On Wednesday, October 15, at 4:30 p.m., a very special event will take place at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society:  a tree will be planted in the Bressingham Garden.

There are thousands of trees at Elm Bank and more than a hundred in the Bressingham Garden.  But this will be a special tree. It will honor the life of a woman who very much deserves such a tribute, and its location is one that holds a special place in my memory.

For the 250 people who were there, August 3, 2007 is one of those days they'll remember for a very long time.  The temperature was in the upper nineties, the humidity was unbearable, and the sun beat down relentlessly.  Those 250 people weren't there to dedicate the garden.  They were there to build it.  I know all this because I was one of them. 

Celebration

Most gardens are built over months or even years.  The acre-plus Bressingham Garden was planned to be built in a single day. (It wasn't, and more about that in a moment.)  The idea of the garden came together over several months.  To better acquaint Americans with the spectacular cultivars being developed by U.K.'s Blooms of Bressingham, renowned plantsman Adrian Bloom had hit on the successful idea of creating small demonstrations gardens around the United States.  'Small' meant approximately 4,000 square feet, such as one at Ohio State University, also completed in 2007.  All were built in a day by volunteers.

In the spring of that year, Mass Hort approached Adrian about creating one of his signature gardens at Elm Bank, and Adrian agreed.  Sketches were exchanged and the project grew.  A 4,000-square-foot garden became a 10,000 one, and then 20,000.  By the time Adrian arrived in Boston to oversee its construction, the 'canvas' had become 45,000 square feet; slightly over an acre.

The site was a pancake-flat field of grass, once a clay tennis court.  In the days before those 250 people assembled, that field was sculpted into sinuous mounds of earth and hundreds of truckloads of soil were brought in.  Boulders were added as visual anchor points and a handful of specimen trees were planted.

The scale of the project can best be summed up with numbers: 100+ trees, 300+ shrubs, and 8,000 perennials.  For each item, a hole had to be dug, the item conditioned and planted, then the area raked and watered.... and watered and watered.

There were a few unforeseen problems with the project. First, 250 people cannot be properly employed at one time in a one-acre site.  They bump into one another and step on plants.  Second - and this was both good news and bad - Adrian Bloom came with one plan on paper, but devised a better one as he saw the site.  Implementing this better plan meant that Adrian would walk around, look at an area, and say, 'get me fifty of those (fill in the name) perennials'.  A runner would fetch the plants, a spotter would carry a plant to the starting point specified by Adrian, and then the fifty plants would be arranged according to his specification.  Areas would be left blank so that he could come back an hour later, evaluate the look of the bed, and then call for thirty of a different plant to complement the adjacent area. 

A third problem was that the searing heat baked the top inch of the loam into which we were to plant those perennials and shrubs to the consistency of terra cotta pottery.  My enduring memory of that day was jumping up and down on a shovel, trying to break though that outer shell.  The dust created by all the work blew about, coating volunteers and plants alike.  The dust turned to a hard shell when moistened by watering or by sweat.

The net result was that at the end of the day, less than half of the garden had been planted.  The accompanying photo shows the site at the end of day one.

Thirty of us came back for a second day, and this time we started at 7:30 a.m.  We were now 'seasoned' volunteers who knew what we were doing, or at least we followed Adrian's directions to his satisfaction.  And, there was a new secret weapon added: several power augurs capable of making a hole a foot wide and a foot deep in about twenty seconds.  By the end of day two, we had more than 6,000 perennials in the ground.  Not bad for heat-stricken, sunburned volunteers.

It would take several more weekends of work to complete the garden according to Adrian's plan.  In the intervening years, much more work has been done on the garden (including accounting for the pesky remnants of that clay tennis court). 

On October 15, a new tree will be planted in the Bressingham Garden.  It will be planted by Mass Hort and will honor Adrian's late wife, Rosemary Bloom, who died in late May.  Rosemary wasn't at that initial build, though she visited the garden and Mass Hort several times in the following years.  She was a warm and gracious woman; an attentive listener in an age when that gift deserves special recognition. 

If you were part of that day in 2007, or if you have enjoyed the Bressingham Garden in the intervening years, please plan to be there on October 15 at 4:30pm.  It will be a fitting tribute to someone for whom gardens were a life's work.

MEMORIAL TREE PLANTING FOLLOWED BY BRESSINGHAM REUNION

Octobr 15: 4:30 in the garden, followed by reunion in the Hunnewell Carriage House

A source of continuing pride for the Society's Archives is its collection of 50,000 seed and nursery catalogs.  A special treasure is the legacy of catalogs from the Kenrick family, who ran nurseries in Newton starting in 1790, when John Kenrick established an orchard.  The family business thrived when his son William opened his nursery in the Nonantum section in 1823 and took up residence in a fine home believed to have been built in 1734.  Historic Newton recently restored and opened the Waverly Street estate for the public, calling it the Durant-Kenrick House.  That organization is especially eager to commemorate William Kenrick and his notable contributions to horticulture.

