More homage to Gertrude Jekyll

Here and there around the area in local wood verges the white woods aster is blooming freely. Generations of gardeners have known and grown this plant as Aster divaricatus. Recently the old name Eurybia divaricata has been revived. The name Eurybia dates from the early nineteenth century, so it is nothing new.

In her 1909 work COLOUR IN THE FLOWER GARDEN Gertrude Jekyll calls this plant the small wire-stemmed aster and gives two photographs of it. I take that as a measure of her esteem; back in those days, photographs in a book were an expense and a bother. In the garden, Jekyll combined these asters  with the plant she knew as Megasea, the big, cabbage-leaf saxifrage we now call Bergenia. The plants form a great contrast:  the broad, glossy, corrugated leaves of the Bergenia are an intriguing foil for the shiny, black, wiry stems and white stars of the aster .

Jekyll’s account of this plant raises a question for me. Here is her text: “There is a small growing perennial Aster – I will not venture on its specific name, but have seen it figured in an American book of wild flowers as divaricata, and provisionally know it by that name.” The genus name Aster is masculine in gender; the genus name Eurybia is feminine. Did the American wild flower book Jekyll mentions call the plant Eurybia divaricata?

The Algerian Iris

The tradition of making lists of plants blooming on Christmas or New Year’s Day is one which has never really caught on in our climate. Winters here have generally been too severe to make it worthwhile. Yet recent winters have more people giving the garden a careful look during the holiday season.

This year the garden has given me an utterly unexpected gift: late this morning I noticed a newly opened flower of Iris unguicularis, the Algerian iris. This particular plant has been blooming since sometime in November. It was obtained in the summer of 2005, planted against the house wall with a SW exposure in the rain shadow of the eaves – and then forgotten. It first bloomed in late November of 2006: that first flower (shown above) was improbably big for something blooming outside at that time of year.

This area is not Algerian iris country. English writers from Gertrude Jekyll a century ago to those of the present have celebrated this beautiful plant, and many American gardeners have tried to grow it. I certainly did several decades ago; but that trial, although it resulted in healthy, robust plants, produced not one mature bloom. There were buds, but never a flower. The buds always froze before they opened. I eventually gave up on the plant.

Then another local gardener had a repeat of my luck: he tried the plant and it never bloomed for him. He dug the plant, divided it up, and offered the pieces at a meeting of our local rock garden group. I was not the only person to take a piece, but as far as I’m aware I’m the only one who has reported success with it. The very mild weather has a lot, maybe everything, to do with it.

Now that I’ve seen what this plant can do, I might make room for it in the protected cold frame. That way, if typical winters return, I’ll still have these amazing blooms to brighten the shortest days of the year.

Karl Foerster

What a life Karl Foerster must have had! He was born in 1874; for comparison, consider that Caruso was born in 1873, Rachmaninov in 1873, Jekyll in 1843, Bowles in 1865, Wilder in 1878. His early works appeared when the works of Jekyll, Bowles and Wilder were still appearing. He outlived them all by decades and died in 1970 – and what is more remarkable, he outlived them in spite of the fact that his home and garden were in the suburbs of Berlin (Bornim bei Potsdam). What should have been an old age full of the honors due the most prominent voice of early twentieth century horticulture in Germany was instead spent behind the Iron Curtain: in the English speaking world, probably only those who remembered the old days knew of him. It wasn’t until after his death and the unification of the divided German state that those who remembered began to pick up the pieces. His numerous publications now have the wide audience they deserve – at least among those who read German. His house is still there, and so are the remains of the garden. I’ve seen recent photographs of both in German gardening magazines. With a bit of imagination and the help of a photograph such as the one above, one can make out in the pattern of depressions and rock heaps something which suggests this once famous garden. (After writing that, I Googled some more and discovered that the garden has by now been largely restored).

Generations of Americans have looked to England for gardening ideas; the time might have been better spent looking to Germany. Few locations in North America approximate the English climate. The continental climate of Germany produces gardens more like those seen in North America. Although I want an “Engliish” garden, my climate gives me a German garden instead.

The two pictures given above are taken from Foerster’s Vom Blütengarten der Zukunft . The one depicting the garden appears in both the first edition (published by Furche Verlag in 1917) and second edition (published by Foerster’s Verlag Der Gartenschönheit in 1922). His Verlag Der Gartenschönheit was to prove to be the source of so many handsome publications until the darkest days of the Second World War, including the magazine named Gartenschönheit.

The second picture first appears in the second edition. This domestic scene appeals to me greatly. I know almost nothing of Foerster the man, but it is known that he passed with honor the cruelest test of his generation. I don't know if he was a religious man, but if he was, I like to think that as the rest of those at the table bowed their heads and prayed for peace, he prayed for peace with justice.

If you Google “Karl Foerster” and confine your results to English language hits, you’ll get endless references to his grass cultivars. Confine your search results to German language hits and you’ll hit gold.

As it turns out, the older generation had the opportunity to know one aspect of Foerster's work well: Louise Beebe Wilder's The Garden in Color might better have been titled "the best of Gartenschönheit". The book is a collection of color plates with commentary by Wilder. Nowhere is it mentioned that the plates are from Gartenschönheit. The date of publication, 1937, explains that.