In Memoriam

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 A view through the rose arbor into Joanne’s garden 25 May 2014

When I enter Joanne’s garden, I am transported into memory. My sister-in-law Joanne was a fine gardener; her Cape May garden is a beautiful tribute to her skill and dedication and whimsical joy in gardening.  Joanne enlisted my brother Gerry to mow the grass, install design features, support her many gardening projects, and help her maintain the 3/4 acre garden, a big job.  When Joanne left us so unexpectedly nearly 18 months ago in late autumn 2012, it seemed as if she must have just stepped out of her garden. Since then, Gerry lovingly maintains the garden, and it shows.

 

 

 

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 Joanne planted thornless Bourbon rose ‘Zepherine Drouhin’ an excellent choice to cover the arbor in her garden with fragrant blooms

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fragrant blooms of 1868 Bourbon rose ‘Zepherine Drouhin’ cover the arbor in Joanne’s garden 25 May 2014 


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perfumed bloom of ‘Zepherine Drouhin’ in Joanne’s garden 25 May 2014 

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On Saturday we planted a tree in Joanne’s memory. Dogwoods have always grown in the under story of her garden in the dappled shade of oaks.  Joanne loved dogwoods. When Jane and Henry suggested we plant a tree in Joanne’s memory, all the siblings agreed it would be a perfect tribute.  I recommended Kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa).  Similar to our native flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), Kousa dogwood is its Asian counterpart in Japan, China, and Korea.  I found a local nursery that carries Kousa dogwood: Church’s Garden Center on Seashore Road. Jane and Henry ordered it, Mollie and Kevin chipped in, and Gerry picked it up.

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 ready for planting: a healthy b & b specimen of Kousa dogwood about 5′ with 3/4″ diameter trunk.  Mature trees reach 15 – 30′ with a similar spread

 

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 Kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa) blooms with its leaves two – three weeks later than our native flowering dogwood.  Both are noted for excellent fall color 

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Bill stops by to supervise

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We use the remaining back fill to make a saucer

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Gerry tamps before we irrigate 

 

 

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we liberally water it in   

 

 

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Beautiful
 Missy and I [not pictured] take after photos

 

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Gerry provides scale standing behind the newly planted tree 25 May 2014

 

 

 

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in spring white dogwood flowers will bloom in memory of Joanne

 

 

 

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                                  Kousa dogwood in bloom 3 June 2014

 

 

Sources

Church’s Garden Center

RareFind Nursery

 

 

 

 

 

On the Millay Poetry Trail

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ednaA versatile poet and skilled humorist and satirist, Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) embodied her candid bisexual love, progressive politics, and hip Greenwich Village non-conformism. Carl Van Doren commented: “Rarely since Sappho [has a woman] written as outspokenly as Millay.” Millay not only became a personality, but also the herald of the “New Woman,” in the words of her biographer Nancy Milford. The poet represented women’s independence. A prolific writer of poetry, plays, and libretti, Millay became one of the most respected and best known poets in America, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.           

                       Vincent early 1930s

Like her contemporary Robert Frost, Millay combined a modernist sensibility with traditional poetic forms to create a new American poetry. More than any other 20th poet, Millay owned the sonnet and crafted masterful, smart, 14-line killers:

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body’s weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, —let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.
 
Sonnet XLI (1931) Collected Poems

 

In 1925 Vincent and her self-proclaimed feminist husband, Eugen Boissevain, bought the 435-acre Bailey Farm in Austerlitz, NY for $9,000 and named their country retreat Steepletop.

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Steepletop was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971

Over the next 25 years Vincent and Eugen enlarged Steepletop  to include more than 600 acres of gardens and woods.  When Vincent died the year after Eugen in 1950, Norma Millay Ellis inherited Steepletop and dedicated herself to Vincent’s literary legacy. She established the Millay Colony for the Arts in 1973 and founded the Millay Society in 1978, to which she bequeathed Steepletop at her death in 1986.

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Vincent and Eugen named their country retreat Steepletop after the common shrub steeplebush (Spirea tomentosa), its steeple-like spike of pink flowers emblematic for them of summer in the Berkshires

 

Culturally, Millay’s Steepletop, which borders the Berkshires, is part of that literary and artistic tradition.  Attracted to the natural beauty of the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, Herman Melville established his country home at Arrowhead in 1850; Edith Wharton began designing the house and gardens at The Mount in 1902; Tanglewood became the summer home of the Boston Symphony in 1936; Norman Rockwell moved to Stockbridge in 1953; the Norman Rockwell Museum opened in 1969; and Arlo Guthrie founded the Guthrie Center in 1991.

 

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Millay’s Steepletop home is nestled between Beebe Hill and Harvey Mountain State Forests, to which the state of New York added 260 acres of preservation land purchased from the Millay Society in 2006. Proceeds of $1.69 million sale are being used to create an endowment and a visitor’s center. Continuing Norma’s mission to promote Millay’s legacy through the preservation and restoration of her home and gardens as a museum, the Millay Society partnered with the Garden Conservancy in 2003 to manage and restore the Steepletop landscape.

 

 

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 Millay Poetry Trail features a selection of nature poems displayed along a 1/2 mile path through beautiful mixed forest carpeted with wildflowers   

IMG_7485 Laura and I visited Steepletop last week before the seasonal opening (May 23 – Oct 20).  About 1/4 mile from the house on the dirt entrance road (East Hill Rd.), Millay Poetry Trail is sign-posted, so we parked and walked in.

 

 

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At the head of the trail I spot a small colony of jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). The jacks are in bloom and they are beautiful.

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Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)  photo by Laura Flandreau

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Paperbark birches (Betula papyrifera) silvery in the spring forest 

In the mountain woods, I remember how wonderful it feels to be among the paper birches. The forest is dripping from occasional showers, and the birches are bright, lustrous, pearly in the distance as we approach the first Millay poem.

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 So, Vincent invites us into her fairy wood, her spirit a memory held by the birch trees.

The poem is from Millay’s first collection Renascence And Other Poems (1917), originally published in The Forum magazine when she was an undergraduate at Vassar.  

 

 

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Paperbark birches (Betula papyrifera) glow in the spring forest nestled in a carpet of Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)

I am looking down identifying wildflowers that carpet the forest floor at my feet; Laura is looking up identifying warblers warbling in the canopy above our heads as we walk with Vincent on this amazing journey into birch woodland, into nature, into poetry.

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I love this poem.

Another from Millay’s first collection Renascence And Other Poems (1917), originally published in The Forum magazine when she was an undergraduate at Vassar.  

Eric Barnum set Vincent’s “Afternoon on a Hill” to music for piano and chorus. Listen. Lovely.

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Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) in bud but not yet in bloom carpets the forest floor

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 Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)

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I am reminded of my own gloomy youth.

The poem is from Millay’s 3rd collection  Second April (1921)  

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 cerulean blue flowers of Viola pedata mingle with stems and buds of Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)

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 flower stems and buds of Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)

I am happily spotting lovely wildflowers on the forest floor; Laura is happily spotting colorful warblers above when we pause to read another of the poet’s elegiac nature lyrics.

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Again, I am reminded of my own gloomy youth: another poem from Second April (1921)  

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 If a tree falls in the forest . . .

