Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Studio A Here at Proven Winners, Color Choice Shrubs.
Speaker 1: It's The Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me Rick Weist,
Speaker 1: and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, happy birthday
Speaker 1: America two hundred and fifty years and what a great
Speaker 1: way to celebrate by maybe going to a great American garden.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great way to celebrate.
Speaker 2: You know, I think so too, And that's why we're
Speaker 2: ripping up the script from the normal Gardening Simplified Show
Speaker 2: and we are going to devote two episodes to sharing
Speaker 2: with you the various gardens around the country that have
Speaker 2: shaped America and that are worth your time to visit,
Speaker 2: because you know, I think that a lot of people, now,
Speaker 2: of course not our audience, because they're gardeners, they don't
Speaker 2: really think about visiting gardens. Now, if they go to Europe,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, I must go to this garden that garden.
Speaker 2: Europe is a place for gardens. But for a lot
Speaker 2: of people, I just don't think that visiting gardens, especially
Speaker 2: if it's like a destination they're on vacation, I don't
Speaker 2: think it enters the realm of possibility. For a lot
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you you know, when you talk about that, Stacey,
Speaker 1: you think about Europe and you have the antiquity and
Speaker 1: the ruins and all of that type of thing. America,
Speaker 1: United States, the colonies. It was a new world and
Speaker 1: we had to find a new way of gardening new plants, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and John Bartram was very instrumental in that with his
Speaker 1: Bartram Boxes and sending those plants off to Europe and
Speaker 1: really creating this this knowledge and understanding of what we
Speaker 1: had at our disposal here in the new Colonies.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely true, And so I do want to say
Speaker 2: we're going to go around and share some of Now.
Speaker 2: Of course we can't do all the gardens we're going
Speaker 2: to get Mayle imagine, but we do want to hear
Speaker 2: from you. So if there is a garden that we skip,
Speaker 2: it's not that it's not important. This is just a
Speaker 2: little sampler, but please do leave us a comment on YouTube.
Speaker 2: And we really tried to pick gardens that I think
Speaker 2: tell a story. So of course there's so many wonderful
Speaker 2: gardens that aren't going to make it into these episodes
Speaker 2: because it is going to be two parts. But it's
Speaker 2: really about the story, and so that's why we're going
Speaker 2: to start with Bartramp's Garden. Okay, right, yes, So Bartromp's
Speaker 2: Garden is in Philadelphia, and it is the natural place
Speaker 2: to start for this celebration of American gardens because it
Speaker 2: is the oldest surviving botanic garden in North America. It
Speaker 2: was founded in seventeen twenty eight, and it is absolutely
Speaker 2: amazing that this garden is still surviving. The original house
Speaker 2: is there, The original greenhouse is there, of course, not
Speaker 2: the glass that it's been replaced, and so many of
Speaker 2: the original plants. Now you were talking a bit about
Speaker 2: John Bartram definitely one of the founding gardeners. He was
Speaker 2: a plant explorer and botanist in his own right. So
Speaker 2: as you said, he sent a lot of plants back
Speaker 2: to Europe and they sent plants to him and kind
Speaker 2: of helped to facilitate the movement of plants between all
Speaker 2: of these different countries. The greenhouse there dates back to
Speaker 2: seventeen sixteen. Now I have not been here. Have you
Speaker 2: been there?
Speaker 3: I have been there?
Speaker 2: So is it amazing? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean it's really really cool.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what I did, I have to admit,
Speaker 1: you know, it's in the Philadelphia area, right, And what
Speaker 1: I did was after I visited, then I went to
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and of course had to
Speaker 1: run the steps back they Balboa.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing about John Bartram is that I
Speaker 1: view him as a plant collector, a person who was
Speaker 1: interested in collecting, identifying new plants, and then sharing them.
Speaker 1: So the garden isn't necessary something where you go, wow,
Speaker 1: what unbelievable design or architecture or whatever. You have to
Speaker 1: understand the basis, and that is he was a plant collector.
Speaker 2: And such an important plant collector too. So one of
Speaker 2: the plants that I think for those of us in
Speaker 2: the know who maybe know a little too much about
Speaker 2: horticulture for our own good, is that one of the
Speaker 2: most important specimens, probably the most important specimen that you
Speaker 2: will see at Bartram's garden is franklinea alta maha, which
Speaker 2: is named after Ben Franklin. It's Bartram himself named it
Speaker 2: after Ben Franklin in honor of Ben Franklin. They were
Speaker 2: good friends, and franklinea al to maha is a plant
Speaker 2: that they found growing on the banks of the Alta
Speaker 2: Maha River in Georgia. They found it in seventeen seventy three.
Speaker 2: They said, hey, this is a pretty cool plant. It's
Speaker 2: a big tree, it has white flowers. It's in the
Speaker 2: Camellia family, the tea family, one of very few plants
Speaker 2: native to North America that is in that family. They
Speaker 2: collected seed, brought it back to Bartram's garden, sewed it.
Speaker 2: That original tree is still in the garden today, despite
Speaker 2: the fact that Franklinea, the species has not been recorded
Speaker 2: in the wild since eighteen oh three. So unknowingly, John
Speaker 2: Bartram and his son, who traveled together extensively, actually say
Speaker 2: the only reason that we know this plant exists is
Speaker 2: because Bartrum and his son collected it and saved it.
Speaker 2: And every Franklinia. No, this isn't really a rare plant.
Speaker 2: It's somewhat easy to find if you are devoted to
Speaker 2: looking for these types of things. Every single Franklinea around
Speaker 2: is descended from the tree that Bartram saved.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine these founding fathers sitting around and talking
Speaker 1: about plants.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's amazing. Yeah, getting a dark tavern and yeah,
Speaker 2: sat talk and.
Speaker 1: Plants just unbelievable. I wanted to give a quick editorial comment,
Speaker 1: like you said, we're we're tearing up the script here.
