Quietly Moving the Earth-Women in the Garden-Beatrix Farrand, (1872-1959)
Women's History Month
The Incomparable Thuya Garden
May I share a secret with you, dear reader? Could we just keep it between us? I am not a gardener. During my teaching years, I sacrificed a long series of desk plants that led sad, short lives in wee pots between stacks of papers, coffee cups and chalk dust. When a dear friend and I started a small business in Northeast Harbor in the early oughts, the brilliance of the local gardens found me, a dividend of long, luscious summers on Mt. Desert. All those gardens are stamped with the floral splendor of Beatrix Ferrand. In fact, Beatrix was before me, prolific in her splendor. Farrand is renowned for her landscape designs at Princeton and Yale, among many other projects, including the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, ME, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, and the summer estate of Edward and Mary Harkness in Waterford, CT (now Harkness Memorial State Park) in Waterford, CT . She was the only woman among eleven founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Walking distance from our summer digs of years past, was Asticou Azalea Garden, created in 1957 by Charles K. Savage using plants purchased from Beatrix Farrand’s Reef Point upon its closing. It is a wonder during azalea season but even more dramatic in the autumn
Ferrand was a trail blazer, born into a prominent New York family in 1872, she defied the social expectations of the day, when she began a career in the very male-dominated field of landscape architecture. Largely self-taught, she studied informally under Charles Sprague Sargent, the founder of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, who helped her develop and perfect her skills in plant ecology and design. It is important to remember that every step toward equality for women has been a hard one. Every profession was locked down for the white male. Beatrix, like Harriet Stanton Blatch and Vita Sackville-West, were connected, monied, from Brahman families. These women did not have to lead the way. It was a calling, they were driven to do it.
Ferrand was the niece of author, Edith Wharton, who was herself a gardener as well as a committed philanthropist and author. Here is a wee segue that made me laugh, a quote from Edith, herself...
“I’m a better Landscape gardener than a novelist, and this place (The Mount), every line of which is my own work, far surpasses The House of Mirth.” (I love the gardens at The Mount but am rather fond of, House of Mirth. Poor Edith...she was standing up too close to her own work.)
I got to thinking about the nature of the body of Wharton's work and had to wonder how it had influenced Ferrand. She certainly wanted more than the status quo of her day with the cloying rigor of 19th century social mores. It almost feels as though she broke the glass ceiling one plant at a time.
Farrand joined the likes of England's Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson in championing the use of perennial plants in combinations based upon color harmony, bloom sequence and texture. Ultimately, this is the Holy Trinity, a symphony of color, be it a Ravel trio or a Mozart quintet and something blooming throughout the season. This was the birth of the mixed border in America that is standard in many gardens today.
The career of Beatrix Ferrand spanned more than five decades, during which she designed more than 200 landscapes across the US. One of her most notable projects is Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., where she created a series of intimate garden spaces. (More soul secrets, Dave and I have, somehow, missed a visit to Dumbarton Oaks. If we just traveled to the gardens on the Atlantic side of the country, it would take another lifetime.)
She also played a significant role in the design of the East and West Gardens at the White House rose garden, created during the tenure of Woodrow Wilson. There is not photo as the garden was ruined in the last administration.
When John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his wife, Abby, bought the half-timbered, Tudor-style mansion known as The Eyrie, in 1910, the place had just 65 rooms. Feeling cramped, (I so love this phrase.) they remodeled. The "add on," bringing the count to 100. The Rockefellers oversaw the details, making the house their own with Oriental artwork and furniture. 1000 acres surrounded the house, stretching from Seal Harbor to Jordan Pond. The house was demolished in 1960 but the gardens remain. They are a summer sanctuary, never the same on any visit, featuring exquisite Asian artifacts and garden sensibilities with a wild nod to nature and a color block garden.
The property’s magnificent gardens were created by Beatrix Farrand and Abby Rockefeller, and are still maintained for the public by MDI’s Land & Garden Preserve. Would you not want to hear their conversations about how to set this magical place?
What is Beatrix Farrand's greatest, most long lasting contribution to garden landscape? She revolutionized landscape architecture with her complex flower borders, and even more importantly, the pioneering use of sustainable practices and native plants.
How relevant in these days of climate change and the talk of native plants. Click on sustainable plants, there is a wealth of knowledge relevant to today's concerns.
Thuya Garden 2023
My favorite of the three major gardens of Mt Desert is Thuya. Like the Asticou, many of Ferrand's own flowers and trees were replanted in the Preserve. Named for the white cedar trees, Thuja occidentalis, growing around it, it is a public garden, a gift.
During those luscious long days of summer, a late afternoon wander through this paradise never fails to restore and delight. Often, we are alone as it is open into the early evening when the light plays on the ever blooming surroundings, the plants and trees that came from Beatrix Ferrand beloved Reef, through the genius of Charles Savage. It is reverential experience.
Her last home was Garland Farm set in Bar Harbor, Maine. Farrand engaged the architect Robert Patterson to design an addition between the farmhouse and the barn where she would live with Clementine Walter, her companion and caregiver. Patterson was able to reuse many architectural elements from her beloved Reef Point, such as the French doors, floorboards, windows, moldings, railings, light fixtures, and hardware. The floor plan consisted of two main sitting rooms with bathrooms, a study, entrance hall, kitchen, and storage rooms. The two suites and the study faced a new terrace garden, with French doors opening out into two separate garden spaces, one for Beatrix and one for Clementine. A delightful aspect of her last gardens is her design for Clementine's preference for hot color and Beatrix's for cool white and blue garden shades. The house was designed so that each woman could walk out, through French doors to their own preferred space and color preference. How utterly sublime, how feminine in nature!
I close with the most charming interview with Harriet Pattison, the beloved aunt of a dear friend of mine. There will be more about Ms. Pattison this month and her professional life as a landscape architect.
The overarching influence of women in the garden and how they press on for change goes beyond their professional contribution. Many of these women were and are socially and politically committed. Their range of interests are vast. Their gardens become a palette of retreat, a sanctuary for themselves and others but also a platform for other goals. For me, gardening has become a departure, a way to disengage and be completely absorbed in another space. It is a transporting experience, an opportunity to step outside of the daily frontier and look at it all from a distance. In this, it becomes it own Eden.
Just beautiful, Mary, and thoughtful too. Like Priscilla, I'm looking forward to a summer visit to MDI and these gardens.
Beautiful stories about the lasting contributions of Beatrix Farrand. I love this series you are doing for Women's History Month.