Educate citizens on plants and their usage. This vision was realized in the 1820s. The most recent addition, the national garden, teachers plants of the midatlantic, including a rose garden and regional garden. The plant curator explains the history and the indigenous plants. Everybody, welcome to the national garden. This is the most recent garden on our property that opened in 2006. It is really a wonderful place to look at native plants but that is not where the garden got its start. They got its beginning when the rose became our National Floor emblem in the 1980s. Shortly after that, they began looking for a place to commemorate the rose. They noted a police of land a little less than three acres it had some grass, a few trees, but nothing formal. They began privately raising money to build a garden on this site. It took quite a few years. Fundraising began in the 90s and eventually it opened. There was a Design Competition held for different elements of the garden and the company was hired to tie them all together, leaving one very large space in the middle that we see right here, the heart of the national garden, the regional native plant garden. My name is bill mclachlan, i have worked here since 1986. I oversee our plants contents, and i have to say thats native plants are specialty of mine and i am happy to show you around. As we enter the regional gardens, you are actually walking on a pathway that has one half on either side. The reason we chose to portray it as two different soils is because washington, d. C. Lies on the fall line. It is a rough divide between piedmont to the north and west that is rocky and hilly, and then to the east lies the coastal plain, the flat soil that is a combination of silt and overlaid with marine deposits over time. Very loose and sandy, different from the hard soil of the piedmont. Some of the coastal plants that we show the wax myrtle. If you go north you will find it more bayberry. Both are famous for making waxy fruits. They got their names from early colonial use. There was no electricity back then so the wax fruits were boiled, the wax would come to the top of the pot and they would use it to make candles. This is a source of light in our early colonial days. Very aromatic and sometimes it is even used to create pungent seasoning and some dishes. Wax myrtle and bayberry is very important. It also smells pleasant, and the bayberry candle became a standard. There are lots of goldenrods native in the United States but this one the older part of it comes from the fact that the foliage smells of licorice. This is made into an herbal tea and was exported in the 1800s even to china. It has got a little bit of history because that is when the revolution the boston tea party, americans looked for native sources for herbal beverages and this was one of the favorites. They were copying the native americans. They used it to get down harsher medicinal teas. Another plant i love this is witch hazel. This can become a small tree. Many of you are familiar with it from the truck store. This is a very mild astringent that has been used for a long time. It is the primary center for production of witch hazel it is in connecticut. About 90 of the world output is from connecticut. It has an economic use. There are seedpods developing during the summer and also flower buds being developed at the same time. These flower buds will keep developing right around the fall. This is a striking plant for colonists to see blooming at a very odd time of year. They imbued it with all these Properties One of which is the belief that twigs from this plants make good dowsing rods. Witch hazel probably also was used in bewitching and then it bloomed in offseason. The leaves will turn brown and if you are in a wooded dominated by witch hazel thats being forcibly expelled. It has a propulsive mechanism for distributing its seeds. A great plant for a shady backyard where you dont want something to large. We talked about the goldenrod that was used for tea. This is another plant that was used very widely for tea, new jersey tea. There are lots of other plans the southwest but this is the sole representative in the midatlantic. This is unusual in that it grows in the mountains as well as the coastal plains and covers all the regions. The leaves were very tasty tea, a beautiful looking tea that very much looks like black tea. But it has no caffeine. While it was tasty it didnt quite have the effect that some people were looking for in tea. One of the visitors you will enjoy looking at it looks a little bit out of place. The pawpaw is in a family called the custard apple. They are on their way. They look a little bit like blood to bananas and there are many combinations. Pawpaw, while it is really tasty and the pulp can make anything from ice cream, you wont find it in the average supermarket because of bruises very easily. It has limited commercial potential. This is something to go look for at your local farmers market. This is north americans largest fruiting plant. You will notice that we are in rocky areas. Then on our right is the water feature. This whole garden was made with the idea that it wouldnt be overly irrigated. Clancy would expect to find in upland situations. A small tree, the common hop tree. The little waferlike fruits but it makes are attractive enough, but they were used as a substitute for making homemade brews back in colonial times. It was used as a hops substitute. A lot of people i displayed i expected here. It looks a lot to talk. This is a native bamboo. There are three or four species here. This one goes by the common name river cane. It flows along river ways up into the ohio and Mississippi River valleys. It is now down to a very small percentage of its original holding. American colonizers tended to follow the same track native americans they would often turn the land for crop growing. We did the same thing afterwards and by the 1930s a lot of the lands these grew on had disappeared. This tree is more familiar to people that are walking barefoot. There is that ouch moment. Oftentimes what they are stepping on one of these. They can exude a nice amber sap and native American Children would chip the bark of history and wait for the sap to harden and then harvested for chewing. It is in the same family as witch hazel so it has a bit of astringency. What i like is its dramatic fall color. People line up for miles to see fall color. Only Eastern North America and eastern asia have mastered fall color and i think that is probably why a lot of our trees are very popular worldwide. We looked at the goldenrod that is used to drink tea. Most