“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” –John Steinbeck
It was an odd year in the garden. A cold spring with too much rain drowned many seedlings. My poppies, usually self-sown throughout my garden, were sparse this summer. Without enough heat in high summer, tomatoes were loath to ripen but quick to become diseased. The warm fall lingered into November. I ate raspberries fresh from the canes later than ever.
Now the gardens are bare. The daylight fades and the winter solstice is near. It is a time to reflect on another year passed in the garden and in life.
This was a year of great loss in my life. My mother, Eleanore Farrell, died in January. My huge family lost its matriarch, its anchor. When jokingly reminded that she was responsible for the creation of her eighty-seven descendants she responded, “I didn’t do it myself.” But it felt like her own very large congregation.
“The garden instructs us in a principle of life and death and renewal. In its rhythms, it offers a closest analogue to the concept of resurrection that is available to us." Stanley Kunitz
I carry images of a young, skinny boy shadowing his mother as she tended her irises, peonies, and phlox in suburban Connecticut. I absorbed her love of flowers and birds and learned to find peace and refuge in nature. For my mother gardening must have been an opportunity to step outside the tremendous responsibilities of caring for a family of twelve children. I, too, turn to my garden as a source of comfort, a place to be part of something outside myself and this crazy world. My mother was always attuned to the interests of her children and encouraged further development. I still remember the first cactus she bought for me when I tend to my present collection.
“I carry my garden in my mind all through the winter. The very thought is calming." Elsa Bakalar
In the spring of 1993 I was fortunate to be introduced to Elsa Bakalar and to begin helping in her garden. My first task was shearing back the old growth of lavender plants. I had no experience or knowledge of growing lavender or many of the other plants or their Latin names. My gardening horizons were widened by Elsa Bakalar, and her infectious enthusiasm drew me into a world of color, scent, texture, and beauty. Each day, before working, we would walk through her garden noting what was new and exciting.
Morning break was time for “elevens”, the British snack with tea. Among other topics, the always entertaining Elsa would explain the difference between the “U” and “non-U” method of pouring tea, or stories of her childhood in England where she hated the chore of helping in the garden. It was in Heath in the 1960s that she became an accomplished gardener. A small plowed area that the farmer who turned the soil was surprised to see as “only a posy patch”, was the beginning of gardens, writings, and lectures. It was during one of these lectures in Connecticut that my two teachers, Eleanore Farrell and Elsa Bakalar, briefly met.
“There is nothing to understand but everything to absorb." — Elsa Bakalar
Vita Sackville-West has been a source of inspiration and obsession for a long time. I have admired her unconventional lifestyle, her writings, and most of all, her astounding creation, the garden at Sissinghurst Castle in England. Vita, a member of the British aristocracy, was an only child raised at Knole, one of the largest private homes in England, but as a female could not inherit. Instead, she and her husband, Harold Nicolson, eventually rescued ruins from the sixteenth century Sissinghurst Castle, where they created a garden world of an incomparable presence by using existing buildings, crumbling walls, and newly planted hedges. These spaces were filled with plants choreographed in sumptuous color combinations with careful consideration to texture and scent. In her time at Sissinghurst, Vita’s esthetics were for abundance over tidiness. “It isn’t that I don’t like sweet disorder, but it has to be judiciously arranged.” “Cram, cram, cram, every chink and cranny.” “Masses are more effective than mingies.” The gardens are now maintained by the National Trust, a government agency, and have been over-organized. But the ghosts of Vita and Harold remain and the gardens still are breath-takingly beautiful. I wish I could have met her gliding through her garden in her lace-up, over-the-knee boots and a cigarette between her fingers.
Vita not only had a way with plants but also with words. She wrote and published works of poetry, fiction, biography, travel, and history. From 1947 to 1961 Vita wrote a weekly column, ”In Your Garden”, for the British newspaper, The Observer. Her articles were conversational, yet sophisticated and knowledgeable. Her own experience lent the writings a sense of immediacy which led to a huge following.
“Another great day at Sissinghurst.” Letter from Vita to Harold
December 2017
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