and mounted, and with letterpress of great perfection; ... It was not put on sale, but fifty copies were distributed with a free hand among bryologists and others who would appreciate it." In 1864, Sullivant published his magnum opus,Icones Muscorum. With 129 truly excellent illustrations and descriptions of the mosses indigenous to eastern North America, Icones Muscorumfixed Sulivant's reputation as the pre-eminent American bryologist of his time. In 1873, Sullivant contracted pneumonia - ironically, an illness where your lungs fill or swell with fluid - and he died on April 30, 1873.  During the last four decades of his life, Sullivant exchanged letters with Asa Gray. It's no wonder, then, that he left his herbarium of some 18,000 moss specimens to Gray's beloved Harv