Lady into Landscape Gardener: Beatrix Farrand’s Early Years at the Arnold Arboretum Jane Brown One of America’s great landscape gardeners, Beatrix Farrand was deeply influenced by Professor C. S. Sargent, the Arboretum’s first director. For the whole of her long and successful refers to herself as "the old lady" whose mind career, Beatrix Farrand was consistently and works very slowly-are dated in the spring of loyally appreciative of the place she regarded 1953, just six years before her death. as her alma mater, the Arnold Arboretum. This well-documented relationship of her Her gratitude and affection shine through her later years will be the subject of a future public writings, from a piece she called "The Arnoldia article, but for the moment, I would Debt of Landscape Art to a Museum of Trees" like to concentrate upon how it all began. For for the Architectural Record of November my forthcoming book on Beatrix Farrand’s life 1918/ to her pieces for Arnoldia in 1949, and work, I have had to piece together much describing her work on the azalea border and more elusive evidence on how she came to her layout plan for Peters Hill.2 Her friendship study at the Arnold in the 1890s and what she with Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, her did there. She left no diaries or letters of that adored "Chief," who had taught her "by time, and her references to it were persistently precept and example," was maintained until vague, even to the drafting of what amounted the end of his life in 1927; and after that, she to her own obituary, for the Reef Point Bulle- conducted a lengthy and vigorous correspon- tin, where she mentioned "a fortunate meet- dence with Alfred Rehder and Karl Sax, and ing" (one of many in her life) with Mrs. especially with William Henry Judd, the Charles Sargent and how the Professor Arboretum’s English propagator, who died in became interested in her love of plants. She 1946. Judd, who had first come to the Arnold then became "the grateful guest" of the Sar- in 1913, was her closest contact after Sargent’s gents, at which time the facilities of the death, and there was a rather sad irony in that Arboretum were thrown open to her. Thus, as Arnoldia of May 31, 1946,3 announced his she also wrote, her life was changed; it most sudden death from a heart attack at the same certainly was, for chance and circumstances time it made public Beatrix’s appointment as had brought her into the realm of perhaps the consultant landscape architect. Beatrix’s last only person, in the only place, where the res- surviving letters on Arboretum matters-she trictions imposed by her native society could A portrait photo of Beatrix Cadwalader Jones at her debut, circa 1890, the year she first met the Sargents. Reprinted courtesy of the College of Environmental Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley. 4 1 be overcome, and she could be launched into walader Jones became busy with other things, the world of men as an independent profes- Beatrix took control of the garden and was sional woman. probably in charge of its progress by the time she was fifteen or sixteen. Family Connections A Suitable Profession Beatrix Jones was born into a rigid society of old-money New York in the 1870s, where it Given her passion for the Maine landscape was decreed that a lady’s name only appeared and gardening, it seems likely that John Lam- in print to announce her engagement and her bert Cadwalader suggested that she should death. She was an only child, born on 19 June study the subject seriously; he could well have 1872, something over two years after the mar- been prompted by his friend Mariana riage of her parents, Frederic Rhinelander Griswold van Rensselaer’s timely approval of Jones and Mary Cadwalader Rawle. Her father landscape gardening as a career for ladies. (who had a young sister who would grow up But the key to her decision was, as Beatrix to be the novelist Edith Wharton) was rich, wrote, her "fortunate meeting" with Mary Sar- fun-loving, and purposeless; her mother was gent. Beatrix was immediately attracted by lively, bookish, and used to the company of Mrs. Sargent’s skill in botanical illustration; scholarly Philadelphia lawyers and soldiers in she was nearing completion of her set of the society from which she came. Mary had watercolors of the flowers, leaves, and fruit of probably married in haste, and she and Freddy each tree represented in Professor Sargent’s soon discovered their deep incompatibilities, collection of the woods of America. In her so that by the time Beatrix was ten her father turn, Mary Sargent probably enjoyed Beatrix’s was virtually absent from her life. enthusiastic and knowledgeable