Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life

[Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life] cover

Whether or not you are a fan of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, you will find much to enjoy in this book. McDowell gives context to a number of the garden-themed poems. But she also gives a wonderful portrait of a nineteenth century woman’s relationship with her garden.

Every aspect of Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life deserves praise. From sturdy paper quality to admirably painstaking research, with much in between, the book is a delight.

In this revision of her 2005 book Emily Dickinson’s Gardens: A Celebration of a Poet and Gardener McDowell has organized the main body of the text around the seasons. Thus the opening section, “Early Spring,” includes background on the town of Amherst and the Dickinson family, plus description of early spring in Dickinson’s garden, with color plates and a page describing some spring bulbs. The well-written text is spare but sufficient on the poet’s life while lavish on her garden and her connections to it.

McDowell has mined multiple sources to get her telling details, such as noting in a thank-you letter to a friend who had sent Dickinson bulbs that she had “long been a Lunatic for bulbs.” Throughout, poems are included to expand a point and give context.

The color plates are by three contemporaries of Dickinson. One, Ora White Hitchcock, was a friend of the family, and another, Clarissa Munger Badger, published a folio of prints that Dickinson owned. McDowell includes, among many other photos, one showing the cover of the 1881 Bliss seed catalog, and the text quotes a Dickinson letter from January of that year that describes her sister Vinnie as “in Bliss catalog, prospecting for summer.”

After the final season section, “Winter: Requiem for a Gardener,” including Dickinson’s death, a last section, “A Poet’s Garden,” contains a marvelous 26-page list of plants: those in the garden, mentioned by Dickinson, or known to be local from other sources, plus notes describing the plant and/or noting how Dickinson used it in print or in the garden.

McDowell writes with clarity and elegance. I came away with a much broader sense of Dickinson’s life, seeing her as much more than a hermit who wrote great poems. Rather she was someone who lived a surprisingly varied life, enriched through her love for and labor with gardens. Don’t miss this book.

Published in the December 2019 Leaflet, Volume 6 Issue 12.

Flowers of Mountain and Plain

Unusual for her time, Edith Clements (1874-1971) had a formal botanical education; she received a Ph.D. in botanical ecology from the University of Nebraska, and spent her life in various academic and research pursuits. Typically this was in conjunction with her husband, Frederic Clements (1874-1945), who was also a plant ecologist. Together, they published “Rocky Mountain Flowers” in 1914, a botanically detailed flora of the flowering plants including trees, but no conifers or ferns. The watercolor illustrations by Edith Clements are exquisite, typically showing several plants from the same family together. On her own, she later published “Flowers of Mountain and Plain” (1926), a book for a more general audience using many of the same illustrations.

Excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Flowers of Coast and Sierra

I think Edith saved her best work for West Coast readers, with “Flowers of Coast and Sierra” (1928), including the mountain ranges of Oregon and Washington, even if they are missing from the title. She was self-taught as an artist and comfortable driving throughout the West to paint from living specimens. While clearly steeped in botanical knowledge, she sought to reach a general audience with both her art and writing. An example is her impression of the glacier lily (Erythronium grandiflorum), saying these “will spring up by the thousand and carpet the earth with smooth green leaves which can scarcely be seen for the myriad bright-yellow blossoms nodding above. On the slopes of Mount Rainier, they unite with the white avalanche-lily (E. montanum) in turning the scene into fairyland.”

Excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

The Wild Flowers of California: Their Names, Haunts, and Habits

“The Wild Flowers of California: Their Names, Haunts, and Habits” was the earliest (1897 – the Miller Library has the 1921 third edition) West Coast book published in a recognizably field guide format. Text author Mary Elizabeth Parsons (1859-1947) was born in Chicago, but spent most of her life in California. She was a keen student of the state’s botany and studied with noted botanist Alice Eastwood at the California Academy of Science in San Francisco.

Her book reflects her scientific discipline by including a “How to Use the Book” introduction, a glossary of botanical terms, and keys to distinguish plant families. She goes on to describe these families – all of flowering plants – with a count of the genera and species as known worldwide and in the state at that time. This makes the book a useful time capsule of botanical history.

Parsons also studied art, but she asked Margaret Warriner Buck (1857-1929) to illustrate the book and accompany her explorations of the state. With few exceptions, Buck drew her simple but effective pen-and-ink drawings in the field. All these efforts paid off, as the “The Wild Flowers of California” remained a standard through several editions into the middle of the 20^th century. Later editions included color plates by Buck, also known for her work with the early years of “Sunset” magazine. The Miller Library also has the 1960 edition, available to borrow.

In addition to her attention to detail, Parsons captured the joy of being a field botanist. “Every walk into the fields is transformed from an aimless ramble into a joyous, eager quest, and every journey upon state or railroad becomes a rare opportunity for making new plant-acquaintances—a season of exhilarating excitement.”

Excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Field Book of Western Wild Flowers

Margaret Armstrong was from the Hudson River valley of New York; she explored the West as part of an extended adventure, but never settled here. She traveled from 1911 to 1914, often with two or three female companions, exploring all of the states west of the Rocky Mountains and into Canada. She was possibly the first woman of European descent to travel to the floor of the Grand Canyon, where she found, described, and illustrated several new plant species. The result of these adventures was the “Field Book of Western Wild Flowers,” published in 1915.

She had considerable training as an artist and is perhaps best known amongst bibliophiles for the over 300 book covers she designed, an art form mostly lost in the 20^th century with the development of dust jackets. She also wrote biographies in her 60s, and mystery novels in her 70s! Her schooling was in art, but she understood botany practices very well, collecting and pressing some 1,000 herbarium specimens. Many remain in the New York Botanical Garden herbarium. She lists as her co-author, John James Thornber (1872-1962), professor of botany at the University of Arizona, crediting him and many others (including Alice Eastwood and Julia Henshaw) for assuring the accuracy of her text.

“But it is her illustrations that make the book so appealing,” according to a review by Bobbi Angell in the December 2018 issue of “The Botanical Artist.” These included some 500 pen and ink drawings and almost 50 watercolors, all drawn or painted on site. While there is a glossary of terms and a short set of keys, this book relies more on its illustrations for identification than the others in this review.

Excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Mountain Wild Flowers of America: A Simple and Popular Guide to the Names and Descriptions of the Flowers that Bloom above the Clouds

Photography was a major innovation for field guides in the early 20^th century. Julia W. Henshaw (1869-1937) was an early adopter with her 1906 book “Mountain Wild Flowers of America.” While this title implies inclusion of alpine plants across Canada and the United States, she lived in Vancouver, BC and gives special attention to our regional mountains. The Miller Library also has a later edition (1917) under the slightly revised title of “Wild Flowers of the North American Mountains.”

Born in England, she studied art in her home country, but didn’t take up photography until she moved to British Columbia around 1890. Her images are in a studio setting, in grey scale with a neutral grey background. Ordered by color, it is not too difficult to imagine the appearance of the living plants.

Like other writers of these early field guides, Henshaw had abundant energy and a wide variety of interests. Daphne Bramham writes in the “Vancouver Sun” (published September 8, 2014) that she was “an explorer and general outdoorswoman” who climbed in the Rockies and mapped much of the interior of Vancouver Island. A strong advocate participation in World War I, she drove an ambulance at the Western Front in Europe, and spoke across Canada of her experience to encourage more involvement in the war effort. She had her indoor pursuits, too, as a theater critic (using Julian Durham as a pseudonym), writing novels, and founding a social club for women, the first such society in Vancouver.

Other than the use of photographs, this field guide is very similar in style to the others of the time. The writing is intended for a general audience, but Henshaw acknowledges a respectable list of botanists and naturalists as scientific advisors. However, she is at her best with her subjective descriptions. In reference to Erythronium giganteum (now E. grandiflorum var. grandiflorum), which in her day was burdened with the common name of “yellow adder’s tongue” (now “glacier lily”) she writes, “Late at evening, when beneath the star-sown purple of the sky you return from making some alpine ascent, the pure flames of these wild Lilies gleam in their leafy setting with a pale golden light, and illuminate the green brink of your path.”

Excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Wild Flowers of the Pacific Coast

“On the very top of the mound grew this fine salmon blossom, and a few feet away a bed of tall pink grass, the finest I had ever seen. It waved and nodded in the warm breeze, as if inviting me to select its finest bunch to keep company with the pretty white blossoms that had been its neighbors, and from whom it was loth to part company.”

Emma Homan Thayer (1842-1908) wrote these illustrative words, and painted these neighborly plants while visiting Astoria, Oregon in the 1880s. Her “Wild Flowers of the Pacific Coast” (published in 1887) is the earliest guide to the flora of the West Coast in the Miller Library collection. I hesitate to call it a field guide. Instead, it is a series of short travel essays, each tied to a local wild flower. Often the description of the people she encountered is more detailed than that of the flowers. The stories are mostly set in California, but she did make the one visit to Oregon, including a trip by boat from Portland to the mouth of the Columbia River.

In an appendix of “botanical descriptions,” the “fine salmon blossom” is identified as thimbleberry or Rubus nutkanus, but the identity of the grass is not attempted.

Born in New York, Thayer went back to school after her first husband died, attending Rutgers and area art institutions. Late in life, she established a reputation as an author of novels. However, it is for this book, and her similar book, “Wild Flowers of the Rocky Mountains,” that she is best known. While her impressionistic style of illustration lacks the fine detail necessary for certain identification, her books were an introduction, especially for East Coast audiences, to the splendors of the western flora.

Excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Rocky Mountain Flowers; An Illustrated Guide for Plant-Lovers and Plant-Users

Unusual for her time, Edith Clements (1874-1971) had a formal botanical education; she received a Ph.D. in botanical ecology from the University of Nebraska, and spent her life in various academic and research pursuits. Typically this was in conjunction with her husband, Frederic Clements (1874-1945), who was also a plant ecologist. Together, they published “Rocky Mountain Flowers” in 1914, a botanically detailed flora of the flowering plants including trees, but no conifers or ferns. This is not a field guide, but the watercolor illustrations by Edith Clements are exquisite, typically showing several plants from the same family together. On her own, she later published “Flowers of Mountain and Plain” (1926), a book for a more general audience using many of the same illustrations.

Willa Cather was a classmate of Frederic and a good friend of Edith and it’s likely their scientific knowledge influenced the environmental aspects of the novelist’s writing. In an interview by Eleanor Hinman in the “Lincoln Sunday Star (November 6, 1921), Cather expressed her love of Nebraska wild flowers, concluding, “There is one book that I would rather have produced than all my novels. That is the Clements botany dealing with the wild flowers of the west.”

Excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Naturalistic Planting Design: the Essential Guide

Garden designer Nigel Dunnett uses two contrasting slogans in his work: “planting design is an art form” and “planting design is essential.” The former captures the impact a successful design has on our emotions. The latter expresses the necessity to create healthy human environments, especially in cities. His book “Naturalistic Planting Design: The Essential Guide is an excellent introduction to these creative principles.

He defines naturalistic planting design as inspired by nature, but not a recreation of a particular ecosystem. The book goes deeply into the historical development of this practice, while also providing pragmatic step-by-step guides. Examples are shown in all stages from planting – often a mix of seeding and starts – to the succession of the gardens through the seasons and subsequent years.

Dunnett’s gardens won’t appeal to everyone. He’s very limited in his use of woody plants and his herbaceous plantings are mingled rather than in solid blocks. Imitating nature, his projects grow and change, meaning there is no single climax or season when everything is in bloom. Instead, he aims to have something of interest year-round, using a general rule that no more than three plants need to be at a peak at any one time.

I recommended enjoying the exuberance of the photographs first, and then read the text. To Dunnett, “the future is all about planting that’s exciting, uplifting, dramatic, beautiful, breath-taking, bold and adventurous. Wild too, and not just in the sense of it being natural but wild because it has an edge to it, it’s challenging, it’s not safe, and it’s not always tasteful.”

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Winter 2020

In the footsteps of Joseph Dalton Hooker

Seamus O’Brien is another modern day plant explorer. Between 2012-2015, he led four tours of small groups to explore the rich flora of Sikkim, the tiny state of India wedged between Nepal and Bhutan, and butting up against the Himalayas. This landscape creates vast extremes in topography and climate, and an especially rich variety of plants in an area only slightly larger than King County.

Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) was one of the prominent plant explorers of the 19th century with voyages to Antarctica, the Middle East, Morocco, and western North America. He is arguably best remembered for his three years in and around Sikkim from 1849-1852. At that time, it was an independent kingdom and the crossroads of several distinct cultures.

O’Brien wrote “In The Footsteps of Joseph Dalton Hooker” about his trips to Sikkim, skillfully weaving his travel stories around a biography of Hooker’s trip. “Unlike Hooker, our mission was not to collect, but to study and compare places he visited and to record how they had fared and appeared over 160 years later. In some ways Sikkim has changed little over the course of time.”

The main goal of each man was finding plants, and especially rhododendrons. Hooker discovered many, and confirmed and accurately described several other species for science. O’Brien’s group sought many of the same plants in the same locations where Hooker found them. Each was also interested in the people and the animals of Sikkim.

The result is a rich dialogue between two eras. Many of the physical and flora features of Hooker’s day are still there. An example is “Hooker’s Rock,” a gigantic boulder in the Lachen valley, probably deposited by retreating glaciers. Hooker sketched it in great detail and included a circle of seated villagers and a couple of enormous yaks in the foreground. O’Brien includes photos of the same rock, and even captured a large, black yak posed in front! Hooker also adopted a Tibetan mastiff named Kinchin to be his companion and fierce protector. Sadly, Kinchin perished during a river crossing, but O’Brien was able to find similar – if somewhat more placid – dogs of the same lineage.

Seeds of many of the Rhododendrons that Hooker sent home were planted at an estate south of Dublin. Conditions here closely match the climate, soil, and rainfall of Sikkim and the plants are still flourishing. This estate became the National Botanic Garden, Kilmacurragh of Ireland in 1996 (an annex to the gardens at Glasnevin). O’Brien took a position managing these gardens in 2006. The awe he felt for these “Hooker rhododendrons” every spring gave him the incentive to see them in their native land.

Excerpted from the Fall 2019 Arboretum Bulletin.