The Lady as Landscape Gardener: Beatrix Farrand at the Arnold Arboretum, Part 2 lane Brown "Your trust in my training is the greatest honor of my fifty years of active practice:’1 -Beatrix Farrand to Dr. Paul C. Mangelsdorf, May 15, 1946, on her appointment as Consultant Landscape Gardener to the Arboretum Having launched the young Beatrix Jones on illuminated by Mildred Bliss at the very start her career in the late 1890s, Professor Charles of the commission for Dumbarton Oaks: hav- Sprague Sargent, her "Chief as she called ing put forward all her design ideas, Beatrix him, was a continuing benefactor in her was keen to make a brave start and wrote to progress. Beatrix and her mother, Mary Cad- Mrs. Bliss, sending photographs of three walader Jones, invariably visited Holm Lea for cedars, which she could obtain from the the rhododendron parties each June, on their Arboretum for $300 each for digging and pack- annual northward migration from New York ing. Mrs. Bliss replied promptly in favor of the to summer in Bar Harbor. (Beatrix, in her turn, cedars, noting that if "Mr. Sargent loves you most frequently used the hybrids connected enough to part with them," then go ahead.2 with her friends, Mrs. C. S. Sargent, Ignatius When Charles Sargent died, aged eighty-five Sargent, and Louisa Hunnewell in plantings and still working, in March 1927, Beatrix was for her clients.) The Professor never failed, it about to embark on a major diversion from seemed, to give her a discreet good recommen- her life’s pattern because of Max Farrand’s dation where he could, and even gave her appointment as Director of the Henry E. Hun- Christmas presents of significance; in 1911 it tington Library at San Marino, California. was Wilhelm Miller’s What England Can From then on the Farrands’ lives were divided Teach Us About Gardening, in which Holm basically into winters in California and sum- Lea was much praised, and where Beatrix mers at Bar Harbor, though much of Beatrix’s found the corroboration for many of her own time was taken in long train journeys to keep opinions.’ The Sargents, loving her, were her scattered commissions in Chicago, Long doubtless overjoyed, as were her other friends, Island, Washington, D. C., and at Yale in order. by her happy marriage to the historian Max She had little time for her old haunts, except Farrand in December 1913, and though the for a brief call on Alice Sargent at Holm Lea pattern of her life changed, she worked as hard to design a new trellis for the house walls. as ever, and still paid frequent visits to the Connections with the Arboretum were Arnold Arboretum, with her notebook, to maintained through Susan Delano McKelvey3 refresh her knowledge of plants for a new com- and Chief Propagator William Henry Judd.’ It mission or situation. The relationship was to these two people that she turned for between Beatrix and her Professor was aptly help when she agreed to her longest-distance 10 commission of all, to work for Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst (the former Dorothy Whit- ney Straight) at Dartington Hall in Devon, England, in 1932. She needed to renew English contacts, so William Judd (who had been trained at Kew and was secretary to the Kew Gardeners of America) introduced her to Sir Arthur Hill, then Kew’s director, and Mrs. McKelvey paved her way to the doyen of English plantsmen, W J. Bean, who was work- ing on the third and final volume of ’I~ees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles (1933), fol- lowing his retirement from the Royal Botanic Garden. Reef Point The contacts worked well and Beatrix was grateful. Susan McKelvey became a frequent visitor to the Farrands’ Bar Harbor home, Reef Point, and she rarely arrived empty-handed. Many varieties of clematis and lonicera went from the Arboretum to Reef Point, where their progress in that northerly and sea-girt habitat was eagerly reported. William Judd went fre- auentlv to Reef Point, h»t W ct ac often orrncc the country to the Huntington gardens, where Beatrix Farrand in her late sixries, c. 1937. Reprmted there were not only the exotic delights of the with permission from the Prmceton University cactus garden, but also other visiting experts Library. for entertainment. Beatrix greatly enjoyed put- ting her plant-expert friends together, and more devoted to where they felt really at introducing one to another, and leaving them home, at Reef Point. They set up the Reef to enjoy their private worlds: during the thir- Point Gardens Corporation in 1939, with Mrs. ties Judd helped her to educate and entertain McKelvey as a member, to carry forward their two head gardeners from Dartington Hall for plans to turn their home and garden into an whom she arranged grand tours, as well as educational center for people interested in John Murray from Yale Botanical Garden and every kind of