Speaker 1: The Danish people have a word that I think is
Speaker 1: really cool. It's called free heads angst, and free heads
Speaker 1: angst essentially means anxiety over being free.
Speaker 3: Freedom.
Speaker 1: In other words, if you were to walk into a
Speaker 1: garden center and there's plants everywhere, you can get overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: And when you get overwhelmed, then paralysis sets in, right,
Speaker 1: And so they have that great word. And my feeling
Speaker 1: is that if you have felt that before, that paralysis
Speaker 1: so many plants, I don't know, I'm overwhelmed, go to
Speaker 1: a public garden or an arboretum, because what's going to
Speaker 1: happen is you're going to fall in love with certain
Speaker 1: plants and it's going to.
Speaker 3: Stick with you the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: So I remember going to Longwood Gardens and just absolutely
Speaker 1: falling in love with Verbina benariensis and how it swayed
Speaker 1: in the world, and how great it would look with
Speaker 1: my ornamental grasses, or going to the Pacific Northwest and
Speaker 1: falling in love with conifers, Japanese maples, all of that
Speaker 1: type of thing. So I tend to refer to these
Speaker 1: founding fathers as the grounding Fathers. Now, has anybody ever
Speaker 1: written a book or calling them the grounding fathers, because
Speaker 1: I want to coin that phrase.
Speaker 2: Not grounding. Now there is a wonderful book called Founding
Speaker 2: Gardeners Andrea Wolf. It talks about them all. Yes, fantastic book.
Speaker 2: So we are going to move on to Longwood. We're
Speaker 2: going to try to move reasonably quick, but for me
Speaker 2: that's quite impossible. But we're saying in a geographical region.
Speaker 2: This is not in order of importance, although I'd say
Speaker 2: Bartram's Garden has our oldest botanical garden in North America
Speaker 2: is very important. One last thing on Bartram's Garden, the
Speaker 2: oldest and first ginko in North America is in Bartram's Garden.
Speaker 2: You can still see it to this day. It was
Speaker 2: planted in seventeen eighty five.
Speaker 1: Ginko trees showing our YouTube viewers here one of my
Speaker 1: favorite mug.
Speaker 2: Now, I get this one at the which is coming up.
Speaker 2: If we get to it this episode, it might not
Speaker 2: come in until I might not come until next episode,
Speaker 2: but definitely so. Since we're staying in the Philadelphia area,
Speaker 2: which really is just a treasure trove of public horticulture
Speaker 2: and I think you're going to see that as we
Speaker 2: kind of move all over the East Coast and then
Speaker 2: down just all of the East Coast. There was just
Speaker 2: so much money and so much commitment to horticulture there
Speaker 2: that remains to this day. And it's really one of
Speaker 2: the things that I miss the most from living out
Speaker 2: there is you were just spoiled for choice for public
Speaker 2: gardens that you could go to. But Longwood, of course,
Speaker 2: everyone thinks of Longwood, they think of the fountains, They
Speaker 2: think of this as a new garden, and Longwood has
Speaker 2: done an incredible job of keeping them themselves, their research,
Speaker 2: the gardens that they create relevant and up to date
Speaker 2: and contemporary. But it was actually originally founded as a
Speaker 2: Quaker arboretum in seventeen ninety eight.
Speaker 3: Yes, very much so.
Speaker 2: Our Venerable Longwood Gardens goes way way back. And the
Speaker 2: famous Pierre DuPont of the DuPont family, which has a
Speaker 2: number of public and private gardens still through the East Coast,
Speaker 2: transformed it into his private estate in nineteen oh six.
Speaker 2: And that's he's the one who put in the fountains. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so the same fountains that you see today, which you
Speaker 2: think are something that a public garden put on in
Speaker 2: this big, grand scale. Was actually just a really rich
Speaker 2: guy who said, I want to fancy italianate fountain.
Speaker 1: The fountains are great, and they'll run them at night.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that, and I remember, embarrassingly, so I
Speaker 1: tried to take a short cut through the garden because
Speaker 1: it was late for the fountain show, and I ended
Speaker 1: up in one of the fountains he did. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: came on and I got wet, and that was embarrassing.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: Anyhow, Now, the other.
Speaker 1: Cool thing about Longwood Gardens, it's right near Kennett Square,
Speaker 1: in Kennett Square, and Kennett Square is considered the mushroom
Speaker 1: capital of the United States. Yes, Adriana, you need Todd
Speaker 1: the mushrooms cultivated mushroom, and they have this huge mushroom
Speaker 1: festival in I think it's September.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's where all almost every mushroom that you like,
Speaker 2: regular brown mushrooms that you're getting in the US, grown
Speaker 2: right there at Longwood. Now, of course we could continue,
Speaker 2: we're already gonna have to take a little break, so
Speaker 2: at this rate it's gonna be a multi part series.
Speaker 2: But in any case, we're gonna take a break. We're
Speaker 2: gonna catch our breath, and we're gonna continue with this
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Speaker 2: and welcome back to our tour of American gardens and
Speaker 2: their stories. If you are traveling this summer, or if
Speaker 2: you're not and you want to make plans to, I
Speaker 2: hope you will consider these gardens. You know, like you
Speaker 2: said Rick, with Bartram's Garden, it's not the kind of
Speaker 2: place that you go and go, oh my gosh, it's
Speaker 2: just so breathtaking. You kind of have to know the
Speaker 2: story and understand the significance of it. And that's what
Speaker 2: we're trying to tell is there's lots of these gardens
Speaker 2: that you could go to and say, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: this is gorgeous, but it's really about the story and
Speaker 2: the people who made them. Because it's next garden, which
Speaker 2: is one of my absolute favorite gardens in the world
Speaker 2: and certainly in the US, is Chanticleer Garden. And Chanticlear
Speaker 2: Garden is a private so it's open to the public,
Speaker 2: but it's privately owned and it's an old manor house
Speaker 2: that was built by Adolph Rosengarden, who was a chemist
Speaker 2: and one of the founders of Merk Chemicals, so obviously
Speaker 2: had lots of money. And I loved back in these
Speaker 2: days in the eighteen hundreds and the early nineteen hundreds
Speaker 2: that all of these wealthy people were putting their money
Speaker 2: into building gardens. And then when they got too old
Speaker 2: or they were on their way out, they didn't just say, okay,
Speaker 2: well just you know, bulldoze my house and turn it
Speaker 2: into a subdivision. They endowed these gardens to remain public
Speaker 2: and you know, open to people to enjoy for in perpetuity.