Credit to Mass Hort in Kenrick House

Mass Hort is gratified by the attention he is being given because Mr. Kenrick was a founding member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1829 and one of its first Counsellors. When members of the Society visited the house on June 12, our 185^th anniversary, they could see a lifelike image of our founder and a historically accurate reproduction of his garden.  Most important was an exhibit featuring scans of his valued catalogs and a notice of gratitude to the Mass Hort library for having done the research to make them available.  To the great credit of the Historic Newton staff and their volunteer photographers, the catalogs look newly minted.  Even more precious is the CD they produced of all the catalogs, which library researchers can use to study the history of one of the most successful fruit growers of the mid-nineteenth century.  The fragile catalogs, now digitally available, will be safe for future historians.

Gardening for a Lifetime:

How to Garden Wiser as You Grow Older

By Sydney Eddison

Timber Press 2010

Reviewed by Pamela Hartford

If this was the year that you started to quietly resent the amount of time your garden was demanding, then a good winter read would be Sydney Eddison's book, Gardening for a Lifetime: How to Garden Wiser as You Grow Older. You may not quite be willing to project yourself into the Older part of the self-explanatory title, but after reading this book, you can't help but start thinking about the Wiser part, come next spring.

Ms. Eddison was forced into a major reassessment of her enormous garden (almost two acres) in Newtown, Connecticut after her husband passed away. The precise division of labor that characterized their long relationship was no longer divided - it was all on her shoulders.

The biggest take away from this warm and personal memoir on her process of adaptation is: don't wait for replacement surgery, or worse, to make a realistic assessment of your garden maintenance requirements. As we all know, even one year of loss of weekly attention can result in overwhelming reclamation tasks.  Starting next spring, you can start employing some of the many strategies that Ms. Eddison describes.  Even though the sheer size of her garden certainly warranted a serious thinking through, all her exercises apply to anyone who gardens and wants to spend more time enjoying and less time doing. Adjusting a garden towards lower maintenance is a process that takes many seasons, and it is certainly more enjoyable doing it with a positive outlook, rather than a pressured one.

Along with her other books, this recent title is now a staple on public libraries shelves, so you don't need to buy it.  Regardless of your age or health, this book starts you thinking: the measure of any great read.

Pamela Hartford is a landscape historian and preservation consultant living in Salem, MA.

Registration is open for the 2015 Master Gardener Training class!

The Master Gardener Training class, run by the Massachusetts Master Gardener Association, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, has openings for the 2015 class.  Master Gardeners are trained horticultural volunteers who share their knowledge with the public through helplines, information booths, work with school gardens, public gardens, and much more.  The MGT class runs from April through the end of October.  The curriculum consists of 14 full day classes and 60 hours of hands-on learning and volunteering.  Classroom topics include soil science, basic botany, garden ecology, plant pathology, weed science, pruning, propagation, and many more!  Come broaden your horticultural knowledge and become part of the Master Gardener community. If you are crazy about gardening, you have found your people!

Space is limited, and registration ends Dec. 31, or when all spots for the 2015 class are filled.  For more information, go to the MMGA website, www.massmastergardeners.org, or contact MGT Class Coordinator Stephen Shaw at sgshaw@aol.com.  We hope to see you in the classroom and gardens!

We put away the garden benches this past weekend. They're handsome things: two have black, cast iron ends with cedar slats painted a rich green. Those benches would not be out of place in the Tuileries in Paris. The third is metal, cast in the form of a profusion of ferns. It's in a style that reached its apex in the Beaux Arts period and, as furniture, it's a gem; a loveseat that's as much an objet d'art as it is a seating area.

And that's the problem. As we carried the benches from various points around the property to their resting place under the screened porch, away from the elements, I had the disappointing realization that I never sat on any of them this year. Two are strategically positioned to provide viewpoints across lawns and gardens. The third offers an elevated point from which to contemplate Danielson Pond. I never admired the vistas I helped create. I never took the time.

The unused bench

I know I'm not alone in this predicament. Last year we were at a wonderful garden and I admired a rustic retreat set in the woods. I asked the owner how often the little gazebo was used. The response was a rueful shake of the head. "I never have time."

Often, it seems, such appurtenances are meant for the enjoyment of visitors. When the Medfield Garden Club held its August 'backyard get-together' at our home one year, the benches were both admired and well used throughout the morning and into the afternoon. We had the pleasure to attend a party this summer on Cape Cod, where the homeowners had studded their beautiful property with seating areas large and small. Their guests made use of every available space, sipping drinks and enjoying the views.

This is an admitted small sample. But I suspect that we buy 'garden furniture' with all of the best intentions of using it, then employ it more as 'visual destination points' for the eye rather than as functional places to park our behinds and relax.

The fern garden bench

Perhaps the reason is rooted in the possibility of enjoyment. If there were no bench - or gazebo or whatever - we could never sit back and take pleasure in our gardens. The presence of the benches means that there will at least be an opportunity... if it ever stops raining (or if the mosquitoes go away, the humidity breaks, or any of a dozen reasons we give for staying indoors).

As we put away the benches this weekend, I made a vow that next year will be different. I will make it a point, at least once a week, to go out and sit on those benches. I may take a book or a newspaper, but I will also make certain that I allow adequate time to enjoy the view. A lot of effort has gone into that garden. The least I can do it see it the way visitors do.

Neal Sanders is the author of eight mysteries.  His latest, "A Murder at the Flower Show" is available in book stores and at Amazon.com.  He is currently at work on his next book, "Murder in Negative Space".