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probably black-seeded mountain rice (Oryzopsis racemosa) 

On the trail with Vincent.  The plant pictured is probably black-seeded mountain rice (Oryzopsis racemosa)

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Portrait by a Neighbor is in the collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1922)

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Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)  photo by Laura Flandreau

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Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) dark striped spathe covers dark spadix  

Too wet to go on, we head back, promising to walk the poetry trail with Vincent next summer.  Then we’ll follow the path through the birches to the end and whisper a poem at the poet’s grave. Next time we’ll also get the full 2-hour house and garden tour of Steepletop.

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Woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca)

 

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY  was born in Rockland, ME on Washington’s Birthday, 22 February 1892.  In the days before her birth, Cora and Henry Millay got good news: Cora’s brother Charles was released from St. Vincent’s Hospital in NY where he had been taken ill. The expectant parents decided, If a boy, baby Millay was to be named Vincent; if a girl, Edna, with St. Vincent given as her middle name. But her parents called her Vincent, anyway, and it stuck. The Millays’ second daughter Norma Lounnella was born the following year, and their third daughter Kathleen Kalloch in 1896.  The “Little Women” lived with their single mother, who worked as a nurse, after Henry took off and Cora divorced him.  

Vincent was smart and charming and wild with flaming red hair. Cora’s golden child must wear a poet’s name: Edna St. Vincent Millay was perfect.  There was never any doubt that it was a name made for a literary star who would shine brightly in the pantheon of distinguished American poets.  Indeed, Vincent earned entry into Vassar College with the publication of her first poem “Renascence”  in the 1912 anthology A Lyric Year.  At Vassar Vincent was a celebrity; as a published poet, she had no trouble selling  poems to The Forum, a prestigious national magazine, throughout her undergraduate years.  Vincent could never conform; she broke every college rule.  In the end, the notorious poet was to be suspended on commencement eve, but 108 graduates in her senior class interceded on behalf of the beloved author of their Vassar 1917 Baccalaureate Hymn. 

After graduation, Vincent refused a secretarial job, headed for New York City to give some readings, and landed a part in Dell Floyd’s socialist play The Angel Intrudes. By the time Vanity Fair began accepting her poems in 1920, she had published three collections. Mother Millay particularly enjoyed seeing her celebrated daughter’s nice long name in print. In the 1920s and 1930s Vincent was a rock star who understood that celebrity is fleeting. She was charismatic and bewitched her audiences; at readings, Vincent’s performance was spellbinding.  She was a luminary, a giant personality who drew the largest audiences of any American poet.  With her wild red hair, flaring black cape, and unique Edna St. Vincent Millay accent, the poet must have been something to see—a force of nature, a superstar, at the pinnacle of her powers in the Jazz Age between the wars.

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Edna St. Vincent Millay Society at Steepletop

POETRY

Edna St. Vincent Millay digital library.

Edna St. Vincent Millay: Sonnets

Vassar Verse

The Poetry Foundation

Academy of American Poets

BIOGRAPHY

Nancy Milford. Savage Beauty: the Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (2001)

The New Yorker “Siren Songs” 2001

New York Review of Books “Burning at Both Ends” 2002   

Color photography by Judith C. McKeon: mckeonsgarden© unless otherwise credited.  All other images public domain.  Millay poems digital library. 

 

 

 

Japanese Cobra Lily: Arisaema ringens

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The Araceae, Arum family, also called Aroids, includes many familiar tropicals:   Calla, Cladium, Dieffenbachia, and Philodendron.  It also includes the genus Arisaema (jack-in-the-pulpit). Aroids are ancient flowering plants, monocots, with a characteristic inflorescence of a spathe surrounding a spadix covered with tiny flowers. Flowers are bisexual, unisexual, or sequentially hermaphroditic, a phenomenon common in Arisaema, and the fruit is a berry. Tiny flowers become a cluster of berries. 

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Arum italicum: Italian arum.  Hortus Eystettensis. Basilius Bessler, 1640 

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The Missouri Botanical Garden holds the largest collection of aroids, some 10,000 plants

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Japanese Cobra Lily: Arisaema ringens emerging in my garden 30 March 2012

All aroids are a bit weird, what with a spadix within a spathe (a jack within a pulpit) followed by those amazing berries, often red, but none takes us through the looking-glass into quite so fantastic a world as Japanese cobra lily (Arisaema ringens).

It is animal, vegetable, or alien?

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Arisaema ringens unfurling leaves and recurved helmet-like spathe of shiny purple-black blooming in my garden 8 April 2012

Arisaema ringens

How does Arisaema ringens manage pollination with its complicated contraption of a flower? Simple, it attracts flies; well, after it switches back and forth between male and female to save energy, that phenomenon called sequential hermaphroditism.  Like most Arisaema species (Jacks), Japanese cobra lily is not self-fertile.  Flowers are dioecious: plants are single sexed, like hollies (Ilex spp.), so both male and female plants must be present to produce the tight cluster of red berries, harvested for seed.

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Arisaema ringens demonstrating its floristic weirdness in my garden 8 April 2012

Here’s the thing about Arisaema ringens: it’s so easy.  It’s one of the easiest shade plants to cultivate, like Hosta, Epimedium, Saruma, and Polyganatum (Solomon’s seal).  I grew the plant pictured from seed. That’s the other thing: Jacks are so easy from seed. Arisaema is a tuberous perennial.  Each stem arises from a separate tuber.  It continually produces offsets, and it’s the easiest Arisaema to divide in spring as stems emerge or in fall.

 

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weird and wonderful Japanese Cobra Lily: Arisaema ringens showing off its striped green and purple cobra-headed spathe, the upper limb tightly curled over the lower, the oddest of the jacks blooming in my spring garden 8 May 2014

Although the name cobra lily is more commonly applied to insectivore Darlingtonia californica, it seems fitting that Arisaema ringens should share the name since its spathe resembles the head of a cobra, and it not only looks insectivorous, pollinators can get trapped in some species of Arisaema. Japanese cobra lily is a woodland native of Japan, Korea, and China.

A ringens Japanese cobra lily is quite beautiful through the season.  Its huge shiny leaves make an important contribution to the shade garden where its distinctive foliage mingles attractively with woodland companions and provides a foil and counterpoint to the foliage of Hellebores, Epimediums, Solomon’s seal, ferns, hostas, and other shade loving perennials.  Plants like the one pictured maintain their glossy, green foliage through summer.   iphone 513 Expanding shiny leaves of Japanese Cobra Lily: Arisaema ringens 16 April 2012

Arisaema ringens  can reach 24″ with a similar spread, depending on the size of the clump and soil conditions.  Woodland conditions can be recreated in the garden.  Plant in deciduous shade in well-draIned soil amended with compost.  Allow leaf litter to serve as mulch and occasionally top dress with compost to help retain soil moisture. Arisaema ringens (2)Sources and more information about Japanese cobra lily:

Plant Delights

Sunlight Gardens

Arisaema reproduction: Tony Avent, Plant Delights

Arisaema triphyllum: native jack-in-the-pulpit

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Native Wildflower: Jack-in-the-pulpit  (Arisaema triphyllum)

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Jack-in-the-pulpit, Indian turnip, arum, brown dragon, bog onion, devil’s ear, priest’s pintle, [wild, marsh, dragon, meadow turnip]  (Arisaema triphyllum)

Our native jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum L.) is a common long-lived wildflower that inhabits the deciduous forests of Eastern North American from Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico and west to MN. Our native Arisaema is easy to spot in spring when it erupts into flower and again in late summer when it ripens a showy red fruit.  Keep an eye out. You’ve probably seen Indian turnip if you walk in the Wissahickon woods and the Schuylkill Center, hike the trails in Fort Washington SP and Green Lane, or visit local gardens: Morris Arboretum, Bartram’s Garden, and Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve

 

Arisaema triphyllum

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 Georgia O’Keeffe. Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. II, 1930; oil on canvas, 40 x 30″ 

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. 

