1 of 16 SARAH ORNE JEWETT's BROAD-AISLE GARDEN, SOUTH
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SARAH ORNE JEWETT’S BROAD-AISLE GARDEN, SOUTH BERWICK, MAINE: AN EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY VIEW Nancy Mayer Wetzel Northeast border of the broad-aisle garden, 2011. THE BROAD-AISLE GARDEN The garden of nineteenth-century writer Sarah Orne Jewett is located near the north end of Jewett House, a rectangular plot currently enclosed by fences, shrubs, arborvitae and other trees, and the adjacent walls of outbuildings. There are planted borders around the inside of the boundaries and on each side of a center path that Jewett called “the broad aisle”. This garden room is furnished with potted plants and a granite bench. Jewett garden history: A map from about 1835 shows the Jewett family compound at the center of South Berwick. Landscape features are carefully recorded, including a 1 of 16 rectangular plot labeled “Garden” near the 1774 dwelling. The house and garden may well date to the same time. Sarah Orne Jewett described the site as “…an old plot of ground where several generations have been trying to make good things grow.” Jewett preserved her venerable home grounds in literature depicting “wide green yards and tall elm-trees to shade them” with sweeps of fences that bound her grandfather’s old house and Jewett-Eastman House, her childhood home next door. Young Jewett enjoyed red roses around her door and happily smuggled herself into her grandmother’s enclosed front yard for the crumpled petals of blush, white, and cinnamon roses that she used to make a delicious coddle. Jewett achieved fame as a writer early in life, treasuring the privacy and inspiration of what she christened “my own New England garden.” From the church just beyond the trees at the foot of the garden came singing voices and a droning organ, a soundscape for her solitary imaginings. She wrote, “The bees were humming in the vines and as she looked down the wide garden- walk it seemed like the broad aisle in church, and the congregation of plants and bushes all looked at her as if she were in the pulpit.” In 1887 Sarah and her sister Mary made a midlife move into their late grandfather’s colonial house and perfected the olden backyard plot. Even as vestiges of eighteenth-century gardens were disappearing, a counter trend was giving free reign to romantic inventions on early design. These Colonial Revival gardens retained enclosed proximity to the house, the rectilinear symmetry of classical architecture, and the three-dimensional spatial quality of long-lived perennials and self-sown annuals and biennials. Across the carriage lane behind the house, through a gateway with ball finials, the Jewetts now entered a great garden room of paths and wide beds abundantly planted. There were shrubs, a large area of roses, a kitchen garden, and fruit trees. “The garden is so nice—old-fashioned indeed with pink hollyhocks and tall blue larkspurs,” Sarah enthused. “You might make a sketch with but slight trouble, with figures of old ladies wearing caps in the long walks.” Today, visitors still enter at the gate to follow the broad aisle and linger among flowers. Borders and pots are planted in heirlooms, many of which Jewett described. Early on there are peonies and roses in “great clusters…heavy with dew and perfume.” The London pride of midsummer is “most gorgeous to behold with its brilliant red and its tall, straight stocks.” White mallows and orange tiger lilies follow in bloom and, finally, crimson cardinal flowers that “belong to the old nobility.” 2 of 16 Northeast border of the broad-aisle garden with view to garden fence and Jewett House, 2009. 3 of 16 Descriptions of the broad-aisle garden by Jewett and her contemporaries: Behind the house is a big old-fashioned garden, and every room is sweet with posies. Philadelphia Press, August 18, 1895 …at the back one goes through a gateway…into a quiet great garden, with pear and apple trees. A long row of Lombardy poplars beyond that gives a French hint as one sees them across the broad flower beds and down the long alleys. “This is the broad aisle,” said Miss Jewett, walking down one of these alleys... Bangor Daily Commercial, 1901 … and as she looked down the wide garden-walk it seemed like the broad aisle in church, and the congregation of plants and bushes all looked at her as if she were in the pulpit Sarah Orne Jewett, A Country Doctor, 1884 But when I was a very little child indeed my world was bounded by the fences that were around my home… I used to mount the fence next the street and watch the people go in and out of the quaint-roofed village shops that stood in a row on the other side, and looked as if they belonged to a Dutch or old English town. Sarah Orne Jewett, “A Mournful Villager”, 1881 The Garden! It would not have been the house it is without the garden, where all its graceful motions were carried out in leaf and flower. William Dean Howells, Letter to Jewett, September 15, 1903 GUIDELINES FOR PLANT SELECTION 1. Plants mentioned in Jewett’s writing. A common name or incomplete scientific name in a text requires research for an appropriate plant species. A choice among multiple, valid possibilities may also be necessary. 