chatter about Beatrix was highly intelligent and well edu- plants, which was in a lighter vein than the cated ; she grew up to be a handsome young high-flown table talk of the Professor and his lady, of elegant bearing, always beautifully academic friends. Anyway, Beatrix Jones4 was turned out, but with an awesome briskness soon swept up into the comfortable and capa- of manner. This was probably a self-protective cious milieu of the Sargents’ house, Holm Lea, device, a result of her fatherlessness. She was where apparently the Professor too surrounded by her mother’s friends, a appreciated her interest in plants. Her good predominantly female society with a sprin- looks and elegance were not wasted upon Sar- kling of eminent men, including John La gent, but of course she in turn was quite used Farge, John Singer Sargent, Francis Marion to distinguished gentlemen, and would not Crawford, and later Henry James, as well as have been shy or daunted by his stem gaze and Mary’s dour and fastidious cousin, the lawyer the aloofness of his Boston soul. John Lambert Cadwalader. But of almost By the summer of 1893, the Sargents were equal influence as any person on Beatrix convinced of the seriousness of Beatrix’s (except for her mother) was the place she loved interest in landscape gardening. Beatrix and most, Mount Desert Island and Bar Harbor in her mother Mary had visited Holm Lea en particular, where she spent her summers. route from New York to Maine (this became Beatrix explored every inch of the island, she a regular habit in later years) in June when the was an expert on its trees and wildflowers, and rhododendrons were at their best. The Sar- she sailed her catboat around its rocky shores. gents may have visited them at Reef Point At her home, "Reef Point" in Bar Harbor, she (this too became a regular event in later years), learned to garden with a sympathy for the but the Professor had most certainly soils and conditions of the island. She learned instructed Beatrix to make the most of her from her parents at first, but as Mary Cad- summer, to use her eyes, to observe good land- 5 The pond at Professor Sargent’s estate, Holm Lea, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Photographed in 1900 by Thomas Marr. scape effects and plant relationships and note she finds many good planting ideas, but she them down. Her summer flew by, as happy is noticeably critical of exotics on her island holidays are wont to do, but towards the end setting, including Mrs. Dorr’s "unfortunate" of September she remembered that she weakness for magnolias. Her last holiday needed something to show her "Chief," and entries are made on the train as she leaves for bought a brand-new notebook. This was Boston to meet up with the Sargents, who had almost certainly not her first, but it was the promised to take her to the World’s Colom- only one she kept as a treasured reminder of bian Exposition in Chicago, to see the what were to be some of the most momen- wonders of the fair, but especially the triumph tous days of her young life. of Olmsted’s landscape setting. After a short rest at Holm Lea, Beatrix and the Sargents are the Observing Landscape bound for Chicago, where they arrive on The notebook begins on 10 October 1983 with October 19. her comments on the landscape around Bar For a week she wandered around the Expo- Harbor; one of her favorite haunts is the Dorr sition, investigating details of design and family’s Oldfarm at Compass Harbor, where planting, and noting them down; she was mys- 6 An aerial view of Beatrix Farrand’s home, Reef Point, m Bar Hurbur, Maine. Repnnted courtesy of the College of Environmental Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley. tified by the first Japanese bonsai that she saw, Beatrix returned to New York to continue but entranced by the mix of gardens and con- her reading, but her future was decided and trived wilderness on Olmsted’s precious must have been talked about; the following wooded island. Being at the fair under the Sar- February (1894) she and her mother were in gents’ wing taught Beatrix a great deal, but it the Sargents’ party to visit Biltmore, which also brought her into the inner circle of her caused Olmsted to remark rather grumpily chosen profession. She was no longer on the that she was "inclined to dabble in Landscape outside, but having met so many people and Architecture."6 This much-quoted slight re- heard so many conversations on the hard-won veals the depths of the difficulties Beatrix had triumph of the fair, she became one of the to overcome, and just how important Sargent’s "few" who realized, as Sargent had thundered faith in her was to her eventual success.