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O’Keeffe

In the spring of 1930 Georgia O’Keeffe discovered a colony of jack-in-the-pulpit plants (Arisaema triphyllum) blooming in the woods near her summer home in the Adirondacks at Lake George, NY.  Fascinated and inspired by the weird beauty of Arisaema flowers, she painted her Jack-in-the-Pulpit Series, capturing the magical essence and botanical mystery of an unusual native wildflower. The botanical exuberance of the portraits cannot help but transmit the painter’s love of nature: “I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.”

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Georgia O’Keeffe. Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. III, 1930; oil on canvas, 40 x 30″ 

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. 

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O’Keeffe

Like a naturalist, O’Keeffe illustrates the botanical phantasm of Arisaema. If you’ve never seen Arisaema in bloom, O’Keeffe, the high priestess, pulls back the veil to expose the inner sanctum; she paints the fantastic, bizarre floral structure of Arisaema for our study. Always, the painter wants us to see: “Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time.”

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Georgia O’Keeffe. Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV, 1930; oil on canvas, 40 x 30″ 

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. 

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O’Keeffe

O’Keeffe focuses on the Arisaema flower. Each painting in the series gradually magnifies the hooded spadix, which becomes increasingly abstract.  Like Emily Dickinson, O’Keeffe does not anthropomorphize the natural world and the sexual life of plants, but she knows that humans, self-referential in the extreme, can’t help ourselves. The painter knows that most of us will see the spadix as (human) male and conclude that the spike or spadix within the spathe must be a male infloresence, despite the fact the male flower cannot bear fruit.

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Georgia O’Keeffe. Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. V, 1930; oil on canvas, 40 x 30″ 

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. 

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O’Keeffe

Arisaema enjoys a fluid flowering cycle known as sequential hermaphroditism.  In a young Arisaema plant, the smaller spadix is a male flower because the plant is not yet strong enough to attract pollinators or self pollinate, set fruit, and produce seed.  As plants mature, female flowers must gradually dominate.  The bigger the spadix, the bigger the ovary, the more successful the fruit.  A mature Arisaema produces a large female spadix (infloresence), which will bear fruit, seed, and guarantee the survival of the species.

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Georgia O’Keeffe. Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. VI, 1930; oil on canvas, 36 x 18″ 

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. 

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O’Keeffe

Art critics, who know nothing about botany, sexualized O’Keeffe’s Jack-in-the-Pulpit Series into meaningless Freudian absurdity.  She loved it.  Anyone who has ever studied biology or browsed Botany for Gardeners knows that O’Keeffe is messing with us.

Growing Arisaema triphyllum

I’ve had Arisaema triphyllum in the garden, but it’s never flourished like the Asian species. I suspect our native Indian turnip is less tolerant of dry soils.  And even when it did bloom, the Arisaema behaved like ephemeral May apple (Podophyllum peltatum) or twin-leaf (Jeffersonia dyphylla), disappearing completely by midsummer.  I haven’t seen any sign of Indian turnip this spring, so it’s probably gone.

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This is not a warning.  Give Arisaema triphyllum a shot if you’ve got the right conditions. Deep, rich, moist shade is the key, as it is for many Arisaema species. Nonetheless, the Asian species I grow successfully are not fussy and will tolerate far less optimal conditions and even thrive.  More soon.

 

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It’s probably time to rebrand our native Arisaema triphyllum with the much more muscular common name: Cobra lily, generally used to refer to Asian Arisaema species.  I also like Indian turnip.  Native Americans ate the corm like a root vegetable.

 

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The Schuylkill Center is a great source for native plants.  In addition to the annual spring sale, an early summer native plant sale is scheduled for June 28 (9:00 – 2:00). Please remind me;  I missed the spring sale.

 

fairy wings take flight

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I’m not much for common plant names, too many and too imprecise, but I do like the name “fairy wings” instead of the pedestrian “barrenwort” to refer to Epimedium.  I first encountered the common name “fairy wings” applied to Epimedium in Plant Delights Nursery catalogue, a rebranding, which perfectly describes the delicate, ethereal flowers that resemble tiny butterflies or fairies about to take flight in the garden. As an Epimedium  enthusiast, I have no problem rebranding myself a fairy wings freak.

Vol. 02[1], t.150: Epimedium alpinum

Epimedium alpinum

In 1753 Linnaeus named and described one European Epimedium species, Epimedium alpinum.  In the centuries since Linnaeus published Species Plantarum, 50 species of Epimedium have been described, including 15 Chinese species of fairy wings introduced as recently as 1989.

 

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Epimedium alpinum blooming in my garden 1 May 2014

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Epimedium alpinum 

So, although Epimedium got off to a slow start in the 18th century ornamental market, by 1821 a few more Epimedium species had been described, including Epimedium pinnatum from Iran and Epimedium pubigerum from Turkey

E macranthum 1894

 Epimedium pinnatum

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Epimedium pinnatum subsp. colchicum blooming in my garden 27 April 2014

 

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Epimedium pubigerum  blooming in my garden 1 May 2014

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Epimedium pubigerum 

But it was Dr. Von Siebold’s collections of the Japanese species: Epimedium grandiflorum and Epimedium diphyllum in 1830 that changed the marketing of Epimedium in the West. When the Japanese species bloomed in the University of Ghent Botanic Garden, botanists and illustrators took notice. The new Epimedium plants were introduced in 1835 and distributed to public gardens and commercial nurseries in Europe and Britain.  Meanwhile, Belgian botanists at Ghent began hybridizing.

E grand morren 1839

 Epimediuim grandiflorum (E. macranthum) 1839

E grandiflorum var violaceum

Epimediuim grandiflorum var. violaceum 1860

 

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Epimedium grandiflorum ‘Lilafee’ blooming in my garden 8 May 2014

Today there are hundreds of cultivars of E. grandiflorum, including the excellent ‘Lilafee,’ which resembles the 1860 illustration Epimediuim grandiflorum var. violaceum, just as the white cultivars resemble the 1839 illustration of Siebold’s collection of E. grandiflorum. The Belgians also hybridized all available Epimedium species to produce the garden hybrids in cultivation.

E rubrum versicolor pinnatum 1854

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Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ (E. grandiflorum x E. pinnatum) was hybridized at the Ghent Botanic Garden before 1850

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Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ blooming in Janet’s garden 28 April 2014

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Epimedium x versicolor ‘Neo-Sulphureum’ blooming in Laura’s garden 9 May 2014 (photo by Laura Flandreau)

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Epimedium x versicolor ‘Neo-Sulphureum’ 9 May 2014 (photo by Laura Flandreau)

William Stearn, the English botanical scholar and naturalist, who wrote the first comprehensive monograph on The Genus Epimedium credits the great English plantsman Reginald Farrer’s 1919 encyclopedia The English Rock Garden for his introduction to the genus Epimedium.  Stearn devoted himself to sorting through the tangle of Epimedium garden hybrids and did his best to keep up with the introduction of new species as they trickled into herbaria through the 20th century.  He finally completed his comprehensive work on Epimedium in 2003.

