Muse Day August 2010

Flowers to honor Elsa

Yesterday I spent the afternoon and evening preparing for, and enjoying a memorial for Elsa Bakalar,  my friend, neighbor, colleague, and garden mentor who passed away in January at the age of 91.  The flowers at the buffet supper in Jan and Cal’s party barn were provided by The Passionate Gardeners, Mary, Susan and Eileen, gardeners who had come to learn from Elsa, and continued to help her in her garden- until that garden had to be given up.

Mary, Eileen and Susan

Many people did their part for Elsa yesterday. Scott Prior and his wife, Nanny Vonnegut, who own and maintain ‘Elsa’s Garden’ in Heath, invited neighbors and family for a tour and champagne toast to a beloved relative and friend. Cousin Stan read a section of Kipling’s poem Glory of the Garden with that famous line, “such gardens are not made
By singing:–”Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade . . .” Then we all trooped over to Jan and Cal’s barn, surrounded by a beautiful garden,  for a feast organized by Elsa’s nephew Jake and his wife Susan. Chief among this group were Elsa’s former grade school students, honorary daughters, Marie and Nicole who took major responsibilities for Elsa’s care in the years after her husband’s death in 2000.

A special treat of the evening was listening to a recording Nicole had made of Elsa reading the opening chapter of Dicken’s Bleak House. Elsa read Great Expectations to her fifth and sixth grade class every year – a wonderful choice for students at that age – and Elsa was wonderful reader.  It must be admitted that the sound of a loved one’s voice is evocative and heart breaking.

Today is Muse Day. I had forgotten, but a friend emailed me a poem by Mary de la Valette this morning that seemed serendipitous.  Kipling noted in his poem that  ”Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees.”  A very young Nicole  who spent her summers with Elsa in her ’summer camp’ found that she could have Elsa all to herself if she joined her in the garden  while everyone else still slept. One morning she asked Elsa if she liked teaching or gardening better. Without hesitation Elsa answered “gardening.”  It may have surprised and angered young Nicole who wanted to be much more important to her beloved teacher than an old garden, but it is clear to me that the garden was a sacred place for Elsa.

I do not have to go
To Sacred Places
In far-off lands.
The ground I stand on
Is holy.

Here, in this little garden
I tend
My pilgrimage ends.
The wild honeybees
The hummingbird moths
The flickering fireflies at dusk
Are a microcosm
Of the Universe.
Each seed that grows
Each spade of soil
Is full of miracles.

And I toil and sweat
And watch and wonder
And am full of love.
Living in place
In this place.
For truth and beauty
Dwell here.

I thank Carolyngail for making me stop and consider other muses the first day of every month.

Elsa Bakalar’s Garden

Horticulture Magazine January 1987

In 1985 (could it be that long ago?) Elsa Bakalar,  my Heath neighbor and friend, and I started writing an article about color in the garden for Horticulture magazine.  One summer day in 1986 the brilliant photographer, and gardener, Garry Mottau arrived in Elsa’s garden at dawn. That’s when I learned about the importance and desirability of that early morning light for photography. I even got to hold a piece of shiny Thermax to throw some gentle light on Elsa’s face, or the flowers she was  working with.  That was another photography lesson for me.  The article finally appeared in the January 1987 issue of Horticulture Magazine. Elsa was the cover girl!

At the end of the story you will see a note saying that Elsa and I were writing a book together. I bombed out, but Elsa not only wrote her book, with her beloved husband Mike’s editorial support and advice, she started criss-crossing the US,  in demand as a garden speaker, well known for her wit and humor as well as her knowledge.

Several years ago, after her husband’s death, Elsa sold her house and garden to noted artists  Scott Prior and his wife Nanny Vonnegut. Nanny confessed that she lets Scott handle the garden, which he maintains with the help of Jeff Farrell.  Jeff  worked with Elsa in her garden for a number of years. Among other things he is a now a member of the Trillium Workshops trio; they have arranged tours of this garden for those who want to enjoy a fabulous, riotous country garden that is also sophisticated and inspiring. The next tour is July 18, and the final tour is on Sept. 19.  It is best to sign up early.

