GARDENS PRESERVED
Horticulturists and historians love to debate things, and one of the most interesting debates among them has been about preserving gardens. The question is, “Can a notable garden still be notable after its guiding spirit dies?” The corollary to that is, “Should a notable garden stay the same after its guiding spirit dies?” Part of the answer depends on whether the guiding spirit leaves any money to take care of the garden, not to mention leaving behind heirs, friends or admirers who care about it.
I have always had a special interest in writers’ gardens. They are not always the grandest, but sometimes they are better documented–one way or another–than more extravagant spreads. The following are the stories of three writers’ gardens. Though the authors are long gone, each garden has had its own epilogue.
Elisabeth Lawrence: This petite southern gardener, writer and landscape architect lived from 1904-1985. The first woman to obtain a degree in landscape architecture from North Carolina State University, Lawrence made her career as a writer, lecturer and student of southern garden plants. Her garden, in Charlotte, North Carolina, was small, only 70 by 225 feet, but served as her laboratory for growing and observing a wide array of specimens. She befriended and corresponded with a host of horticulturists and plant lovers and was the author of A Southern Garden; The Little Bulbs; a Tale of Two Gardens; and Lob’s Woods. Another two Lawrence books, Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins and A Rock Garden in the South were published posthumously. Collections of her writings, including columns she wrote for the Charlotte Observer, have also been published since her death; in addition to a biography, No One Gardens Alone by Emily Herring Wilson. Two years before her death, an increasingly infirm Lawrence sold her property to a fellow gardener, Mary Lindemann Wilson. For over twenty years, Ms. Wilson tended the plantings, and today, about 60 percent of Lawrence’s original specimens survive in the garden. Two years ago, Ms. Wilson sold the property to the local Wing Haven Foundation, which is working with the Garden Conservancy, a national garden preservation group, to transform Elizabeth Lawrence’s personal sanctuary into a public institution and education center.
Edith Wharton: Though best known as the author of works like The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was also a self-taught authority on houses and gardens. After achieving success and financial independence as a writer, she built a large house, “The Mount”, in Lenox, Massachusetts in 1902. Wharton’s extensive formal gardens were Italianate in style, incorporating terraces, fountains and a “secret garden.” Wharton’s niece, Beatrix Jones Farrand, the pioneering female landscape architect, designed the kitchen garden and plantings along the drive. Eventually, Wharton’s marital troubles drove her to leave the estate in 1911, never to return. Afterwards the property changed hands many times, ending up as the home of a theatrical group, Shakespeare & Company. The plantings and hardscaping deteriorated and the size of the grounds was reduced over the years from the original 113 acres to about 50 acres. A non-profit group, Edith Wharton Restoration, finally bought The Mount in 2000. A four year restoration of the gardens was completed in 2005, including the planting of thousands of shrubs, trees, annuals and perennials favored by the author. Though Edith Wharton Restoration has gone through difficult financial and organizational times in the past few years, the organization seems to have stabilized its finances through a restructuring effort. The house and grounds are now open to the public, beginning in May each year.
Eudora Welty: Like Elizabeth Lawrence, Eudora Welty (1909-2001) was a hands-on gardener. She lived and wrote in her family home in Jackson, Mississippi for 75 years and tended the garden started by her mother, Chestina. The Weltys’ ¾ acre layout included perennial beds, a rose garden and a camellia collection, all delineated by trellises and arbors. Full of old-fashioned southern favorites like Carolina jessamine, crinum, gardenia and crape myrtle, the garden must have been in flower for the entire growing season. In 1986, Welty made arrangements for the state of Mississippi to take over her house and garden at her death. After her death in 2001, the state, assisted by the Eudora Welty Foundation, restored the garden so that it looks as it did during the period of its “highest glory”–1925-1945. Today the house and garden are open to the public and the garden is tended by dedicated volunteers.
I love what Welty said about her garden at the end of her life:
“I think that people have lost the working garden. We used to get down on our hands and knees. The absolute contact between hand and the earth, the intimacy of it; that is the instinct of a gardener. People like to classify, categorize, and that takes away from creativity. I think the artist ““ in every sense of the word ““ learns from what’s individual; that’s where the wonder expresses itself.”
Perhaps that is why it is important to preserve historic gardens. Seeing them inspires us to get down on our hands and knees and that, in turn, inspires cr