gardening. The prime objects various park superintendents from New were to demonstrate "what outdoor beauty Haven. The latter she felt were "much in can contribute to those who have the interest need" of Judd’s skill and help, and in general and perception that can be influenced by trees it seems clear that if she could have dis- and flowers and open air composition"5 To patched every head gardener and grounds these ends they set about the reorganization superintendent (let alone a few of the of the garden and, most importantly, the nam- architects!) that she encountered to the ing and recording of the plants. It was soon Arboretum for enlightenment and inspiration, revealed that, in several aspects of the garden, her working life would have been a much the educated but mainly instinctive acquisi- smoother path. tions of the years had grown into interesting By the end of the 1930s (Beatrix was sixty- collections, especially for a garden in eastern five in 1937), the Farrands’ lives became more Maine, of rhododendrons and azaleas, climb- 11 ing plants on the house, and single-flowered a "dud" plant. In "Climbing Plants in Eastern hybrid tea roses. Thrown back into the puz- Maine"$ she writes: "This species of the Celas- zles of identification and nomenclature, trus family was planted on the southeast Beatrix naturally returned to the sure ground corner of the house, and started to grow with of her associations with the Arnold. Perhaps rampant cheerfulness. Its sweetly scented to smooth her path, she wrote to Dr. Alfred trusses of tiny flowers are often nearly three Rehder on 25 June 1940 in her characteristi- feet long, and in July the whole side of the cally modest vein: "You have doubtless forgot- house where it grows is as murmurous with ten an old acquaintance who used to see you bees as any English lime-tree walk The other when she was occasionally at the Arboretum success story was the Japanese hydrangea- with her "’chief Professor Sargent ;’ but she vine, Schizophragma hydrangeoides, sent wanted to thank him for his Manual of Cul- from the Arnold on October 9, 1931: this grew tivated ’I~ees and Shrubs, which had given "so marvelously up to the second-floor windows much aid to a working landscape gardener" on the north corner of the garden house, only over the years. The occasion was her receipt outdone in magnificence by two big Hydran- of a revised edition.b Dr. Rehder, of course, had gea petiolaris, which clambered to more than not forgotten her but chided, "when Professor thirty feet. Sargent was still with us, you used to come In the early 1940s, Reef Point’s garden much more frequently" and hoped she would flowered as its makers intended; both Farrands return to the Arboretum soon.’ worked very hard for their project, our "little Beatrix took the opportunity, at least by let- horticultural foundation;’ as Beatrix described ter, and tackled Chief Propagator Judd on the it to William Judd in July 1942. "You may like identification of her loniceras, which he did; to know," she continued, "that already at this they were both pleased with her Lonicera early season we are sure that more than 300 tragophylla, the Wilson introduction, with people have visited the garden" and as she dic- large butter-yellow heads of flowers, which tated the letter she could see more people had thrived since coming from the Arbore- wandering around.9 Both Farrands were now tum. The naming process went on through entirely devoted to this dream project, but Reef Pomt’s clematis, some pears, apples, bar- within a very short time Max Farrand’s poor berries and hemlocks, sempervivums and health marred their happiness. For his last alpines. Soon a formal arrangement to pay year Beatrix worked doubly hard to achieve Judd’s expenses was made, and the Arboretum their plans for the education center and the was also offered, in return, any cuttings that library, and yet to keep the seriousness of his might be wanted, as long as specific instruc- illness from him. When he died, in June 1945, tions were sent as to how to take them and just two days before her seventy-third birth- how to pack them. The rare Decaisnea far- day, she was both exhausted and stunned. The gesii, with remarkable metallic blue pods was only thing she could do was to carry on, with offered, and a couple of little Clematis tan- now a kind of obsessive energy devoted to gutica obtusiuscula were accepted. fulfilling Max’s hopes and plans. William Judd must have been a little per- The Arnold Connection turbed to find a letter from her so soon, dic- The record of plants sent from the Arnold to tated the day after Max’s death, at the Reef Point is by no means complete, but there moment the announcement appeared in the seemed to be two particularly successful Boston Herald, asking him to identify her Arnold "children" A docket dated May 12, rhododendrons.