Speaker 3: It's a great point, Stacey.
Speaker 1: You look at people like Wrigley or the Morton family, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's what.
Speaker 2: Happened, Yes, exactly. So that's why there's so many of these,
Speaker 2: I think on the East Coast. But Chanticleer is what
Speaker 2: makes Chanticleer really special to me and very unique as
Speaker 2: an American garden is their tagline is Chanticlear a pleasure garden,
Speaker 2: And one might easily say that all gardens are pleasure gardens.
Speaker 2: There are certainly pleasant places to be, but what makes
Speaker 2: Chanticleer so unique is that unlike a botanical garden, which
Speaker 2: is about the collections and having, you know, a representation
Speaker 2: of a specific genus or a plant family or something
Speaker 2: like that, Chanticleer has incredible collections, but they instead simply
Speaker 2: put the focus on enjoying the beauty of their gardens.
Speaker 2: So as you're walking through these incredible gardens, there's not
Speaker 2: labels everywhere tags blowing in the wind and clanking around.
Speaker 2: Each garden area has a little guide to it that
Speaker 2: you can look and as we had Lisa Roper, who's
Speaker 2: one of the horticulturists at Chanticleer on the show last
Speaker 2: summer on Our Folly's Show, she was amazing and she
Speaker 2: talked about how the gardener for each garden designs their
Speaker 2: own box to house these kind of guides that are
Speaker 2: very sort of blended in with the scenery. Chanticleer is
Speaker 2: a garden that I think really flies under the radar
Speaker 2: for people who are in the Philadelphia area because they
Speaker 2: think Longwood, and Longwood is absolutely worth a visit, but
Speaker 2: for me, I will take Chanta Clear any day. It's
Speaker 2: truly unique, it's truly special. The people the gardeners are
Speaker 2: I am in awe of their talent and vision, and
Speaker 2: it's definitely one of my top picks for all of
Speaker 2: the gardens in the US. But even though there are many,
Speaker 2: many more public gardens in Philadelphia, we could continue with
Speaker 2: We're going to move up to New York City, where
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people might be surprised to
Speaker 2: find that there are also incredible public gardens.
Speaker 3: They're great gardens all.
Speaker 2: Around the city, out on Long Island, all through Westchester County,
Speaker 2: which is the county just above New York City, and
Speaker 2: so definitely one of my second favorite, close second to Chanticleer.
Speaker 2: Of my favorite gardens in the eastern half of North
Speaker 2: America is Wave Hill. You've never been to Wave Hill?
Speaker 2: Right A Wave have been up.
Speaker 1: I've been to Wave Hill, and if you're into layering
Speaker 1: and terracing, I think it's a great garden to visit.
Speaker 1: I went to Yankee Stadium and then it's just north
Speaker 1: of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx to visit. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: strongly encourage you.
Speaker 2: Yes, So you can't really get to it on the subway.
Speaker 2: You can take the train, you can take a cab.
Speaker 2: So Wavehill is as as Rick said in Riverdale in
Speaker 2: the Bronx. And I will never ever forget the first
Speaker 2: time that I went to Wave Hill and we I
Speaker 2: was just talking to a friend, just chit chatting, and
Speaker 2: we walked out of the parking lot and we walked
Speaker 2: into the gard and as soon as you get into
Speaker 2: the garden, this incredible view of the palisades of the
Speaker 2: Hudson River opens up and it is simply breathtaking. Now, Wavehill,
Speaker 2: the property has been owned by a number of different people,
Speaker 2: but really the person who transformed it sort of into
Speaker 2: what it is today is Henry Appleton. He bought the
Speaker 2: property in eighteen sixty six. He was the American publisher
Speaker 2: for Charles Darwin's works Wow. He was, yeah, a literary figurehead,
Speaker 2: and he hosted a number of literary giants. Mark Twain
Speaker 2: is known to have visited the house there. At Wave
Speaker 2: Hill it became a public garden under the direction of
Speaker 2: George Perkins, who was a vice president at JP Morgan.
Speaker 2: So again, really we got these rich guys who are
Speaker 2: using their money for horticulture. We could use a lot
Speaker 2: more of that these days, if any rich guys are listening.
Speaker 2: And so then it opened as a public garden in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven, and it's just it is, i'd say,
Speaker 2: sort of a hybrid between a botanic garden that's really
Speaker 2: about the collections and this genus, the genera that they have,
Speaker 2: as well as just the visual impact of being there,
Speaker 2: and there's so many rare and unique plants and just
Speaker 2: it's a lovely place to spend the afternoon. And you
Speaker 2: know what I really love about it too, it's digestible. Yes,
Speaker 2: Longwood is not totally digestible. It's so massive, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of by the end of the day, Longwood, you're
Speaker 2: just like, you know.
Speaker 1: There are many rests, Yeah, many botanic gardens that you
Speaker 1: have to go to. Two important elements comfortable shoes and sunscreen.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, definitely.
Speaker 1: And also I agree with water and water and I
Speaker 1: agree with you Stacy that for a number of people
Speaker 1: who have not visited, New York is a great place
Speaker 1: for botanical gardens.
Speaker 3: I mean you mentioned Wave Hill.
Speaker 1: The New York Botanical gardens are in close proximity too.
Speaker 2: Very close, yep.
