Thomas Edison\u20141847-1931\u2014was an American original, who held 1,093 U.S. patents and invented devices that changed life for just about everyone.\u00a0 From the first practical electric light bulb to the stock ticker, Edison was a genius at coming up with new ideas, but, unlike many genius\/inventors, he was also adept at setting up manufacturing processes and distribution methods. Though he has been gone over eighty years, he was and is a source of pride in my adopted home state of New Jersey.<\/p>\n
Thomas Edison was a singular individual.\u00a0 Though less well-known, his namesake plant, \u2018Thomas A. Edison,\u2019 is a singular dahlia.\u00a0 Standing three to four feet tall, \u2018Thomas A. Edison,\u2019 is a formal, decorative type with rich, dark purple flowers that seem to shade darker at the center. The dahlia was introduced in 1929, two years before Edison\u2019s death and, most likely, a few months in advance of the October stock market crash.\u00a0 \u201cThe Wizard of Menlo Park\u201d apparently approved of his eponymous dahlia, at least according to catalog prose issued by catalog merchant, L.L. Olds, in 1939.\u00a0 Modern bulb vendor, Scott Kunst, notes this in his Old House Gardens catalog, which offers the plant for sale.<\/p>\n
I decided to search out other Edison\/gardening connections, but as far as namesake plants, I came up empty handed. From what I can tell, only the dahlia memorializes the inventor.<\/p>\n
Despite the lack of namesakes, Edison had a strong connection to horticulture. The inventor experimented with various types of bamboo plants, in an effort to find a long-lasting filament material for the incandescent light bulb.\u00a0 He surrounded his home, \u201cGlenmont,\u201d in West Orange, New Jersey, with a variety of common and exotic trees.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0But Edison\u2019s real horticultural showplace was \u201cSeminole Lodge,\u201d his winter refuge in Fort Myers, Florida.\u00a0 The estate, purchased in 1885, eventually contained many garden areas. It is now owned by the City of Fort Myers and since 1990 has been merged with the neighboring retreat of Edison\u2019s friend, Henry Ford.\u00a0 The Edison & Ford Winter Estates, including the two properties, buildings, laboratories and gardens, are restored and open to the public.<\/p>\n
Edison, along with Ford and tire magnate Harvey Firestone, were, not surprisingly, concerned with rubber and America\u2019s dependence on foreign rubber sources.\u00a0 They set about experimenting with various plant species in the hopes of finding one that would yield a rubber-like substance that could be produced successfully and cheaply in the United States.\u00a0 To further their rubber work, the trio set up the Edison Botanic Research Corporation on the grounds of Seminole Lodge. Thomas Edison guided this endeavor and led an effort that resulted in the growing, testing and hybridizing of over 17,000 plants.\u00a0 According to the Edison & Ford Winter Estates website, the plant that finally ended Edison\u2019s quest was a hybrid goldenrod or Solidago.\u00a0 The Edison Botanic Research Corporation outlived Edison, by a few years.\u00a0 After the inventor\u2019s death, Henry Ford moved the operation to a property in Savannah, Georgia. The United States Department of Agriculture continued the work during World War II.\u00a0 Eventually synthetic rubber was developed, which is why we are not all driving on tires made from goldenrod.<\/p>\n
Many of Edison\u2019s personal papers on these horticultural efforts are housed at the New York Botanical Garden, where he served on the Board of Governors from 1930-1931.<\/p>\n
At Seminole Lodge, Edison planned out much of his own landscape, a drawing of which still survives at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates.\u00a0 The Research Garden area included many herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees that the inventor used in his various research efforts.\u00a0 Pioneering landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman, who also designed gardens for the Fords and many other luminaries of the time, created a \u201cMoonlight Garden\u201d for the estate.\u00a0 Installed in 1929, the Shipman design was restored in 2006.\u00a0 Plantings there include a selection of antique roses, plus angels\u2019 trumpet or datura, plumbago, pentas and bougainvillea.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think there is much danger that Americans will forget Thomas Alva Edison and his fabled inventions.\u00a0 I am putting a little of the Wizard of Menlo Park in my own garden next summer, adding a \u2018Thomas A. Edison\u2019 dahlia, along with a few well-mannered goldenrods.\u00a0 Since I don\u2019t have to worry about harvesting a viable source of latex, I\u2019ll find great pleasure in the contrasting colors of the two plant varieties.<\/p>\n
For your own Edison souvenir, purchase the \u2018Thomas A. Edison\u2019 dahlia, in all its purple glory, from Old House Gardens, 536 Third Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48103; (734) 995-1486; www.oldhousegardens.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Print catalog $2.00.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thomas Edison\u20141847-1931\u2014was an American original, who held 1,093 U.S. patents and invented devices that changed life for just about everyone.\u00a0 From the first practical electric light bulb to the stock ticker, Edison was a genius at coming up with new ideas, but, unlike many genius\/inventors, he was also adept at setting up manufacturing processes and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[796,206,798,802,795,631,799,800,801,794,797],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-bamboo","tag-dahlias","tag-edison-inventions","tag-ellen-biddle-shipman","tag-fort-myers","tag-goldenrod","tag-henry-ford","tag-rubber","tag-synthetic-rubber","tag-thomas-edison","tag-winter-retreats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1039,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions\/1039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}