Horticulture never forgot Elsa’s beautiful garden. The results of their revisit are in the new issue, with an interview with Scott and Nanny. More photos!  Horticulture has made it possible to download the original story by clicking on

http://hortmag.com/upload/images/mediakit/ElsaBakalarGardenp.pdf.

You can see the new story by Jane Roy Brown with photos by Bill Regan by picking up the August/September issue. If you live close enough you can even visit with Jeff Farrell and see the garden ‘in the flesh’.

Elsa passed away this winter. I wish she could have seen her garden’s return to the pages of Horticulture magazine. She would have enjoyed it, and she would love knowing people still have the pleasure of visiting her garden and learning from it.

Thirty Years Between the Rows

How has your garden changed in 30 years?  How has your life changed in 30 years?

As a person who moved every two or three years (on average) for the first four sevenths of my life, I was stunned to realize that Henry and I have been in Heath for 30 years! And that means, that on May 22, today, I celebrate my 30^th anniversary as garden columnist for The Recorder.

It was a happy day for me when Bob Dolan hired me to write a local garden column for the new Leisure tabloid section that The Recorder planned. The garden season was beginning and so was my first Heath garden.  My plan that first spring was to put in a huge vegetable garden. We got one of our new neighbors to come and plow up a big section. I don’t remember the measurements, but it was more than we were able to plant. Do you think I have learned to make my garden a manageable size?  Not really. Which means I sympathize with everyone who has big plans and little time.

Gardens inevitably change over time. Gardeners become more skilled. They develop new interests. They find new mentors. They meet other gardeners who give them plants they never dreamed of growing.

Guan Yin Mian tree peony

Sometimes travel changes the way a gardener approaches the garden. My first mentor was Elsa Bakalar with her British perennial borders. I accompanied her and a busload of enthusiastic gardeners on a tour of England gardens in 1983 and was entranced with perennials, and ‘garden rooms.’  I started my own perennial border. but realized that it takes special artistic skills (and time or hired labor) to have fantastic borders like those at the stately homes of Britain.

Queen Elizabeth grandiflora

Then Henry and I went to China where the gardens use a limited palette of plants, and very few of those at a time. In China the word for gardens, shan shui, means mountains and water.  And ‘mountains’ in the garden often take the form of stones.  When we returned from China, British borders began to look crowded and busy. My view of what was attractive was enlarged.

There are many climates, many landscapes, many types of gardens, many types of beauty, and each of us gets to discover our own preferences. Some know right away what kind of garden they want, and make up a master plan (with or without professional help) and proceed to implement that plan with little revision.

Others, like me, work on one project like The Rose Walk and then decide how to fit the next project in and around what already exists.  I’ve often thought that if I knew what I liked and knew what I was doing 30 years ago, my gardens would be very different.

I named this column Between the Rows because our neighbor in Maine, Mr. Leslie, who had a great garden (and a wooden gas lawn mower that he contrived), said he was always ready to stop between the rows and swap a few lies.  He knew that gardeners have as many tales as fishermen in their repertoire.

I hoped that this column would allow me to swap stories and information with other gardeners and talking to gardeners has been the main delight of this column I have seen beautiful and amazing gardens, small and large, and met the most fascinating, enthusiastic and knowledgeable people who are willing to share their knowledge – and their plants. Recently I have also been asked to take photographs to go along with my columns, so I’ve had a new learning curve.

Hoki tree peony on Bridge of Flowers

I’ve always known that gardeners are among the most generous of people, always happy to share a plant, or seeds, or a tip about how they do things. What has surprised me is how gardeners band together to provide service and beauty to their communities.  The Greenfield Garden Club supports educational horticultural projects in the schools, and beautiful plantings throughout the town. The Bridge of Flowers committee oversees the upkeep of the Bridge which gives so much pleasure to us locals who work or run errands in Shelburne Falls, but it also attracts over 34,000 tourists – and those are just the ones who sign the guest book.