Speaker 1: Or you can go on the island all the way
Speaker 1: to the southern tip in Manhattan and the battery.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Beautiful, yes, and historically very important exactly. And of course,
Speaker 2: even though it is a park, one of the most
Speaker 2: important American landscapes of all Central Park.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Now, I am fortunate enough to have spent three years
Speaker 2: working in Central Park at Tavern on the Green restaurant,
Speaker 2: the former Tavern on the Green restaurant, and it is
Speaker 2: an extraordinary place. And I think what's really significant about
Speaker 2: Central Park is easily lost on people because you go
Speaker 2: there now and it's a beautiful, mature landscape with you know,
Speaker 2: huge trees and everything's established and wonderful. But it really
Speaker 2: was so revolutionary at the time because Central Park was
Speaker 2: founded in the eighteen seventies and Frederick law Olmsted famously
Speaker 2: was commissioned to lay it out. So up until that time,
Speaker 2: if someone was commissioned to build a park or a garden,
Speaker 2: it was like bring in the heavy machinery such that
Speaker 2: it was in the eighteen seventies and level it. You know,
Speaker 2: let's get a flat surface and then we're going to
Speaker 2: make a garden. Central Park is really one of the
Speaker 2: very first landscapes in America that they said, Hey, let's
Speaker 2: work with what we have here. Let's work with the
Speaker 2: low spots, let's work with the rock out croppings and
Speaker 2: make a naturalistic landscape. And that seems so obvious to
Speaker 2: us now, but at the time it was truly revolutionary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know that from personal experience, stacy, because
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of running in that park.
Speaker 2: Oh and it's a great place. Yeah. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: the other cool thing about Central Park that a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't realize. It was also very revolutionary about
Speaker 2: its designs. Is Frederick law Olmstad sunk the roadways, so
Speaker 2: he knew that carriages and eventually cars would have to
Speaker 2: pass through the park. But rather than have roads cutting
Speaker 2: through the park and interrupting your ability to run or
Speaker 2: walk or enjoy it, the roads actually go underneath the park,
Speaker 2: not as tunnels per se. There are some tunnels, so
Speaker 2: you never have that disruption of being in the park
Speaker 2: or having to cross the street. Well they're actually now
Speaker 2: you do sometimes, but they close it on the weekends
Speaker 2: at least, so that makes it really special. And it
Speaker 2: does have some formal gardens. The Conservatory Garden in Central
Speaker 2: Park is way way up in the upper east side
Speaker 2: in the one hundreds, so a lot of people don't
Speaker 2: go up there, but it is a lovely formal garden. And then,
Speaker 2: of course there's a Shakespeare Garden, which I think is
Speaker 2: famous to the point of notorious for being the introduction
Speaker 2: point of the European starling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my word, yeah, I'll just leave it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know we could go on about that, but.
Speaker 3: We're great stories about that.
Speaker 2: There are one. Eugene Chieflin introduced sixty birds in eighteen nineties.
Speaker 2: Mistake in sixty starlings he introduced. I guess he didn't
Speaker 2: think he did a good enough job, because the next
Speaker 2: year he introduced forty more and from those one hundred starlings,
Speaker 2: we now have starlings everywhere.
Speaker 1: So and farmers nationwide thank him exactly.
Speaker 2: So so much interesting history there in Central Park that
Speaker 2: I think again is very easy to forget when you're
Speaker 2: strolling those beautiful lays and pathways, and there's just so
Speaker 2: much to see and explore in Central So if you
Speaker 2: are going to Central Park, New York City this year,
Speaker 2: don't limit yourself to the big, splashy things that everybody
Speaker 2: does make sure you spend some time to explore the
Speaker 2: whole park now briefly before we take yet another break.
Speaker 2: These times are going so fast, like the fastest ten
Speaker 2: minutes ever. I want to talk quickly about Utermeyer Gardens
Speaker 2: because this is a very interesting sort of American rebirth
Speaker 2: success story. So these gardens were started back in the
Speaker 2: late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds by Samuel earned Untermeyer,
Speaker 2: who was a lawyer. He was actually the first attorney
Speaker 2: to win a million dollar case, the first time to
Speaker 2: ever have a million dollars involved in a lawsuit. So
Speaker 2: he obviously was a very wealthy man.
Speaker 3: Did he have a billboard? Forget it? Keep going?
Speaker 2: So the great thing about him, in addition to being
Speaker 2: a wonderful, obviously successful lawyer, he was extremely passionate about
Speaker 2: horticulture and he built a garden for himself and his
Speaker 2: family beautiful, which was absolutely beautiful, and he was just
Speaker 2: complete his goal. His stated goal when he started building
Speaker 2: the garden was that it would be the finest in America,
Speaker 2: and it probably was and over time. This is in Yonkers,
Speaker 2: New York, so just kind of north of Wave Hill.
Speaker 2: You probably need a car if you're coming from the city.
Speaker 2: But you can probably take an uber. It fell into
Speaker 2: complete disrepair. I mean, the whole park despite all of
Speaker 2: these amazing structures, and everything that remained got overgrown, got
Speaker 2: covered in graffiti, and it could have been left to
Speaker 2: rod and to really be plowed under and developed into
Speaker 2: something else. But some really visionary horticulturists got together. They
Speaker 2: have restored it according to Unjamayer's original vision, preserving a
Speaker 2: lot of what has happened on the way. And it
Speaker 2: is just a really interesting story of again rebirth and
Speaker 2: success after a period of hardship. And you know that's
Speaker 2: a pretty American concept.
Speaker 1: And the beauty of this, Stacey is that many of
Speaker 1: these are in close proximity to each other. Yes, like
Speaker 1: I mentioned Yankee Stadium, then going to Wave Hill, this Garden,
Speaker 1: New York Botanic Garden.
Speaker 3: So now you can get your film.
