THE TRAVELING GARDENER
I have a problem leaving my garden in the spring—even if the weather is
chilly and rainy. At the moment a
familiar scene is being reenacted in my plant holding area, where root bound
potted specimens are crying out to be freed from confinement. My back porch is loaded with seedling trays full of tiny plants that have
been hardened off, and are yearning to break out of their tiny cell packs. My kitchen is littered with packets full of the seeds that will go into
seed trays as soon as the hardened off seedlings are planted. Chickweed grows apace in the back yard, and a groundhog the size of a
beaver is frolicking regularly among my specimen plants.
In spite of all that, I left last week to spend five days in balmy
floriferous Virginia. Every spring
for the past 71 years, the Garden Club of Virginia has sponsored “Historic
Garden Week” at the end of April. During
that time, homeowners and institutions all over the state open up their gardens
and buildings to tourists. The
homes and gardens on display are a mix of old, new, large, small, conventional
and far out. There are an
impressive number of things to see every day of garden week.
Some people spend Garden Week cris-crossing the state trying to get to as
many sites as possible. Since I had
my long-suffering husband and twelve-year-old child in tow, I restricted myself
to the Williamsburg area. That way
we had something for everyone—history and relaxation for my husband, shopping
opportunities for my daughter, and plenty of gardens and history for me.
In terms of modern landscape plantings, it is hard to beat the grounds of
the Williamsburg Inn and Lodge. Abundance
is evident everywhere. It must have
taken ten greenhouses worth of pansies and violas just to supply the various
beds around the lodging buildings. Clumps of Helleborus x hybridus and
Helleborus foetidus (the unfortunately nicknamed Stinking hellebore), all in
flower, were everywhere. I have
never seen such large-scale use of this distinctive shade lover in institutional
planting schemes. Whoever designed the beds used hellebores the same way that
many people use hostas. I have
resolved to install similar clumps of these striking plants in my own shade
beds.
Even if you have never been to the restored section of Williamsburg, you
have probably seen pictures of its gardens. These plots, which have been recreated on an ongoing basis since the
1930’s are, like all gardens, works in progress. Since the beginning of the restoration of Williamsburg’s historic
buildings and grounds over sixty years ago, ideas of what colonial gardens
really looked like have changed. Most
of the gardens in the historic district are undoubtedly neater and prettier than
their colonial era counterparts, with many more ornamental plants than our
forbearers would have had. Since my
last visit to the restoration fifteen years ago, there has been an increased
emphasis on kitchen gardens, with small plots of various vegetables and herbs
enclosed in simple raised beds. I
was especially interested in the garden of Biblical herbs maintained by the
venerable Bruton Parish Church.
When most people conjure up an image to fit the word “plantation”,
they envision something white with a wide veranda and imposing columns—like
Tara in “Gone With The Wind”. In
reality plantations came in many sizes. We
visited Bel Air, one of the oldest surviving 17th century frame
structures in Virginia, and found a cozy farmhouse surrounded by a small, well
tended garden, and acres of farmland that are still under cultivation. The garden, combining herbs with ornamentals, was similar in nature and
composition to some of those behind various tradesmen’s houses in
Williamsburg.
We also saw Evelynton Plantation, a 1930’s recreation of what the
owners and their architect thought an 18th century plantation should
be. The architect had previously
done work on Carter’s Grove, one of the grandest Tidewater plantations, so
Evelynton’s house and garden fit in nicely with the area’s older structures. The grounds of the estate are splendid, with the long vistas and allees
of mature trees that were an integral part of 18th century English
estate architecture. There is also
a flower garden, where I saw something that I have long admired and coveted: a
“Lady Banks” rose. The Lady
Banks (Rosa banksia lutea) is a climber that flourishes in the South, and is
frequently trained to grow up trees. The specimen at Evelynton had scaled an old tree, and its
pale yellow blossoms cascaded back down to earth on long canes. If I wanted to arrange a spectacle like that, it would take years. Besides, my USDA Zone 6 garden is at the outer limits of Lady Banks’
hardiness range, and she may be banned in this state because of her rapacious
growth habits.
Historic Garden Week in Virginia is all about verdure and variety. I returned with lots of inspiration, as well as a few souvenir plants
from the Colonial Nursery in Williamsburg. I am going out into the rain now to plant some hellebores.
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