Unless you count Thomas Jefferson, American garden writers have not been well known to the world at large during their lifetimes, let alone afterwards. Even Henry Mitchell, probably the best garden writer America has ever produced, is only remembered fondly by a charmed circle of literate horticulturists. It is no wonder that Elizabeth Lawrence, 1904-1985, has not received the recognition that she deserves.
Except for her college years in New York, Elizabeth Lawrence lived her whole life in North Carolina. The first woman in North Carolina to be trained as a landscape architect, she had a long career as a gardener, lecturer and garden writer. Her specialty was southern plants and in that area she was also a trailblazer, lighting the way for her fellow southern gardeners to find success with all kinds of species. Lawrence wrote a handful of books, including A Southern Garden, Gardens in Winter; The Little Bulbs; Lob’s Woods and her last book, published posthumously, Gardening for Love. I have read all her books except for Lob’s Woods, and Gardening for Love is my favorite.
The subtitle, “The Market Bulletins,” says it all. Market bulletins were inexpensively printed compendiums of classified ads that were mailed to southern, rural subscribers during the first two thirds of the twentieth century. In some states, like Mississippi and Alabama, the market bulletins were state-subsidized. Aimed primarily at farmers, the bulletins advertised farm and household equipment, employment opportunities, animals from dogs to hogs and plant materials of all kinds. Ms. Lawrence focused on the plant materials, though Gardening for Love also refers to other market bulletin items.
Elizabeth Lawrence’s fascination with the bulletins started just after World War II, when fellow writer, gardener and friend, Eudora Welty, put Lawrence on the mailing list for the Mississippi Market Bulletin. Lawrence was hooked from the first issue, ordering plants and seeds from many of the mostly female advertisers and delighting in the old fashioned common names of the various plants. Some of the women sold extra plants and seeds from their gardens for “pin money,” while others ran plant-producing operations that were, in essence, small nurseries. Lawrence corresponded, sometimes regularly, with a vast array of bulletin advertisers, and they responded with stories of their gardens, families, ailments and even religious faith. “Like Eudora’s novels,” she wrote, “The market bulletins are a social history of the Deep South.”
Many ads tell a story. On offers a “floral peach bush, brought from Korea by a GI, perfectly hardy, grows four feet high and bears white-fleshed freestone fruit.” Lawrence thought the specimen in question was a Chinese dwarf peach, but the ad also makes you want to know more about the plant-loving GI, how he got the peach back to the United States and where he ended up.
The flower names used by various advertisers are amazing and sometimes very funny. Names like kiss-me-I-tell-you, bursting heart, the ear tree and devil’s shoestring tantalized Elizabeth Lawrence, who researched and corresponded diligently in an attempt to figure out the botanical identities of the various plants. She grew many of the oddly-named specimens in her own garden to see if they lived up to the reputations assigned them by market bulletin advertisers.
The bulletins’ offerings also included herbs like tansy, spearmint or thyme. Sometimes the advertisers grew them in garden plots; other plants were gathered from the wild. Whatever the origin, the herbs often came with recipes or prescriptions for use. Lawrence refers to one–“mountain dittany, which is steeped in whiskey to make an aromatic drink that is good for colds.” Some advertisers also offered tree bark that could be infused or otherwise processed for medicinal purposes. According to Lawrence, the most common medicinal barks included “birch, dogwood sassafras, persimmon, wild cherry, wahoo and wild cucumber.”
In 1962, when Elizabeth Lawrence began writing Gardening for Love, the market bulletins were already becoming obsolete. By the time editor and garden writer Alan Lacey assembled Ms. Lawrence’s notes and partial manuscript into a book in the 1980’s, most were gone. Now, I am sure all of them have been replaced by the Internet. You may not be able to order Jewels of Opar from Lillian Petras of Hiram, Ohio any more, but you can gain a wonderful insight into an era when it was possible. Gardening for Love is a trip back in time–a perfect “read” for the end of a long, satisfying day in the garden.