Speaker 2: You can make quite a day of it. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: all right, we're gonna take a little break when we
Speaker 2: come back. We've got a whole lot more about American
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Speaker 2: at your local garden center or learn more at Proven
Speaker 2: Winners color choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome
Speaker 2: back to our tour of American gardens that we hope
Speaker 2: you will visit. Many of these We've been to a
Speaker 2: couple of them. I haven't been to yet, but you know,
Speaker 2: I think you and I always prioritize visiting gardens when we.
Speaker 1: Travel, absolutely and when you're on the East Coast. Unbelievable
Speaker 1: the gardens that are available. And as I mentioned in
Speaker 1: segment one, my grounding fathers just have this image in
Speaker 1: my mind of you know, Thomas Jefferson and how much
Speaker 1: he loved gardening, George Washington at Mount Vernon, and you
Speaker 1: have James Monroe many people say he was the first
Speaker 1: environmentalist in our country. And then John Adams, kind of cranky,
Speaker 1: short guy, and I picture him working out in the garden,
Speaker 1: taking it out on his garden. You know, did he
Speaker 1: have a Oh yeah, John Adams loved gardening and he yeah.
Speaker 1: I think he took out some of his frustrations on
Speaker 1: his garden.
Speaker 3: That's my opinion.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that I think, you know, we talk about
Speaker 2: Bartram's Garden, how Bartram's Garden, being the first botanical garden
Speaker 2: in the US, has managed to exist all this time.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of these gardens, of course, Monticello
Speaker 2: and mont Vernon and all of those biggest states. They've
Speaker 2: stuck around because they were massive, and of course those
Speaker 2: are massive men with you know, massive legends with them.
Speaker 2: But a lot of this, you know, I don't I
Speaker 2: don't know that John Adams of Garden is still available
Speaker 2: to visit that it were. It's just my mind. So
Speaker 2: if you go to Boston, of course, I think the cemeteries,
Speaker 2: the Boston Common so many wonderful things to see.
Speaker 3: In Boston cees.
Speaker 2: I love the cemeteries in Boston.
Speaker 3: Love it.
Speaker 2: Not as full of plants as like some of the
Speaker 2: garden cemeteries like of course Greenwood in Brooklyn and all
Speaker 2: of the other wonderful garden cemeteries which you'll find throughout
Speaker 2: the East coast. But our centerpiece in the Boston area
Speaker 2: is the one, the only Arnold Arboretum. Yes, and I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people don't know that the Arnold
Speaker 2: Arboretum is the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't realize that it is Harvard's
Speaker 2: actual arboretum associated with the university. So some very fine
Speaker 2: pedigree there. Established eighteen seventy two, So of course Harvard
Speaker 2: was established far before that. But one of the reasons
Speaker 2: that it was established was because Frederick law Olmsted. So
Speaker 2: going back to Central Park, and Frederick Law Olmsted just
Speaker 2: had this massive, massive impact on American gardens. And this
Speaker 2: is not even the second or the last of the
Speaker 2: Frederick Law Olmsted gardens you're going to be hearing about
Speaker 2: in this series of North American gardens. This guy, once
Speaker 2: he made his fortune on Central Park, everybody wanted a
Speaker 2: piece of Frederick Law Olmsteed, and so he designed what
Speaker 2: is known as the Emerald Necklace network of parks around Boston.
Speaker 2: So the idea was that you could kind of go
Speaker 2: all around Boston without leaving parks. So that's the Emerald
Speaker 2: Necklace that it was this kind of arc of base
Speaker 2: Jamaica plane, yes, Jamaica plane, technically not Boston. And so
Speaker 2: he laid it out. And when I was looking at
Speaker 2: the Arnold Arboretam website putting together my notes for this,
Speaker 2: they say at the bottom of their website their quote,
Speaker 2: we are committed to the old, steady and principle that
Speaker 2: everyone is entitled to open space. And I think that's
Speaker 2: just so powerful that there was this time, you know,
Speaker 2: and certainly in Europe and here in the early days,
Speaker 2: where this notion of having an open space, a green
Speaker 2: space that you could go to was really for the elite,
Speaker 2: if you had the money to have enough space to
Speaker 2: do that. And so what Olmstead did with Central Park
Speaker 2: and with the Emerald Necklace and a lot of the
Speaker 2: other gardens that we're talking about was democratize the outdoors
Speaker 2: and create a place where you could just go just
Speaker 2: to be. And that's again, that's such a familiar concept
Speaker 2: to us now, but at the time it was really revolutionary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you go now, I'll repeat it again
Speaker 1: because I'm glad that I did comfortable shoes because just
Speaker 1: like Central Park, you're going to be walking, but you're
Speaker 1: going to want to walk because the number of incredible
Speaker 1: trees that are there, and many of them have like
Speaker 1: a copper type tag affixed to them with a lot
Speaker 1: of great information on it. Stacey at Arnold Arboretum the
Speaker 1: Meta squoias. But the tree that really caught my eye
Speaker 1: and I think they have the oldest ones in the
Speaker 1: US there paper bark maple.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, they're huge, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I love darn It is truly an extraordinary place, and
Speaker 2: so they have on the website. We'll put a link
Speaker 2: on the YouTube version here, the Explorer's Garden Tour. You
Speaker 2: can kind of do a really cool virtual tour at
Speaker 2: that link. It tells you how to read the what's
Speaker 2: known as the accession labels, which is the copper labels
Speaker 2: Rick was just talking about. And what's so cool about
Speaker 2: that is you can look at the year that things
Speaker 2: were planted and really start to understand, you know, how
Speaker 2: old and venerable some of these specimens are. As you said, Rick,
Speaker 2: it is the place where Meta Sequoia, also known as
Speaker 2: don redwood, when it was finally read discovered in China
Speaker 2: in the nineteen forties. The Arnold Arboretum was the first
Speaker 2: place to get that and was really instrumental in, you know,
Speaker 2: disseminating this beautiful deciduous conifer that was only known through
Speaker 2: the fossil records until the nineteen forties and is now
Speaker 2: like a relatively common garden plant. They're massive, They're beautiful
Speaker 2: tea and.