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 Epimedium x rubrum and Epimedium x perralchicum ‘Frohnleiten’ blooming in Laura’s garden with shady companions: Saruma henryi and Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) 8 April 2012

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 Epimedium x rubrum (E. grandiflorum x E. alpinum) Laura’s garden 28 April 2014

 

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Epimedium x perralchicum ‘Frohnleiten’ blooming in Laura’s garden 8 April 2012

What does the x mean?  Epimedium x perralchicum is a hybrid between two species: (E. perralderianum x E. pinnatum subsp. colchicum). ‘Frohnleiten‘ is a German selection of Epimedium x perralchicum. The selection is known as a  cultivar. ‘Frohnleiten‘ produces clear yellow flowers similar to E. pinnatum subsp. colchicum, but it is the evergreen foliage that puts on the show.  Young leaves emerge bronzed in spring, turn lustrous green in summer, and bronze again in autumn.

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 Epimedium x warleyense (E. alpinum x E. pinnatum subsp. colchicum)

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Epimedium x warleyense takes its name from Warley Place, the Edwardian home and garden of Miss Ellen Wilmott:  blooming in my garden 1 May 2014 

Japanese botanist Mikinori Ogisu introduced 15 new Epimedium species into cultivation in 1989, and more recent discoveries bring the total to 52 species of fairy wings, most native to China, as well as an increasing list of garden hybrids like E. x ‘Asiatic Hybrid’ (below).  Stearn warned that the excessive introduction of garden hybrids, especially from Japan, is “much to be deplored if it leads to the neglect and loss of original species.”

 

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E. x rubrum, E. x perralchicum ‘Frohnleiten’ and E. x ‘Asiatic Hybrid’ blooming in Laura’s garden 28 April 2014

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Epimedium x ‘Asiatic Hybrid’ is one of many fairy wings hybrids introduced in the 1990s, probably the result of a cross between Epimedium acuminatum and an unidentified parent: blooming in Laura’s garden 28 April 2014

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Epimedium acuminatum blooming in my garden 1 May 2014

 My fairy wings collection includes 12 species and garden hybrids. I’m particularly smitten with Epimedium acuminatum, its purple flowers the largest of any of the fairy wings.

 

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 Epimedium acuminatum blooming in my garden 4 April 2012 

Fairy wings make excellent ground covers for shady gardens and integrate well with shady companions, including Helleborus, Arisaema (Jacks), Brunnera (perennial forget-me-not), Asarum and Saruma (ornamental ginger), Podophyllum (May apple), Jeffersonia, and other wildflowers.

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 E. pubigerum and E. x warleyense blooming in my garden with shady companions: Podophyllum peltatum and Helleborus purpurascens 1 May 2014 

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Laura's epimediums

fairy wings bloom in Laura’s garden amidst shady companions 

Brunnera macrophylla, Helleborus purpurascens, Helleborus x hybridus, Asarum canadensis, Saruma henryi, Petasities japonicus, and Athyrium niponicum var. pictum (Japanese painted fern)

 

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Sources

Garden Visions Epimediums list about 200 distinct specimens collected and hybridized by Epimedium expert Darrell Probst

Plant Delights, my favorite mail order  perennial plant nursery is noted for its bizarre catalogue covers and memorable Hosta introductions—‘Elvis lives,’ ‘Dixie Chick,’ Green Jeans,’ ‘Red Neck Heaven,’ ‘Squash Casserole,’ ‘Swamp Thing,’ ‘Surfer Dude,’ and ‘White Wall Tire.’ Plantsman-owner Tony Avent offers more than three dozen fairy wings selections, including his 2013 introduction, Epimedium ‘Splish Splash,’ with mottled foliage and white flowers, which he describes as “quite a show with or without the flowers.”

Graham Rice “Great New Plants for Shade:” Evergreen Epimediums

Chicago Botanic Garden Plant Evaluation Notes: Epimedium

 

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Pruning Roses

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ASSEMBLE YOUR TOOLS

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 Felco® 2 pruning shears, folding saw, thorn-proof gloves

PRUNING SHEARS

The most important tool every gardener must own is a sharp pair of pruning shears

 

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Swiss made Felco® 2 

I use only Swiss made Felco® 2 hand pruners.  Felix Flisch designed the first pair of Felco pruners in 1946 along with the built-to-last Felco philosophy.

 

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Felco® 1

Felco® pruners are durable, ergonomically perfect, and each part is replaceable.  Flisch added the now familiar red grips to the Felco® 2, the only pair of pruners you’ll ever own. I use a couple of pairs of Felcos I’ve had for over 20 years.

 

 

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shiny new blade on Felco® 2 pruners

I keep my pruners sharpened, cleaned, and in a case.  When the blade can no longer hold an edge, I replace it;  I’ve never replaced other parts on a Felco® 2, but every part is replaceable. Felco® makes pruners in several models, some for specific jobs, but the only model worth investing in for general garden use is F-2, unless you are left handed.  Lefties get their own model.  Felco also makes loppers and saws and while these are top grade tools, other companies make precision loppers and saws as good or better.

Felco’s trusted reputation for Swiss made, durable hand pruners has earned the company a well deserved edge in the market. Classic Felco® 2 pruning shears are simply the best in the world.  For precision, quality, durability, and comfort, no other pruners even come close, including Felco’s many other models.

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Felco® 2 replacement blade: note handy wire cutter notch at base

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Felco clip-on case

Felco® 2 hand pruners: $50 – $60; replacement blades: $18, cases: $15

 Cleaning Felco 2 pruner and replacing blade videos

 

FOLDING SAW

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  Pruning tools: 7″ Ace® folding saw and sheathed Felco® 2 

A sharp folding saw is the best tool to use to cut out old or dead wood larger than 1″ in diameter from your roses.  I keep loppers away from roses; a folding saw with a narrow blade does the job.  With it you can make a nice, clean cut.  I own a compact Felco® folding saw (6″ blade), which sells for about $30, but replacing the blade at $22 costs more than buying a new, serviceable Ace® folding saw (7″ blade) at my local ACE hardward store on sale for $13.00 (usually $16).  Corona also makes precision loppers and saws. The 7″ Corona folding saw sells for $25.00.

 

GLOVES

Roses bite, so wearing gloves, especially during annual spring pruning, is essential.  A few years ago Jane gave me a pair of rose gloves from West County Gardener. These are the only gloves I’ve ever worn that repel rose prickles (thorns), even the huge, fierce, dangerous thorns on climbers like ‘Westerland’ and ‘New Dawn.’ Gauntlet style, the West County rose gloves are elbow length, protecting arms from nasty prickles as well.   If you think that only leather gloves can protect against rose bites, try these; they are not leather. Indeed, the most amazing fact about West County gloves is that they are made from 100% recycled materials. Using a mesh fabric made from plastic water bottle pellets (PET), the rose gloves are synthetic suede, no animals involved.

 

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WHEN TO PRUNE

The best time to prune roses is before bud break in late winter or early spring.  I like to get the pruning done in February or March, weather depending.  Spring is late this year, but I‘ve been pruning since the snow melted on the Vernal Equinox.  Last year when temperatures warmed in late February, I started pruning. Rose bud break generally coincides with the Forsythia bloom.  Best to get the pruning done before, but if not, although Forsythia is in full bloom, it’s not too late.  Just do it.  Prune, even if you only clean up the shrubs and climbers: remove dead canes, cut off dead tips, dried hips, get rid of spindly shoots, and thin out overcrowded canes.

