We made a vow, my older sister Madie and I when we were 10 & 14, that we would never ever ever EVER have a garden. Why, you ask? We lived on a 156-acre orchard in the Hudson Valley and we had 15 gardens! My mother and dad were both gifted orchardists/gardeners, but both worked full time so Madie and I were left with the maintenance of the gardens. They went from easy care shrubs at the bottom of the 100’ brick walk (that had to be weeded) to the dreaded perennial bed that was largely clay. The garden on the top of the stone wall held chrysanthemums, while the one at its base held a mixture of annuals. But the best garden was the rose garden with its magnificent soil and unique weeds. There were 150 rose plants that lived in luxury. Their bed had been dug with a back-hoe and created with large boulders at the base, smaller ones above, some gravel and then, finally, rich topsoil. We drew straws sometimes to see who would work on which garden and the winner always got the rose garden because it was so easy to weed. On Thanksgiving afternoon each year, the entire family, and any guests who were staying at the farm with us, put the rose garden to bed. Each bush was cut back, covered with peatmoss with leaves on the top – bales of peatmoss that would, of course, be worked into the soil in the spring. It was an EVENT.
Next to the rose garden was a huge bell on a 12-foot pole. It was to be used to bring my dad in from the orchard in an emergency since this was well before any other sort of communication was possible. Happily, it never was used for that purpose but was rung for celebrations! That bell, on a much shorter pole, now sits in the middle of the “Circle Garden” to the south of our house in Eastman and has stepping-stones so that our granddaughter Maeve can ring it.
Needless to say, vows or not, my sister and I are both obsessive gardeners. She has created gardens in Tucson, Syracuse, the Thousand Islands and Sarasota. I started my first garden in front of our student apartment at Sachem Village when I was teaching in White River Junction and Russ was a graduate student at Dartmouth. Spring bulbs and chrysanthemums were the mainstay and I was discouraged, when we returned 36 years later, to find that chrysanthemums are only annuals in zone 4. I left behind a garden in Lancaster, PA, and more extensive ones in Albion, MI. Taking an idea from Inverewe Gardens on the west coast of Scotland, we put in 8-foot posts with thick ropes draped between them in one garden. Contrasting clematis and climbing roses wound up the poles and extended across the ropes. They were gorgeous.
Between us, Madie and I have produced another generation of gardeners. Both of our daughters love to garden and have extensive gardens of their own – in NH and MI.
Next to the rose garden was a huge bell on a 12-foot pole. It was to be used to bring my dad in from the orchard in an emergency since this was well before any other sort of communication was possible. Happily, it never was used for that purpose but was rung for celebrations! That bell, on a much shorter pole, now sits in the middle of the “Circle Garden” to the south of our house in Eastman and has stepping-stones so that our granddaughter Maeve can ring it.
Needless to say, vows or not, my sister and I are both obsessive gardeners. She has created gardens in Tucson, Syracuse, the Thousand Islands and Sarasota. I started my first garden in front of our student apartment at Sachem Village when I was teaching in White River Junction and Russ was a graduate student at Dartmouth. Spring bulbs and chrysanthemums were the mainstay and I was discouraged, when we returned 36 years later, to find that chrysanthemums are only annuals in zone 4. I left behind a garden in Lancaster, PA, and more extensive ones in Albion, MI. Taking an idea from Inverewe Gardens on the west coast of Scotland, we put in 8-foot posts with thick ropes draped between them in one garden. Contrasting clematis and climbing roses wound up the poles and extended across the ropes. They were gorgeous.
Between us, Madie and I have produced another generation of gardeners. Both of our daughters love to garden and have extensive gardens of their own – in NH and MI.
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