Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England--now!!
Robert Browning, Home Thoughts, From Abroad
I have always loved this simple, lyric poem with its celebration of the everyday, domestic scene in spring – the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming and there is a rapturous exchange with nature. I felt the same Romanticism that it evokes when I gazed at the wonderful slides with which Gordon Hayward entertained and instructed and encouraged us on Monday. What fun it was to travel to Surrey via Georgia O’Keeffe, to enter Tintinhull in Somerset with Vincent Van Gogh, to see through the windows of Gloucestershire and Childe Hassam, to frame the view of Hidcote Manor with memories of Monet…. As the temperature has dropped a bit, I have been gazing at my garden from upstairs windows, as Mr. Hayward recommended, looking with new eyes to determine the contrast and the harmony.
While we may want to be contemplative, wandering in our gardens and outlining new paths, I am reminded by our busy committee chairs about the array of Garden Club events that will occur in the next few weeks. There are elm seedlings to pot and prepare for foster care, Bylaws to review, containers to plant at Fellowship Place, light-weight planters to create, gardens to visit, and recipes to sort through. Please keep your eyes on the blog for reminders and dates for springtime activities. Getting together with fellow Garden club members is always productive and always fun!
I congratulate the Garden History & Design Committee for selecting such a wonderful project to document next year – the Phelps Triangle Park! This small oasis with its rich history has been at the very heart of our civic involvement since 1951. I look forward to hearing the tales about the Gulliver Memorial Fountain, the computerized watering system, and the renovation and maintenance.
Finally, while my days have been spent outside, evenings have found me reading through two very informative books about the Garden Club of American that Peg Campbell loaned to me. The first one, Fifty Blooming Years, 1913-1963, starts with tales of that first gathering in Philadelphia when 12 clubs came together with an aim ‘to garden finely’. It reports on the war years when the production and preservation of food was the Club focus, the 1920s when committees were formed and awards were determined, and the publication of the bulletin and of Gardens of Colony and State in 1931. This book was considered the “crown and glory” of the GCA as it contained in two volumes a comprehensive survey of the early gardens of America. And, there was the GCA-Redwood love story (“it seems like a grip on immortality to own a few of those ancient trees”) and the partitioning of the country into GCA zones for better administration and communication. The second book, Winds of Change, continues the story from 1968 until 1988 (the 75th year), working through the decades and providing a profile of each club within the twelve zones. Among many other details, it mentions the bottle bill campaign in the 1970s that threatened to engulf the White House with an avalanche of tin cans and GCA’s commitment to education through scholarships in the 1980s. This book is a clear record of events that support the GCA mission – to stimulate knowledge and love of gardening; to share the advantages of association; and to restore, improve and protect the quality of the environment through conservation, civic improvement and education.
Carol
April, 2010
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