 

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Roses in Jane’s front garden before pruning 22 March 2014 

So this is how Jane’s front garden looked after the snow melted on 22 March.  You can see that the roses are still dormant, no bud breaks. Last year we pruned a month earlier as temperatures warmed in late February.  Remove broken, dead, and spindly canes. Cut back shrubs 1/3 to 2/3.

One of the best things about rose pruning at Jane’s is enjoying the poems she paints on her door, which become visible as we open up the centers and pruning is nearly complete.

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 Last year it was Rumi:

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Jane’s cat Jewel couldn’t resist getting in the frame 25 February 2013

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This year Jane put up Yosano Akiko’s purple butterflies for my birthday:

 

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Jane’s cat Jewel enjoys the view from indoors; we enjoy his ginger head framed in the picture with Yosana Akiko’s dreams of purple butterflies 

 

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make clean cuts 1/4″ above an outward facing bud 

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Jane’s garden after pruning 22 March 2014

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‘Pink Meidiland’ and Rosa rugosa blooming in Jane’s garden 3 June 2013

 

CLIMBERS

Climbers must be trained to a support, canes tied in, and side shoots reduced to 8-10″

 

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‘Westerland’ trained on Jane’s back porch roof before pruning 6 April 2014

 

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‘Westerland’ after pruning: canes tied in and side shoots reduced to 8-10″

 

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Westerland on roof

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Fragrant tangerine-orange blooms of ‘Westerland’ envelope Jane’s back porch in  early June 

 

‘KIFTSGATE’ RAMBLER: A BEAUTIFUL THUG

So I promised Dinah I’d help her prune the rampant rambler Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate.’ Fortunately, it’s a bit tender here; otherwise, we’d still be at it, working our way through her neighborhood.  Kiftsgate Court Gardens in England claim their namesake is the largest rose in the UK, measuring 80′ x 90′ x 60.’   I’ve seen it coming into bloom in late June; trained over a huge copper beech, it is a sight both wonderful and terrible to behold

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  rambler Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’ overtaking a mature red maple in Dinah’s garden 11 April 2014

Pole pruners: we used pole pruners and managed to cut and pull about 1/3 or more of the wild rambler out of the maple, probably more since we had to leave some canes in the tree and we made a debris pile big enough for a Guy Fawkes Day bonfire.

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uncovered: it’s a red maple in flower

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in full bloom ‘Kiftsgate’ is a sight not to be missed 4 June 2013

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1000 ‘Kiftsgate’ blooms cover a red maple in Dinah’s garden 4 June 2013

 

MORE LATER

I’ve got to go out and finish pruning ‘New Dawn’ and ‘Sombreuil’ (Climbing Tea, 1850) and ‘Mme. Alfred Carrière’ (Noisette, 1879)

 

bees, botany, and evolution at work in your garden

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Native bees and honey bees active in late winter and early spring require flowers that provide both nectar and pollen.  Bees are lured to the flowers of many beautiful spring bulbs and wildflowers, and these should find a home in every garden so that you, too, can feed the bees

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 A honey bee collects pollen from Crocus tommasinianus ‘Barr’s Purple’ blooming in my meadow 9 March 2013 

 

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 Crocus flowers provide a good source of both nectar and pollen for native and honey bees in late winter and early spring 

Pollen, rich in proteins, minerals, and nutrients, is collected and stored to feed larvae and make royal jelly. Besides crocus, bees collect pollen from several other minor bulbs flowering in late winter and early spring: common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), winter aconite (Eranthus hymenalis), Iris reticulata, Siberian squill (Scilla siberica), and grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum)

Snowdrops

Common snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) lure bees to pollinate their flowers blooming in the field across from my house 21 March 2014

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For Iris reticulata bees are its most important group of pollinators. ‘Pixie’ is more compact than the species, blooming in my garden 6 March 2012 

Jane's garden early April 186Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) produces blue pollen; bees don’t mind. Blooming in Jane’s garden 6 April 2014 

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        Bees pollinate grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) and collect its pollen  blooming in my garden 30 March 2012

Hellebores provide a rich source of pollen 

Early blooming perennials also entice bee pollinators and are a rich source of pollen. High on my list of favorites are hellebores (Helleborus spp), 16 species of winter and early spring-flowering beauties native to the mountains, forests, and open woodlands of Europe and Asia, with the widest distribution centered in the Balkans

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Helleborus x hybridus and giant snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii) blooming at the Morris Arboretum, University of Pennsylvania  25 February 2012

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Helleborus x hybridus blooming at the Morris Arboretum 25 February 2012

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Helleborus x ericsmithii ‘Candy Love’ blooming in my garden 9 March 2013

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 In Europe, Ireland, and the UK, first on the scene is Christmas rose (Helleborus niger), often blooming from December to April. It is true that Helleborus niger, or more likely hybrids of Helleborus x ericsmithii—the result of three interspecies crosses including Helleborus niger—may bud and bloom on an unseasonably warm winter day in my garden, but generally Helleborus species and hybrids begin flowering in late winter and early spring (March-April) and continue until it gets hot.  I grow hellebores in a protected site by the house, so I can enjoy their early blooms; yesterday I finally saw lots of fat buds; bee pollinators are sure to be visiting soon

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Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) blooming in my garden 12 March 2012

Most hellebore plants are hybrids of the Lenten rose (Helleborus x hybridus). In my garden, many of these hybrids are selections I grew from seed or selections grown from seed at the Morris Arboretum

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Helleborus x hybridus in bloom in my garden 9 March 2013

I also grow some commercial hybrids including ‘Royal Heritage Strain’ Lenten Rose patented by Wayside Gardens and widely available

Royal heritage Helleborus x hybridus ‘Royal Heritage Strain’ 

Bees collect pollen from all Helleborus flowers and are attracted to both fragrant Helleborus odorus as well as stinking Helleborus foetidus, and the amazing green flowers with purple reverse of Helleborus purpurescens.  Like the bees, I’ve never seen a hellebore I could resist collecting

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Stinking Hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) Morris Arboretum 25 February 2012 

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Amazing green flowers with purple reverse of deciduous Helleborus purpurescens  

There are 4,000 native bee species; they pollinate 80% of all flowering plants, including 75% of fruits, nuts, and vegetables.  Native trees, shrubs and wildflowers provide significant forage for many native bee pollinators active in early spring who visit: maple (Acer spp), willow (Salix spp), tulip tree (Liriodendren tulipifera), Sassafras, redbud (Cercis canadensis), horse chestnut (Aesculus spp), cherry, plum, almond (Prunus spp), apple, crabapple (Malus spp), persimmon (Diospyros viriginiana); and shrubs: mountain laurel: (Kalmia latifolia), native azaleas (Rhododendron spp), serviceberry  Amelanchier spp)

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Tulip tree, redbud, flowering cherry, and red maple blooming on Hendren Street      6 April 2012 

 Native wildflowers are also good pollen and nectar sources for native bees active in early spring: Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica)  Trillium spp, Pulmonaria spp, spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) attract bees and other pollinators. Many native bees are specialists, like the trout bee (Andrena erythronii), which pollinates trout lily (Erythronium americanum), but bumble bees are generalists and require a succession of flowering plants from early spring to fall.   

