Autumn light

I recently gave a talk on garden photography where we discussed the poetry of light:  How the seasons affect light, light before dusk, early morning light, and fog-diffused light. 

This discussion reminded me of a recent visit to Chiswick House in London.  I decided to get up extra early in order to experience the garden in the autumn morning light.  Taking into account the hour and a half travel time from central London, this meant waking up at 5:30am.

William Kent was the landscape designer behind the garden that we see today at Chiswick.  He was one of the first to move from the formal to the picturesque in Europe.

Not normally a problem, but when my alarm went off, my jet lag was at full force.  Thoughts of “where am I”, “how did I get here” cleared enough so that I could pull myself out of bed.  I could tell that a thick fog had rolled in overnight, so I was driven by the anticipation of seeing the garden under this special condition.  Each step felt like I was moving through mud in slow motion.  What was I thinking!  My entire body craved sleep.  Even the floor of the train looked like an appealing spot to lie down.  The slightest bit of light was too bright.

On the final 25 minute walk the soft early morning light was quickly dissipating – the fog was lifting.  As my jet lag passed, I began to worry that I might be too late.  I should have gotten up earlier.  All this effort wasted!

Then I entered the northern Rustic House Gate.  Like a personal favor from the universe, the garden had held on to its own pocket of fog.  The light was amazing.  Light diffused by the fog was punctuated with sharp oranges and whites where sunlight came through.  Radiating shafts of light shot out from behind trees.  The garden was silent because the neighborhood was just waking up.  Families were going through their morning routines as I had 2 hours earlier.

The Cherry Orchard, the Italian garden, and the approach to the House reveal the original formal style and ornamentation of the garden.  The Lake, created in 1737, gives the illusion of a slow moving river and is a key design element of the garden’s picturesque plan: innovative at the time.  Chiswick is considered the birthplace of the landscape movement.

The lawn slopes down to the man-made river.  This "new" feature added in the early 1700's when the garden was redone in the landscape style.

“Originally created by Lord Burlington and William Kent in 1729, the garden was inspired by the sights of the Grand Tour and romance of classical Italian landscape painting; it was conceived as a single, living artwork.  Burlington and Kent replaced the formality of the existing renaissance garden with a freer, more luscious design. Straight lines were out, curves and clusters in. ‘Natural’ spaces were created, their informality highlighted by the careful addition of sculpture and other architectural details including an Ionic temple and Doric column.  The lawn that slopes gently downwards from Chiswick House to the artificial river was also introduced, a revolutionary feature in its day.” (source: www.chgt.org.uk)

Autumn is a great time for garden watching, especially in the early morning fog.

Happy garden watching!

 

The garden at Chiswick was designed as a "single, living artwork."  

Chiswick House gardens are open daily from 7am until dusk

Chiswick House Elevation.  Source: GreatBuildings.com

Remembering Bernard McMahon

Bernard McMahon was an Irishman who settled in Pennsylvania and dedicated himself to advancing a distinctly American-style of horticulture.   He was the first to advocate for the beauty and value of native American plants that were looked upon by European settlers as weeds.

While running a 20-acre nursery and botanic garden in Philadelphia, he was also Thomas Jefferson’s gardening mentor, worked as plant curator to the Lewis and Clark expedition, and compiled the first American seed catalog.

In 1806 he wrote the American Gardener's Calendar, the first American garden book.   It was modeled on the European garden writing tradition popular at the time.  Sections cover the kitchen garden, orchard, vineyard, pleasure ground, and flower garden. Although the book was panned by British critics, it became a huge success.  It enjoyed 11 editions over the next 50 years and made McMahon famous.

McMahon thought of the United States as a, “country which has not yet made … [that] rapid progress in Gardening, ornamental planting, and fanciful rural designs, which might naturally be expected from an intelligent, happy, and independent people, possessed so universally of landed property, unoppressed by taxation…, and blessed with consequent comfort and affluence.”  But he believed that this country would welcome his book: after his nearly thirty years of “practical…and extensive experience,” he had tried to make this book “useful in every State of the Union; … it is hoped that this will be found to be the most useful and valuable Gardener’s Calendar hitherto published in any country, but more particularly so to the citizens of the United States…”

My favorite passage in McMahon’s book must have been radical at the time.  He wrote, "Is it because [native plants] are indigenous that we should reject them? What can be more beautiful than our Lobelias, Asclepias, Orchis, and Asters? In Europe plants are not rejected because they are indigenous; and yet here [in America], we cultivate many foreign trifles, and neglect the profusion of beauties so bountifully bestowed upon us by the hand of nature."

In 1857 John Jay Smith, editor of the Horticulturist, wrote, “Bernard McMahon ... sought the American shores from political motives.... He found American gardening in its infancy, and immediately set himself vigorously to work to introduce a love of flowers and fruit. … His store was in Second Street. …[with] its bulk window, ornamented with tulip glasses, a large pumpkin, and a basket or two of bulbous roots; …  Mr. M’Mahon was … much in the store, putting up seeds for transmission to all parts of the country and Europe, writing his book, or attending to his correspondence.   Such a store would naturally attract the botanist as well as the gardener, and it was the frequent lounge of both classes, who ever found in the proprietors ready listeners as well as conversers.”

In memory of McMahon I went out to Bubolz Nature Preserve in Appleton, Wisconsin to see what kind of inspiration I could find.  This 775-acre preserve includes pine forests, streams, and wetlands. On this trip I followed the Four Seasons Trail straight for one of the stunning meadows in search of the native beauties that McMahon wrote about.  I was amply rewarded with purple coneflower, black-eyed susan, blazing star, giant coreopsis, butterfly weed, milkweed, spiderwort, and more.  He would have loved it.

McMahon passed away on Sept 18, 1816.

Several large meadows are represented by colorful areas in the lower left and right sections of the map.

Bubolz Nature Preserve is open from dawn to dusk.  Don't miss their annual “Romp in the Autumn Swamp” takes place on October 24.