2. Plants that bring greater insight into the horticulture of Jewett’s day and the scope of her horticultural knowledge and interests, including plants associated with Jewett’s horticultural contemporaries such as Celia Laighton Thaxter, Alice Morse Earle, Frederick Law Olmsted and Gertrude Jekyll. 3. Plants used in New World gardens, particularly those of New England, between the 1600s and 1909, the year of Jewett’s death. 4. Plants that meet the above guidelines and also complement design elements of the borders and pots such as form, color palette, bloom sequence and combinations. 5. Plants meeting the above that offer variety for a season, especially annuals, tubers and corms, for the northeast border and in pots. 4 of 16 PLANTS IN JEWETT’S BROAD-AISLE GARDEN For essays and photos of a selection of plants, go to Garden Bulletins at http://www.public.coe.edu/~theller/soj/ess/wetzel-07.htm London pride, known today as Maltese cross, in the northeast border, 2010. Plant List Part I: Most of these plants are mentioned in Jewett’s writing. They are listed by name and grouping as they appear in the texts. 5 of 16 Located on the aisle, mostly in pots: Geraniums Geraniums, the friends of years, / Good-tempered, green old pair: “In a Hurry”, 1870 Pelargonium graveolens ‘Lady Plymouth’. White variegation on scented green leaves. Pink flowers. Grown by Sarah Goodwin, governor’s wife, Portsmouth, NH, nineteenth century. Tender plant that would have been over-wintered indoors. Pelargonium hortorum ‘Crystal Palace Gem’. Golden margin and central disc of green on leaves. Red flowers. 1’. Tender plant. Introduced in 1869. Gladiolus callianthus ‘Murielae’ Arching stems of white flowers with purple splotches that inspire common name, peacock lily. To 4’. Subtle scent. Bulbs collected in mountains of Ethiopia in 1844 were being used in New England in 1888 according to the magazine Garden and Forest, co-founded by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted that year. Used frequently today in Downeast gardens, often in pots. Lemon verbena, lavender I remember that I had even then a great dislike to lemon verbena, and that I would have waited patiently outside a gate all afternoon if I knew that some one would kindly give me a sprig of lavender in the evening. “From a Mournful Villager”, 1881 Aloysia triphilla. Slender green leaves with lemon scent and flavor. Used in nosegays and tisane. Native of South America brought by Spanish and Portuguese to Europe in seventeenth century, reached England by eighteenth century. Over-wintered indoors in northern climes. Lavandula angustifolia. Narrow, silver leaves and purple flower spikes that contain fragrant oil used in perfume and medicine. 15”. Made its way from native Mediterranean lands to England, then to America with the Pilgrims. John Josselyn cites lavender in New- Englands Rarities, 1672. Dainty organdy sachets of lavender were sold by the Shakers. Pansies “Here’s pansies!” She picked a handful of purple ones. Then we stopped by a brave rose tree, which held three great buds up to the October sun. “Sarah Orne Jewett—A Visit to Her Home”, Bangor Daily Commercial, December 20, 1901 Viola tricolor ‘Bowles Black’. This is a Johnny Jump Up. Small and so purple that it looks black. Yellow eye. 6-8”. Annual that self sows. Introduced in 1901. Pennyroyal Poor William was meekly submitting to being smeared, as to his countenance, with a most pungent and unattractive lotion of pennyroyal and other green herbs which had been hastily pounded and mixed with cream in the little white stone mortar. The Country of the Pointed Firs, 1896 Hedeoma pulegioides, also American pennyroyal, squaw mint. Delicate annual with powerful mint fragrance. 18”. Native wild plant of dry fields that self sows. White petunias, mignonette One never knows the grace and beauty of white petunias until they have been seen at night, or, like this, early in the morning. It is when the dew has fallen that this delicate flower and mignonette also give out their best fragrance… “The Confession of a House- Breaker”, 1883 Petunia integrifolia. White, long-blooming annual. 1’. This cultivated species was introduced from Argentina to England in 1831. Hybrids were in America by 1847. 6 of 16 Reseda odorata ‘Machet’. Annual with white and salmon flowers. 1’. Napoleon’s gift from Egypt to Josephine.