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Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) attract numerous pollinators: bumble bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies 

 

Commercially important native plant species–blueberry, cranberry, sweet cherry, almond, pumpkin, squash, tomato, and eggplant–evolved with their specialized native bee pollinators.  So, Southeastern blueberry bee (Habropoda laboriosa) is the single as well as the most efficient pollinator of Southern highbush blueberry  

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‘Sunshine Blue’ Southern highbush blueberry (Vaccinium spp) has its specialized Southern blueberry bee pollinator to ensure pollination

Spring flowers and their pollinators respond to the shorter nights and warming day temperatures of late winter and early spring.  While some plants use specialized pollinators, others employ numerous pollinators as backup to ensure pollination.  When winter aconite (Eranthus hymenalis) comes into flower in my garden, a cast of pollinators shows up including honey bees, bumblebees, and a species of fly

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winter aconite, (Eranthus hymenalis) in bloom in my garden 5 March 2013

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a fly visits winter aconite (Eranthus hymenalis) in my garden 5 March 2013: one of several pollinators lured to pollinate its flowers 

Plant reproduction has built in pollinator redundancy to ensure pollination; plants and their pollinators evolved together to ensure the survival of the flora. Michael Pollan terms this phenomenon The Botany of Desire. His book and film describe the ingenious ways plants lure their pollinators and seed disseminators to work for them and guarantee their survival. It’s a neat trick of nature that can be seen in action in any garden in any season

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Dodger, the cat, unwittingly plays his part to ensure the survival of the flora 

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In late summer and autumn, I know my cat Dodger has been hunting in the meadow, not because he brings home a mouse, although I do sometimes find a real (dead) one among the toys, but because he’s got tiny burs sticking to his fur, especially on the underside of his tail.  He’s been unwittingly employed by Virginia stickseed (Hackelia virginiana) to disperse its seeds and thereby help to ensure its survival. Dodger plays only a small part in disseminating the seeds of this highly successful biennial weed, invading my meadow and my neighborhood

Virginia stickseed

Virginia stickseed (Hackelia virginiana)

Virginia stickseed is a native woodland biennial, which forms a rosette of leaves during the 1st year. During the 2nd year, it grows into an awkward, wispy plant about 3′ tall, branching horizontally. It flowers, fruits, disperses its seeds, and dies.  Inconspicuous white flowers are 1/8 inch and appear in summer, followed by a tiny, round fruit, divided into four nutlets.  The surface of the fruit is densely blanketed with prickles, creating a bristled husk, or bur, protecting the seeds.

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Fresh or dried, these tiny burs bond like adhesive to fur and clothing. The plant’s perfect seed dispersal design was copied by George de Mestral, the Swiss inventor of Velcro.  Resistance is futile: the tiny burs stick fast to animal and human passersby. 

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Any who wander into stickseed come out covered in peppercorn-burs, containing its seeds which we disperse far and wide, ensuring the survival of the flora  

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Mowing will prevent flowering, and eventually stickseed will be eradicated. it is a biennial, so it has no persistent root. Just saying, I’m taking my own plant doctor advice, and I’ll let you know if it works.

Virginia stickseed (Hackelia virginiana) has been used medicinally by the Cherokee as a drug: a compound decoction of bruised root has been made into an ointment and applied to itchy skin; a decoction has been used for kidney trouble; stickseed was also thought to improve memory, but best of all–when you long for that special someone to be stuck on you, stickseed is a fail proof love charm 

 

scilla siberica haw

 

More About Bees and Forage Plants

Bee Basics

Improving Forage for Native Bee Crop Pollinators

Bee Forage Plants

 

More About Hellebores

Hellebores: Stars of Wonder

 

Crocus Tomm 317Dodger surveys his kingdom 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crocus tommasinianus: purple haze

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Snow crocus, Crocus tommasinianus, is deer resistant, reliably perennial, flowers nonstop from midwinter through early spring, and provides bees an early source of  nectar and pollen.  Cheerful drifts of Tommies usually flower sequentially in shades of lilac, rose, lavender, purple, and violet in my meadow for 4-6 weeks from about mid-February to the end of March. The Tommies not only herald the end of winter, but also my birthday (2 March), International Women’s Day (8 March), Vita Sackville-West’s birthday (9 March). By Saint Patrick’s Day the Tommies most always have turned the meadow into waves of amethyst, blooming straight through the Vernal Equinox and March madness.  But the Tommies very nearly missed their cue this year; as the snow finally melted last week, the species and cultivars emerged within days of one another, filling the meadow with purple haze, just in time to welcome the Vernal Equinox on Thursday.

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Crocus tommasinanus was first described, named, and illustrated by William Herbert (1778–1847) in the Journal of the Horticultural Society of London in 1847.  A botanist, botanical illustrator, poet, and clergyman, Rev. Herbert described and named a total of  949 bulbous plants, including more than 100 species and forms of Crocus, about which he wrote an illustrated history.  However, his passion was for Amaryllis and its tropical relatives, to which the botanist devoted his standard work Amaryllidaceae, 1837.  
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Rev. Herbert named Crocus tommasinianus in honour of Muzio Giuseppe Spirito de Tommasini (1794 – 1879), a Tireste botanist celebrated for his work on Dalmation flora. The species bears lilac-purple flowers in winter on native hillsides and woods of southern Hungary, north west Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and  Montenegro
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The dainty flowers in shades of lilac-purple of Crocus tommasinianus are quite variable.  There is also a pure white form, C. tommasinianus f. albus.  Through selection and hybridization several superior cultivars have been introduced. I grow the species and four cultivars: ‘Roseus,’ ‘Lilac Beauty,’ ‘Barr’s Purple,’ and ‘Ruby Giant.’

 

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C. tommasinianus ‘Roseus’ is first to appear in my meadow, early, about the same time as the species.  It is the most dramatic of the cultivars in bud, offering a two tone effect: creamy outer petals with  mulberry-rose reverse.  Fully open, flowers resemble stars, rosy-violet with hints of cream, topped with orange stamens.
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‘Roseus’ star-like flower
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Enter Crocus tommasinianus ‘Lilac Beauty’ 
Exquisite two tone buds: creamy outer petals with deep lilac reverse   
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Lilac Beauty
Star-like blooms of ‘Lilac Beauty’. Each petal is brushed with soft lilac 
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Crocus tommasinianus ‘Barr’s Purple’ comes in on a wave of purple haze.  
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A bit like the species on steroids, its large, chalice shaped blooms of rich lavender open to reveal prominent orange stamens. 
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Crocus species and cultivars like ‘Barr’s Purple’ provide plenty of nectar and pollen for foraging honey bees early in the season.
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Crocus tommasinianus  ‘Ruby Giant’ stars in the snow crocus show, providing a final wave of color in a rich, deep violet. 
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Deep violet buds open with a flourish to a dramatic reversal of violet edged petals kissed with creamy centers and and prominent orange stamens.
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 The largest and most substantial of the Crocus tommasinianus cultivars, ‘Ruby Giant’ is an award winner.

Order Crocus tommasinianus and its cultivars by the 100 for fall planting.  The corms are tiny.  Tommies are most effective planted in turf.  Dig shallow 10-12″ circles; flip turf back with a spade.  Plant in groups of 10-20.  Fill all holes with bulbs before replacing clods of turf.  Squirrels will not bother bulbs in turf.  Skip the first mowing in May to allow the foliage to ripen for at least 6 weeks after flowering.  Mow around the crocus foliage; mow off after mid May.