people think of goldenrod as roadside, and many of them are too aggressive for gardens. But they actually run the gamut. This species hails from North Carolina and was thought to be extinct for a long time. It was not rediscovered until quite recently. Sweet gum is definitely not the only fall color. This is one of the shadblow it has quite a few common names. It grows and rather moist tickets, a multistemmed shrub or small tree. Very tasty, blueberry like fruit after spring flowers. We have this planted on low ground. A little bit above it we have the tree service area one interesting thing about the common name for this plant, shadblow is a locally common name because these trees tended to bloom and had their flowers shatter. It supposedly comes from the fact that where it grows in the far north its blooms signify the time for burial of those who had died over the winter. The flowering of the street happened to coincide with the time the ground thawed. This is the black oak. It was an important plant in colonial times. You will notice where the bark is starting to crack, a little bit of a tan orange color beneath. The product that was made from the bark of this tree was called percetron, the latin name for the tree itself. It was a very important leather tanning agent, very acidic and high in tannic acid. They were the primary agents for tanning leather. Not everyone loves persimmons but i think they are fantastic trees. They are just adding to develop now. After a few frosts it becomes edible. It is a favored fruit of wildlife, possums and raccoons. Those of the animals that disperse it. The leaves can be brewed into a very nutritious tea that is high in different vitamins. It is in the ebony family, and a lot of the avenues we know are used in woodworking. This native plant often has a little more practical use they were used in drivers and golf clubs. We are going to be entering an area of the garden that is all soil. All the plants and here are the kind of things you would expect to see in the coastal plains. Blueberries, white cedar, pine, those are the kinds of things that dominates the coastal plains. This is not the most favorite pine but it is one of the most economically important plants in the midatlantic states. This is the source of most of the pine lumber you will see at your stores, the type you have got to look down to make sure it is a very fastgrowing tree, sometimes called oldfield pine. Fast growing, and the timber people like its because you can get a turn on it in 30 or 40 years. Certainly not the finest of the pine trees in my view. As you go further south into the coastal plain from virginia to texas, you will find a very commonly this little holly. In the landscape trade they tend to call it yeopine. These plants were made into a drink by the native americans, who first observed using it, nicknamed it the black drink and they mistakenly associated it with a purging ritual, which native americans did with many things. What they were doing was using a beverage that was already familiar. This was the only safe source of caffeine in the southeast, the one they could give them a little bit of a caffeine boost, so they tended to use it before important meetings and hunts. It is a great ornamental, like most hollies. The females will make a fruit. Instead of turning a solid red, this one makes a beautiful transluscent color. A great plant for feeding birds, a great history of native american use. Its use is mirrored in south america. We have included one willow as a representative of all of them. They have a history of humidity. This is the original source for afrin. You sometimes see the herbal remedy as a headache cure. I dont recommend it because in willow there are lots of different compounds. Most north American Indians still have that use so it is a natural analgesic. We looked at the pine which grows very quickly on any piece of land, but the Longleaf Pine is probably the most elegant pine in the southeast. Very long needles, easy to be exported. As far north as new york city for mental pieces during holidays. But it has much greater history than that. This tree was the centerpiece for the naval stores industries. It was tapped for its sap which was then boiled down into turpentine and rosin. These really help to build navies. A very important tree. The practice of tapping the tree in the woodland we have a stump. That is catfaced. It was once standing up and it has been knocked through. A tin collection cup was placed below. That is where the sap gathered and was poured into kettles and boiled. This is a very common practice, especially in North Carolina and cities like burlington and savannah, georgia. They are where they are today as a result of this industry. While they shifted out to this timber to supply things like the british navy, the southeast had a real industry. Even today you can find logs that were sent to downriver, submerged under water for a hundred years and still perfectly good today because of a high resin content of this tree. The industry utilizes poor labor forces. The amounts of tar and pitch meant that things stuck to their feet. The carolina tar heel probably comes from this industry. This really delicate and beautiful its called toothache grass. The latin name comes from the fact that if you dig around the roots you will find it has a really pleasant, citrusy orange scent. If you chew on the roots your mouth will go numb. Native americans had a few plants they would use if they had batted toothaches. The United States botanic garden, while most people assume that to a are part of the smithsonian we are actually part of the capitol complex. We are administered by the architect of the capitol. You come out to to this garden and you will see not only plants that change through the season so you have spring ephermals. In the fall, the fall colors in the late blooming with fantastic fall foliage. Its my favorite season in this garden. You can watch this and other artifacts programs any time by visiting our website at cspan cspan. Org history. Tonight on the technology and the 2014 campaign. Historically, the digital ools were thought of as the email tools and the online contributions, the website, but its evolved our company, for example, also enable sort ofhat the shoe leather side of the campaign. Canvassing, the phone calling. The direct mail. Youre seeing more marketing come online where the tv ads and ssable online ads and person interactions through social networks. So now theres a wide swath of that you could call digital. We moved it from the broadcast era. End of ill at the tail what weve known as the early