And there shall linger other, magic things, -
The fog that creeps in wanly from the sea,
The rotten harbor smell, the mystery
Of moonlit elms, the flash of pigeon wings,
The sunny Green, the old-world peace that clings
About the college yard, where endlessly
The dead go up and down. These things shall be
Enchantment of our hearts’ rememberings.
Archibald MacLeish, Baccalaureate

During Monday’s wonderful historical journey as we tracked New Haven’s elms from the 1789 elegant specimen standing tall on Hillhouse Avenue to the newly arrived, small but sturdy, Jefferson elm survivors that filled Debbie Edwards’ backyard, my mind wandered to other elms – to those that Virgil encouraged farmers to ‘marry with the vine’, to Herman Melville’s elms that waved on Malvern Hill in the prime of morn and May, to Sylvia Plath’s struggles and hopelessness in Elm (is she comparing her depressed state with Dutch elm disease?), to Tennyson’s “moan of doves in immemorial elms”, to Eugene O’Neill’s desire under those elms… But, I came back again and again to Archibald MacLeish’s poem. Here in our college town we can share his ‘magic things’ and gather these eternal experiences.

Sandy Anagnostakis told us that the elm was an ideal street tree; Sandy Taylor described the elm project of the 1980s as an undertaking that became “the money tree for Garden Club projects”. We heard of the elms’ suffering -- from Dutch Elm Disease in 1934, to the Hurricane of 1938 and the ice storm of 1940 – but we saw them survive on Orange Street, on Willow Street, on Bishop Street, on Whitney Avenue. And, these survivors have strong names like ‘Independence’ and ‘American Liberty’ and ‘Jefferson’ and ‘Princeton’. How exciting it is that our Garden Club, through propagating, planting, and promoting, will return these stately trees once again to our city Green and neighborhoods so that many future generations will remember their enchantment.

I am grateful to all of you who have spear-headed this project, gathered seeds for planting, located ‘foster’ homes so that a whole new crop of babies might be nurtured and raised, and documented every step. The slide show was compelling, keeping all of us rooted to our seats until the very end!

Now, ignoring this bit of cool (cold?) weather, we have some spring activities to which we can look forward. Lisa Lovejoy will hold a flower design workshop on the Hogarth curve. Once you have mastered this and brought it together with all of the wonderful tips that Lisa Evarts gave us for designing with sticks and stones and frogs, our Club will be an awesome force with which to be reckoned.

On Monday the 24^th, please join the Visiting Garden Committee for a tour of the Long Wharf Nature Preserve (meet at the Preserve at 11 a.m.) followed by lunch at Leon’s on the shore. Discover native trees and shrubs; explore the shoreline; listen to the songs of birds in this small oasis, perched next to the highway.

Then, gather (wearing your festive hat) at the annual meeting on June 7 at 12 noon for an opportunity to celebrate and to welcome our newest members. What a treat this will be to sit together, surrounded by the beauty and serenity of Susan Ehrenkranz’s amazing garden!

Before we head off for summer fun, however, I want to encourage you to ‘spring clean’ for the Garden Club. Ruth Martin, thankfully, has agreed to serve as the first official archivist of our Club – aided ably by Peg Campbell. She is willing to sort through 86 years of materials and to organize and preserve them. What a formidable task! If you have garden club records, reports, or mementoes stored in your basement, packed away in your attic, or lingering on a closet shelf, please let us know. I will gladly come and pick up your boxes and bags and will transport them to Ruth for documentation and long-term storage. It will be wonderful to have them all together. Having had a chance to see the treasure trove of materials from 1983 that was on display at our Monday meeting (programs, thank-you cards, and papers ), I am more convinced than ever that we need to safeguard these valuable sources of information and inspiration.

Carol

May, 2010