Gardeners singly and in groups are aware of the economic pressures on many families, making monetary donations to the various food pantries in the county, but also by Planting a Row for the Hungry and donating extra produce to local organizations.

Greeenfield Farmers Market

Since my first passion was organic vegetables I have been so happy to see the growing appreciation for fresh local vegetables and fruits – and the concurrent rise of small farms, farm stands, farmer’s markets and Community Supported Agriculture farms – CSAs.

As I’ve written about gardens and gardeners, I’ve learned about farms and farmers. I’ve learned about threats to our environment and the ways that we can all protect our precious soil, water and air.

People often ask me how I find something to say every week. I’ve learned that the more I write, the more gardeners, farmers, and issues I find to write about. I can only hope The Recorder will give me another 30 years to get through my list of people and topics.

Grandsons with good Heath Blueberries

Between the Rows  May 22, 2010

Flowers and More Flowers

Kerry Mendez and me

What a weekend. While I am waiting for the snow to melt I had a glorious weekend thinking about – and looking at flowers!

On Saturday I got to meet Kerry Mendez, the spirited, humorous and knowledgeable keynote speaker at the Master Gardener’s Spring Symposium on Saturday. She engaged the audience in lively conversation and talked about how to have a successful flower garden- choose the right plant for the right site – and gave great design tips.  Fortunately, if you can’t attend any of her talks you can get her excellent and useful book The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Top Ten Lists.

Do you have dry shade, want unusual perennials, need annuals? Kerry has lists for you that will give you quickly accessible information and suggestions.

That was on Saturday. On Sunday I attended the first workshop given by the three charming and skilled gardeners,  Jeff Farrell, Lisa Newman, and Gloria Pacosa who formed Trillium Workshops just a month ago.

Gloria Pacosa at work

There was information about planting and maintaining a separate cutting garden,  including many annuals that bloom all summer, so  that you don’t ruin the effect of your borders and gardens when you want to bring  flowers into the house.  I also learned a lot about arranging flowers – not my forte – but Gloria Pacosa is a master. I learned that the best time to pick flowers is early in the evening when flowers have gained a day’s worth of sun and energy, that they should be conditioned by standing in clean deep water in clean containers overnight, and that I need to soak my floral foam until it is really saturated. Of course, I learned A Lot  more, and you’ll be hearing more of that over time.

Jeff told me that Horticulture magazine is publishing a follow-up article about Elsa Bakalar’s Heath gardens this spring. I wrote  the original article for Horticulture, published in 1987, in which Elsa expounded on her theories about color in the garden.  The follow up article includes interviews with Jeff who began working with Elsa on her garden over 20 years ago, and has continued maintaining it with the new owner, the artist Scott Prior and his wife. The article will include many photographs of the garden taken last summer. Those who would like to visit the garden again, or for the first time, can join one (or all) of the three Trillum tours of Elsa’s garden scheduled for June 20, July 18, and September 19.  For more information about registration logon to the Trillium blog.

My Friend Elsa

Elsa Bakalar was my friend. This morning I got the call that I had been dreading. Elsa passed away peacefully on January 29.

We moved to Heath in December of 1979, but I did not meet Elsa, who also lived in Heath until I began writing a weekly garden column, Between the Rows, for The Recorder. I had heard about Elsa and her garden and finally got up my courage to ask her for an interview. It must be admitted that I was not an expert gardener, but got the job because I wrote a compelling letter saying I would interview all the expert gardeners in our region.

I  had seen Elsa’s initialed articles in Mike’s West County News launched not too long before we moved to Heath and I imagined a young couple sharing a romantic journalistic enterprise. When we met I was somewhat shocked to find that it was more in the nature of a romantic post retirement project. They taught me that it is never too late for new beginnings.

Elsa not only gave me an interview, about starting flower seeds in the dead of winter, she began my education. I had been concentrating on vegetables and had hardly planted a marigold. She also hired me to work alongside her at Greenfield Community College where she was the Director of Community Service.