Speaker 1: The bald cypress massive. The gang CooA trees. Wow, I
Speaker 1: don't know, just gives me goosebumps.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 2: You were talking about good shoes for the Arnold Arboretam.
Speaker 2: I will give you another good reason why you need
Speaker 2: good shoes. I was there on a photo shoot in
Speaker 2: my previous job in the spring, okay, and I have
Speaker 2: never seen so many snakes in my entire life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there were low pond, so many snakes. So if you're
Speaker 2: going off the path and bushwacking at the Arnold Arboretum,
Speaker 2: you have been forewarned. So speaking of arboreta, because arboreta
Speaker 2: is the plural of arboretum. Arboretum is just one the
Speaker 2: National Arboretum. Yes, I've never been.
Speaker 1: Have you been there?
Speaker 2: Okay? What's what's cool?
Speaker 1: I think what's really cool are the columns there that
Speaker 1: they removed from the capital. They they put the dome
Speaker 1: on the Capitol and discovered architecturally that the dome was
Speaker 1: too large, and so they had to remove them. I
Speaker 1: don't know when that was, in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was relatively I mean relatively relatively way back
Speaker 2: in the day.
Speaker 1: And they took the columns from the old Capital and
Speaker 1: put them there in the Arboretum.
Speaker 2: And that is kind of the iconic shot, Like if
Speaker 2: you google the National ear if you search for the
Speaker 2: National Arboretum, that is the shot that you're going to
Speaker 2: see is is the old columns. Well, it was founded
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty seven. It was the first museum in
Speaker 2: the world dedicated to Bone sie That blew me.
Speaker 3: Away when I went there.
Speaker 1: The Bones Eye collection unreal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't really think that the US
Speaker 2: National Arboretum would be devoted to a Japanese art, but
Speaker 2: it is. So if you are a fan of bone Sye,
Speaker 2: that is reason enough to go to the National Arboretum
Speaker 2: and see their incredible collection. But the National Arboretum, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of times when we're talking about these things,
Speaker 2: it's kind of easy maybe to fall into the belief
Speaker 2: that these places aren't necessarily relevant to your life as
Speaker 2: a gardener. Now but the US National Arboretum has introduced
Speaker 2: a number of important plants that have become standards in
Speaker 2: the garden. Nico Dutsia munchkin and ruby slippers oak leaf
Speaker 2: Hydrangea definitely two standards. This one's just for you, Urick
Speaker 2: morning light miss Canthus.
Speaker 3: There you go, ding dinging green.
Speaker 2: Giant arborvidy certainly one of the most ubiquitous plants. And
Speaker 2: speaking of ubiquity, National Arboretum did introduce Bradford pair, but
Speaker 2: we will try not to hold that against them.
Speaker 1: Wow, Now when they collect it's amazing. When they collect
Speaker 1: seeds and like cuttings off plants and that type of thing,
Speaker 1: they call that an herbarium, right, is that what erbarium is?
Speaker 2: Yes, So for dried.
Speaker 1: Dried specimens, I guess they've gotten amazing.
Speaker 2: Yes, And you know an urbarium is. We don't talk
Speaker 2: a lot about herbaria. We probably should have. We should
Speaker 2: have a herbarium show or at least have a guest
Speaker 2: from a herbarium curator, because they are super important and
Speaker 2: understanding how plants have changed, you know, due to climate
Speaker 2: and other factors. So, while we're still in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: I did want to mention a private garden that is
Speaker 2: open to the public, and that is Dumbarton Oaks. You've
Speaker 2: never been that. I've never been there either. I have
Speaker 2: spent very little time in the DC area, but it
Speaker 2: seems very interesting. So this is a garden of Mildred
Speaker 2: and Robert woods Bliss. So he was a diplomat, traveled
Speaker 2: all over the world, and when it came time for
Speaker 2: him to make his home, of course, he settled in
Speaker 2: DC in the Georgetown area. But what makes Dumbarton Oaks
Speaker 2: so important is it is designed by Beatrix Farrand, who
Speaker 2: was the first female landscape architect in North America. And
Speaker 2: by giving Beatrix Rand the chance designed this garden, and
Speaker 2: it is a beautiful, iconic garden. If you look at
Speaker 2: pictures of it, you will definitely recognize it from various
Speaker 2: photos and things that you've seen over the year. Her
Speaker 2: Wisteria Terrace is probably the most famous area of the garden.
Speaker 2: But by giving this opportunity to be a Trix for
Speaker 2: Rand to design this garden and invite people over and
Speaker 2: help her name to get out there in Washington, d C. Society,
Speaker 2: she actually committed to only hiring female landscape architects herself
Speaker 2: because those same female aspiring landscape architects could not get
Speaker 2: work in male owned landscape architecture first. So she really
Speaker 2: established this opportunity for women to enter the field of
Speaker 2: landscape architecture and landscape designed. And she designed a number
Speaker 2: of beautiful gardens throughout the US the East Coast, especially
Speaker 2: over in Boston in that area. But Dunbarton Oaks is
Speaker 2: by far her most famous garden. And if you are
Speaker 2: able to visit when the mysteria's in bloom and you
Speaker 2: can see her gorgeous wisteria terrace at peak, while you
Speaker 2: would consider yourself lucky.
Speaker 1: Indeed, can I put a foot note on this segment
Speaker 1: of course, Arnold derba Ridam. If you go there, just
Speaker 1: up the road, there's a cemetery. I think it's called
Speaker 1: Forest Hills. Yeah, take a walk through there too.
Speaker 2: Oh you never have to twist my armc cempuary. Wow,
Speaker 2: so much to see. We're gonna take a little break
Speaker 2: when we come back. We're gonna have to wind up
Speaker 2: this episode, but I think we're gunning in for a
Speaker 2: part three of American Gardens. We'll see where we end up.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified podcast brought to
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Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show.