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I order bulbs from Van Engelen.

Imagining Emily Dickinson’s Garden Part 1: It’s Complicated

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I began imagining Emily Dickinson’s garden as soon as I read my first poem.  

Which one?  “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee”

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To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee.

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.

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To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15397#sthash.n1kfk0l4.dpuf

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15397#sthash.n1kfk0l4.dpuf

      Emily_Dickinson_PoemsI was always over the edge for Emily Dickinson.  It got worse as I got older.  On my 21st birthday, my parents gave me the very best gift: the definitive edition of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1776 poems and variants) in three beautiful cloth bound volumes.  The Johnson edition was first published by Harvard in 1955 and reprinted through 1995. In 1998 Harvard published a more complete edition of The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition (1789 poems and all variants) edited by R. W. Franklin.

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 Franklin also edited The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson: A Facsimile Edition  published by Harvard in 1981.  The fascicles, the 40 booklets of poems discovered in the poet’s bottom dresser drawer after her death in 1886, are reproduced exactly as Dickinson penned them in all their awesome glory–with little or no conventional punctuation, full of dashes and dots, sprinkled with upper case nouns and quirks that defy logic and make divinest sense–The Manuscript Books changed forever how we read Dickinson.

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Wild nights – Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

 

Futile – the winds –

To a Heart in port –

Done with the Compass –

Done with the Chart!

 

Rowing in Eden –

Ah – the Sea!

Might I but moor–tonight –

In thee!

Herbarium

dickinson homesteadWhen Terri and Laura and I visited Amherst in 1974, the Dickinson Homestead was not open.  Appointments may have been required; the place was deserted. We looked in the windows, wandered around the garden, a disappointment;  I’ve been pondering a restoration of ED’s garden ever since.  I started by reading the Dickinson letters and then consulted the expert: Rudy Favretti’s Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings.  Gardens are ephemeral, the first line item to be cut, if  budgeted at all, and the path of least resistance is to turf over the garden features and mow.  Perfect.  Keep it simple until the garden restoration begins.

Dickinson tomb stoneAfter we struck out at ED’s house, we made the pilgrimage to Amherst West Cemetery and stood for a while at Emily Dickinson’s grave.  Freshly picked flower stems in a bud vase must surely be the offering of a gardener, like Emily Dickinson, who always allowed the beauty of a nosegay or one simple wildflower to speak for her.

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A few years ago we decided to revisit Amherst and the Berkshires.  In the meantime, Terri checked out.  If Terri were alive, she’d have joined us, but she isn’t.  Laura and I decided to make it a duo; no more triumvirate.  We returned to Amherst and the Berkshires last summer; and I was reminded of a Dickinson line:

To be alive — is Power

When we visit the Pioneer Valley again in May, we’re sure to find Emily Dickinson in the house and the in garden.

Berkshires Flagged (43)Today, the Dickinson Homestead at 280 Main Street and the Evergreens next door, reunited in 2004 as the Emily Dickinson Museum by the Trustees of Amherst College, occupy three acres of the original Dickinson estate. The Museum tour is worth the price of admission if you are near Amherst. It’s the best tour in town, maybe the best tour I’ve ever been on, and I can’t wait to do it again this spring. If you join the Museum, as I did, you can bring in a guest.  That’s you, Loo.

Berkshires Flagged (37)The Evergreens was built for Austin and Susan Dickinson on their marriage in 1856

Berkshires Flagged (40)The Homestead was built  in 1813 by Samuel Fowler Dickinson; sold in 1833;  repurchased by Edward Dickinson in 1855 and renovated and extended

The history of the Homestead and its gardens is a complicated one.  The original house was built in 1813 by Emily’s grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, a prominent Amherst lawyer.  His son Edward, also a lawyer, moved his young family, wife Emily Norcross and son Austin, into the western half of the Homestead in 1830 where the poet, Emily Elizabeth, was born 16 December. By the time their third child  Lavinia was born in 1833, the Dickinsons’ grandfather was bankrupt; he sold the Homestead to David Mack, a local merchant, and resettled in Ohio.  The Edward Dickinson  family continued to reside as tenants in half of the Homestead for another 7 years, sharing kitchen and gardens with the Macks.

North-Pleasant-Street

In 1840, when Emily was 9, her father bought a house on West Street (now North Pleasant Street) overlooking Amherst West Cemetery where the Dickinsons lived for 15 years.  The image above is all that remains of the Dickinsons’ picturesque North Pleasant Street house and well tended gardens enclosed by a white picket fence. Mother and daughters loved the pleasant house where Emily and Vinnie grew up. Emily enjoyed her baking and gardening duties at home and her school days at Amherst Academy, where she and her siblings got a first-rate education in arts and sciences.  Botany, one of her favorite studies, sharpened the poet’s powers of observation of the natural world. She botanized in nearby woods, identifying and collecting plant specimens for her herbarium, now in  the Emily Dickinson Collection at the Houghton Library at Harvard University.

HerbariumImmersed in the study of native and exotic plants, her herbarium, compiled between 1839 and 1846, shows off her skill as a  botanist familiar with the local flora.  Preserved in her herbarium are many of her favorite plants, which she grew in the gardens on N. Pleasant St. and later at the Homestead.

herb 16

Dickinson was 17 in 1847 when she entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary where she enjoyed her studies  but could not abide the pressure to conform exerted by Mary Lyon, who expected every student to embrace an evangelical fervor; Dickinson could not and left at the end of one year in 1848.

herb 3Back at home in Amherst, Emily resumed her place in the close-knit Dickinson family, baked and gardened, socialized with friends, met and began a romantic friendship with Susan Gilbert, avoided strict church attendance, wrote passionate letters to her female friends and cousins, and read widely in classical and contemporary literature.

But her life was to change dramatically

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In 1855 Edward Dickinson repurchased the family Homestead at 280 Main Street.  He spent the exorbitant sum of $5,000 extending, renovating, and updating the 1813 Federal style house. A brick addition with modern kitchen and laundry facilities extended the back of the house; on the west-facing side a shady veranda offered views of the Evergreens; and a stylish cupola topped off the house so that it more closely resembled a fashionable early Victorian.  Edward Dickinson was ready to move his family back home.