Speaker 1: And this is obviously a topic that we could talk
Speaker 1: about before days.
Speaker 2: Yes, many many episodes.
Speaker 3: How about Monticello.
Speaker 1: I loved my time at Monticello and Stacy the thing
Speaker 1: that I walked away with. First of all, again going
Speaker 1: back to comments I've made during this program, the founding fathers,
Speaker 1: or as I call them, the grounding Fathers, they were
Speaker 1: really interested in developing in agrarian type society, people who
Speaker 1: had their hands in the dirt, people who were interested
Speaker 1: in plants, and of course Thomas Jefferson had a huge
Speaker 1: fascination with plants. I've mentioned oftentimes on the show, the
Speaker 1: hyacinth bean. Thomas Jefferson loved the hyacinth bean. That's where
Speaker 1: I developed my interest in it. And in the time
Speaker 1: that I spent at Monticello Garden, it really caused me
Speaker 1: to fall in love again with a vegetable garden and
Speaker 1: that terraced garden at Monticello and how they lay that
Speaker 1: thing out, and how it has a little folly right
Speaker 1: in the center of it where you know, a viewing point,
Speaker 1: and I can picture Jefferson's stand there.
Speaker 3: Boy. That really did it for me.
Speaker 1: And then if you think about the fact that Jefferson's
Speaker 1: the one who many people thought it was foolish at
Speaker 1: the time made the Louisiana purchase more land, more land
Speaker 1: for plants, more land to garden. Amazing And for our
Speaker 1: YouTube viewers, one of my favorite coffee mugs is this
Speaker 1: one right here Thomas Jefferson. It says devoted to the garden.
Speaker 1: It was inspiration on me.
Speaker 2: Now I have never been, I would truly love to go,
Speaker 2: because the vegetable garden at Monticello does seem like my
Speaker 2: dream vegetable garden. Yeah, one thousand feet long and divided
Speaker 2: into twenty four sections, grouped by which part of the
Speaker 2: plant you harvest, which makes perfect sense if you have
Speaker 2: the luxury of that space, because that way, if you
Speaker 2: need to dig your garlic and your potatoes and so forth,
Speaker 2: then you're not you know, disrupting your nearby beans and tomatoes,
Speaker 2: which if you have a little time, I any vegetable
Speaker 2: gardens you can't divide into twenty four sections can sometimes
Speaker 2: be a problem. So it really I think shows you know,
Speaker 2: the vision that he had for you know, once he
Speaker 2: had an opportunity to lay this out. And Jefferson inherited
Speaker 2: the land from Monticello in seventeen fifty seven. He moved
Speaker 2: in in seventeen seventy. The first documentation of ornamental planning
Speaker 2: was eighteen oh seven. His vegetable garden was begun in
Speaker 2: seventeen seventy, so his vegetable garden is older than the
Speaker 2: country itself.
Speaker 1: And as it relates to the vegetable garden, it's interesting
Speaker 1: that Jefferson and his neighbors there had an annual competition
Speaker 1: in spring who could bring the first.
Speaker 3: Pee to the table.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that.
Speaker 1: It was a big competition. Fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2: And you know, not surprisingly, you know, when we talk
Speaker 2: about gardens going back this far in American history, they
Speaker 2: were still really heavily influenced by Europe. And I think,
Speaker 2: you know, if you look at a picture of Jefferson's
Speaker 2: vegetable garden and you look at, for example, the famous
Speaker 2: vegetable garden at Viandre in France, you'll see a lot
Speaker 2: of those familiarities. You'll see a lot of similarities between
Speaker 2: them where there's that that formality, and you know, of
Speaker 2: course they had to take those ideas and apply them
Speaker 2: here before we really could start to kind of develop
Speaker 2: our own unique American perspective on gardening because we were
Speaker 2: really had those roots still in Europe. He developed a
Speaker 2: elaborate water cistern system. Do you see that at the
Speaker 2: too where I want to sell.
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was constructed in eighteen oh eight. So
Speaker 2: I say here, even Thomas Jefferson struggled with watering, So
Speaker 2: I know that's something that Rick and I can certainly
Speaker 2: relate to. And speaking of American history, in Monticello, the gardens,
Speaker 2: the grounds there contained plants that were sent to him
Speaker 2: by his European friends and seeds that were brought back
Speaker 2: by Lewis and Clark.
Speaker 1: A visionary and a character and Lewis and Clark exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So just you know, it's just really amazing to
Speaker 2: kind of see and understand how all of these different
Speaker 2: things fit together. I'm going to be watching Ken Burns's
Speaker 2: American Revolution. I hear it's free to stream on PBS,
Speaker 2: and I am excited to watch that.
Speaker 3: I've watched the whole thing. Love it.
Speaker 2: How long is it?
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know. I just keep going back episode
Speaker 3: after episode. I love that.
Speaker 2: I'm very eager to watch that and to learn more
Speaker 2: about all of this. Now, since we are over here
Speaker 2: in the central Southeast Coast, I thought we ought to
Speaker 2: move to Colonial Williamsburg. Yeah, so not a garden per se,
Speaker 2: but Colonial Williamsburg is It's a fascinat Have you been
Speaker 2: to Colonial.