Homestead-1858-lithograph The refurbished Dickinson Homestead 1858

But the Homestead was no longer home for Mrs. Dickinson and her daughters.  The girls liked their big, clapboard, cozy home on North Pleasant where they had grown up and lived for most of their lives. So, the Dickinson women were not happy about the move back to the Homestead as Emily reports the unsettling news mixed with her characteristic humor in a letter to Elizabeth Holland written about 20 January 1856:

Sabbath Day

Your voice is sweet, dear Mrs. Holland – I wish I heard it oftener. 
One of the mortal musics Jupiter denies, and when indeed its gentle measures fall upon my ear, I stop the birds to listen. Perhaps you think I have no bird, and this is rhetoric – pray, Mr. Whately, what is that upon the cherry-tree? Church is done, and the winds blow, and Vinnie is in the pallid land the simple call “sleep.” They will be wiser by and by, we shall all be wiser! While I sit in the snows, the summer day on which you came and the bees and the south wind, seem fabulous as Heaven seems to a sinful world – and I keep remembering it till it assumes a spectral air, and nods and winks at me, and then all of you turn to phantoms and vanish slow away. We cannot talk and laugh more, in the parlor where we met, but we learned to love for aye, there, so it is just as well. 
We shall sit in a parlor “not made with hands” unless we are very careful! 
I cannot tell you how we moved.  I had rather not remember. I believe my “effects” were brought in a bandbox, and the “deathless me,” on foot, not many moments after. I took at the time a memorandum of my several senses, and also of my hat and coat, and my best shoes – but it was lost in themêlée, and I am out with lanterns, looking for myself. 
Such wits as I reserved, are so badly shattered that repair is useless – and still I can’t help laughing at my own catastrophe. I supposed we were going to make a “transit,” as heavenly bodies did – but we came budget by budget, as our fellows do, till we fulfilled the pantomime contained in the word “moved.” It is a kind of gone-to-Kansas feeling, and if I sat in a long wagon, with my family tied behind, I should suppose without doubt I was a party of emigrants! 
They say that “home is where the heart is.” I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings. 
But, my dear Mrs. Holland, I have another story, and lay my laughter all away, so that I can sigh. Mother has been an invalid since we came home, and Vinnie and I “regulated,” and Vinnie and I “got settled,” and still we keep our father’s house, and mother lies upon the lounge, or sits in her easy chair. I don’t know what her sickness is, for I am but a simple child, and frightened at myself. I often wish I was a grass, or a toddling daisy, whom all of these problems of the dust might not terrify – and should my own machinery get slightly out of gear, please, kind ladies and gentlemen, some one stop the wheel, – for I know that with belts and bands of gold, I shall whizz triumphant on the new stream! Love for you – love for Dr. Holland – thanks for his exquisite hymn – tears for your sister in sable, and kisses for Minnie and the bairns.

From your mad
Emilie.

 

Homestead mus

The history of the Homestead and its gardens is further complicated by the emotional trauma Mrs. Dickinson suffers as the result of her husband reclaiming his family estate, uprooting his family, and moving them “home.”  Edward Dickinson is rising in Amherst society and his family name and status must command respect.  Mrs. Dickinson clearly does not share his ambition.  She becomes ill and as her daughter fears takes on the role not of the wife of a prominent Amherst Lawyer with political ambitions, but of invalid.  Presumably, because Emily and Vinnie are young, 24 and 21, and there is much to be done in their father’s house and garden, they accept the responsibility heaped on them with their mother’s retirement, hire help, and get on with it.

Now that Edward Dickinson has fashionably appointed and modernized his family house to reflect a new era of Dickinson prosperity, the gentleman is anxious to landscape his grounds, plant trees, and lay out his gardens.

Dickinson homestead.pdf 2

On the domestic front, all is not gloomy for the female members of Edward Dickinson’ s family.  All of the Dickinsons are keen gardeners; indeed, Mrs. Dickinson is head gardener.   Planting new gardens at the Homestead is a family affair.  Mr. Edward Dickinson, Esq. can afford to hire both domestic help for his fine newly decorated interiors and laborers and garden boys for his fine new landscape gardens.

homestead winter

As for Emily, she’s about to become a full-time poet, while maintaining her baking and gardening work, which she manages by striking a deal with her father.

ED complicated

TO BE CONTINUED

Snow Falling at Midnight

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by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16632#sthash.58sTxs3Z.dpuf

by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16632#sthash.58sTxs3Z.dpuf

by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16632#sthash.58sTxs3Z.dpuf

by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16632#sthash.58sTxs3Z.dpuf

The night is darkening round me

Emily Bronte

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

index

Poems by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte. Dodd, Mead  & Co:
New York,1902. Untitled. One of Emily Bronte’s Gondal poems written in
1837 when she was 19. Today often appears with the title Spellbound
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Birds at Winter Nightfall (Triolet)

Thomas Hardy

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly!–faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!

index

Thomas Hardy. Poems of the Past and the Present, 1901

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It sifts from Leaden Sieves

Emily Dickinson

It sifts from Leaden Sieves –

It powders all the Wood.

It fills with Alabaster Wool

The Wrinkles of the Road –

It makes an even Face

Of Mountain, and of Plain –

Unbroken Forehead from the East

Unto the East again –

It reaches to the Fence –

It wraps it Rail by Rail

Till it is lost in Fleeces –

It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack – and Stem –

A Summer’s empty Room –

Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,

Recordless, but for them –

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts

As Ankles of a Queen –

Then stills it’s Artisans – like Ghosts –

Denying they have been –

 

 

 index


    The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.    The Emily Dickinson Museum

 

 

 
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Dust of Snow

Robert Frost

 The way a crow

      Shook down on me

The dust of snow

       From a hemlock tree

 

     Has given my heart

  A change of mood

      And saved some part

    Of a day I had rued.

 

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   Robert Frost published the poem as “Favour” in the London Mercury in Dec. 1920; reprinted as “Snow Dust” in the Yale Review in Jan. 1921; collected in New Hampshire (1923), for which Frost was awarded his first Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1924.

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The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less 

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less;
The times are winter, watch, a world undone:
They waste, they wither worse; they as they run
Or bring more or more blazon man’s distress.
And I not help. Nor word now of success:
All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one—
Work which to see scarce so much as begun
Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness.

Or what is else? There is your world within.
There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.
Your will is law in that small commonweal…

index

The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less; The times are winter, watch, a world undone: They waste, they wither worse; they as they run Or bring more or more blazon man’s distress. And I not help. Nor word now of success: All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one— Work which to see scarce so much as begun Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness. Or what is else? There is your world within. There rid the dragons, root out there the sin. Your will is law in that small commonweal… – See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19313#sthash.OZH7iNhu.dpuf

Poems of Gerald Manley Hopkins. Ed. Robert Bridges (1918) #60.

  

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The Snow Storm

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The urgent snow is everywhere.
The wing adroiter than a sail
Must lean away from such a gale,
Abandoning its straight intent,
Or else expose tough ligament
And tender flesh to what before
Meant dampened feathers, nothing more.
Forceless upon our backs there fall
Infrequent flakes hexagonal,
Devised in many a curious style
To charm our safety for a while,
Where close to earth like mice we go
Under the horizontal snow.

 

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Edna St. Vincent Millay “The Snow Storm.”  Poetry, May 1939

 

snow and dodger 051                

                       The Visionary

                        Emily Bronte

 Silent is the house: all are laid asleep:
One alone looks out o’er the snow-wreaths deep,
Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze
That whirls the wildering drift, and bends the groaning trees.

Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;
Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;
The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far:
I trim it well, to be the wanderer’s guiding-star.

Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame!
Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame:
But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know,
What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.

What I love shall come like visitant of air,
Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;
What loves me, no word of mine shall e’er betray,
Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay

Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear–
Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air:
He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me;
Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.

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  Emily Bronte The Visionary and other poems

  First published in Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)

 Tommies 246

 

Winter Trees

William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the dis-attiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

indexWilliam Carlos Williams. Sour Grapes: a Book of Poems .  The Four Seas Press: Boston, 1921

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Frost at Midnight

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

                               Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

                           Whether the summer clothe the general earth

                           With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

                           Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

                           Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

                           Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall


                           Heard only in the trances of the blast,

                           Or if the secret ministry of frost

                           Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

                           Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

index

 “Frost At Midnight” (Lines 65-end)

Published in Fears in Solitude. London: Joseph Johnson, 1798

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