Speaker 3: I have not.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, right, I know, I gotta go. I like,
Speaker 2: I totally expect like the guy to sit here and
Speaker 2: talk to us about Colonial Williamsburg. So Colonial Williamsburg is
Speaker 2: a fascinating place. And you know, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people, if you're from Michigan we are here, you
Speaker 2: might think of it as like a Greenfield Village type
Speaker 2: of thing, like we have the Henry Ford Museum in
Speaker 2: Greenfield Village over in the Detroit area. But it's really
Speaker 2: it's quite different because, of course Greenfield Village has historic
Speaker 2: homes and businesses from all over the country, and Colonial
Speaker 2: Williamsburg is the original colonial settlement. The Rockefeller family actually
Speaker 2: purchased it slowly from the people who were living it
Speaker 2: and slowly transformed it back to what it was and
Speaker 2: funded all sorts of archaeological studies to kind of bring
Speaker 2: it back. Some houses were still standing, they just had to,
Speaker 2: you know, take off all the updating that had been done,
Speaker 2: but the brick homes were still beneath there. But as
Speaker 2: far as gardens go, you will see I think Colonial
Speaker 2: Williamsburg is a really interesting look and they take their
Speaker 2: gardening very seriously there. They have a whole horticulture team
Speaker 2: that isn't simply maintaining the grounds and making sure the
Speaker 2: grass is mode when you you know, walk over the
Speaker 2: parade grounds and so forth. They're really working on res
Speaker 2: storing and telling the story of what gardens were to
Speaker 2: the early colonists in the US. So there is the
Speaker 2: old Palace and that has a very formal garden full
Speaker 2: of boxwood. Now they did have to contend with boxwood blight,
Speaker 2: boxwood and Colonial Williamsburg. They are like this, you can't
Speaker 2: have one without the other. So they have been really
Speaker 2: freaking out about boxwood Blite, which is across the southeast,
Speaker 2: but beautiful, very spare but luxurious gardens around the palaces
Speaker 2: mostly of boxwood. These parterres these hedges that you kind
Speaker 2: of just walk by and are surrounded by boxwood. Now
Speaker 2: when you want to get into the flowers and all
Speaker 2: the cool stuff, that's when you're going to the individual
Speaker 2: homes and shops around Colonial Williamsburg. And what you're seeing
Speaker 2: is that this notion of a garden was very utilitarian.
Speaker 2: It was vegetables, it was medicine, it was dye plants.
Speaker 2: And they can still be very beautiful gardens. And it's
Speaker 2: not to say they didn't have their own little follies
Speaker 2: of you know, growing something that was just fun and beautiful.
Speaker 2: But these yard gardens around the houses, and I've talked
Speaker 2: about this a little bit here and there. One of
Speaker 2: the things that I found most fascinating that you'll see
Speaker 2: in practice at Colonial Williamsburg is using vitex or chaste tree,
Speaker 2: and they used to prune them, polard them so that
Speaker 2: they would put out long, straight stocks, woody stocks, and
Speaker 2: that was how they may grew their own garden sticks.
Speaker 3: I love that because I love vitek.
Speaker 2: I know, so you should try this and have your
Speaker 2: own garden stakes. You'll see this when you go there. Okay,
Speaker 2: and interpreters at Colonial Williamsburg in those areas are passionate
Speaker 2: gardeners themselves, so they're not just some guy in a
Speaker 2: costume playing the part. They will tell you they love
Speaker 2: to share their knowledge and tell you all about the
Speaker 2: gardening back then. So if you love history and you
Speaker 2: love gardening, it is a wonderful place to be. Now
Speaker 2: we have one last garden for this episode. I think
Speaker 2: again we are gonna have to probably go to three
Speaker 2: because we don't want to give short shrift and I
Speaker 2: know we already are probably forgetting amazing gardens. Please do
Speaker 2: leave those on our YouTube channel. If you're listening to
Speaker 2: this on podcast or radio, can I please just encourage
Speaker 2: you to check out the YouTube version because Adriana is
Speaker 2: going to be putting all sorts of pictures and b
Speaker 2: roll so it's really going to help bring these stories
Speaker 2: to life and get you excited about incorporating these amazing
Speaker 2: places in your travel plans. So one last one over
Speaker 2: here on the East Coast before we move on to
Speaker 2: Florida in the next episode. That's how we'll kick off
Speaker 2: episode two. Middleton Place Gardens in Charlestown and now it
Speaker 2: was founded in seventeen seventeen, which is Prickty arn Old
Speaker 2: and It is known as America's oldest landscape garden. Now,
Speaker 2: when people talk about a landscape garden, what they basically
Speaker 2: mean is that kind of going back to what we
Speaker 2: were saying about Frederick lah Olmsted, they had people come
Speaker 2: in and just completely reshape the earth and it's these
Speaker 2: series of terraces and waterways that they use. They did
Speaker 2: this elaborate engineering to take the bayous and rivers of
Speaker 2: South Carolina and incorporate them into water features around this
Speaker 2: amazing old manor house from seventeen seventeen. Very formal. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of these early gardens, they weren't about flowers.
Speaker 2: You know, nowadays when people think about a garden, they're
Speaker 2: thinking flowers, right, color and flowers. These were really about
Speaker 2: structure and kind of that old belief of dominating over
Speaker 2: the land and really putting your mark on it. And
Speaker 2: of course they were grand houses, so they couldn't have
Speaker 2: these you know, itsy bitsy flower gardens. They needed these
Speaker 2: grand alleys.
Speaker 3: And grand houses and grand oaks.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh yes, And so Middleton Place is one of those,
Speaker 2: as one of the earliest landscape gardens in the country,
Speaker 2: one of those ones to truly make use of our
Speaker 2: incredible live oaks Quercus Virginiana. Just an iconic feature of
Speaker 2: the American South and truly exceptional, extraordinary plants. If you've
Speaker 2: ever been to the South, you just can't not appreciate them.
Speaker 2: They actually even have really gorgeous live oaks in Colonial Williamsburg.
Speaker 2: It's one of the more northern areas where quirkers Virginiana,
Speaker 2: so it makes sense sense it's in Virginiana, can it
Speaker 2: be found? So that was our little East coast look
Speaker 2: at there is of North American American guard we are.
Speaker 2: So we're going to go Part two next week for
Speaker 2: fourth of July. We will kick it off in Miami,
Speaker 2: Florida with Fairchild Botanic Garden. You are not going to
Speaker 2: want to miss because I have so much to say
Speaker 2: about this place. So thank you, Rick, thank you, thanks Adriana,
Speaker 2: and thanks to all of you for listening and watching.
Speaker 2: We will see you next week for Part two.