All too soon I was trying to tend a 90 foot long perennial border, filled with divisions from Elsa’s garden. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it is not what Elsa expected from her students. Although she had very definite opinions of her own, she always insisted that gardeners please themselves, and plant what they liked, in the way they liked.

Elsa became known for her garden designs, how she combined color and form, but in the end she said, all the colors of nature go together, and there was no point worrying excessively. .

I was fortunate enough to participate in one of the Study and Travel courses Elsa taught at GCC. After familiarizing ourselves with England and its gardens in class for a few weeks, 35 or so of us set off to tour the great and intimate gardens of England with Elsa, entertained by her wit and knowledge. It was  well known that where Elsa was, there was a party.

Right up to the end when she was frail Elsa made a party happen. My husband and I visited her for the last time in mid-January. As it happened, two other friends arrived as well. There was chocolate cake and candies. Laughter and talk. Another of Elsa’s parties.

If there is any word that defines Elsa it is teacher. She had taught elementary children in a village school in England, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in NYC,  and more locally, the Academy at Charlemont. She taught garden workshops in her own garden, and she went on the road lecturing, teaching, amusing, and delighting audiences all across the country. Sometimes she lectured to local garden clubs, and sometimes she gave workshops or lectures for august organizations like Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, the New York Botanical Garden, and even the Whitney Museum of Art.

Together we wrote an article for Horticulture Magazine. I loved interviewing Elsa for that piece about Color in the Garden because we talked about so much more than the task at hand. I learned about her job teaching in the Penshurst Village school in England during WWII where her young students brought her jam jars filled with flowers. She lived in a cottage where she gave the goats free range, and entertained a number of servicemen who seemed to find their way to her door.

She told me about her days working for British Information Services in Rockefeller Center in NYC, and meeting Mike. When we heard that Benny Goodman had died she reminisced about the apartment she and Mike shared on West 13^th Street, and how they wore out three Benny Goodman records – and the linoleum dancing in the kitchen.

Elsa edited and revised the article with me numerous times, and then the editor at Horticulture had a few things to suggest. It finally appeared in January 1987 with gorgeous photographs by Garry Mottau. Elsa, Gary and I all met in Elsa’s July garden at dawn to get the best light. I ran around holding a shiny sheet of thermax insulation to help gently direct sun onto Elsa’s face or particular flower. It was an amazing photography lesson for me, and lots of fun.

When she retired from GCC, she wrote a book, A Garden of One’s Own: Making and Keeping Your Flower Garden that was published in 1994. Mottau again did the photos. I remember the discussions about a title.  She would have no designing or creating. “Make and keep were good anglo-saxon words,” she said. That is what she chose.

Elsa was just a little older than my mother, but I never thought of her in those terms. Still I loved hearing about the girls, students from Fieldston where she taught, who spent summers with her in Heath for several years. Elsa once told me that they had all gone on an outing to Tanglewood and some music lover looked at this bevy of girls and asked what camp they belonged to. One girl drew herself up, . “We are not a camp. We are Mrs. Bakalar’s girls,” she said with great dignity.

I like to think maybe I became one of Mrs. Bakalar’s girls, too. ###

BETWEEN THE ROWS  February 6, 2010

Elsa Bakalar, Gardener and Friend

Elsa at her 91st birthday with Marie

Last October I joined with friends, and family including Jake and Susan Bakalar, Elsa’s nephew and his wife, and ‘honorary daughter’ Marie Hershkowitz who had been a student of Elsa’s, to celebrate Elsa’s 91st birthday. It was a jolly affair with a buffet brought by Jake and Susan, cards, stories,  and tributes. And laughter. And champagne.

Two weeks ago my husband and I visited Elsa at the nursing home and again had a jolly time. The menu was more limited, but one of the two other guests who had shown up had brought chocolate cake.  More laughter. Who needs champagne?

For the past two days I have been conferring with Susan and Marie, and that other important ‘honorary daughter, Nicole Gordon, to prepare an obituary, because Elsa was failing. This morning I got the call I had been expecting, but dreading.  It was time to to send out the obituary.

Elsa  (Holtom) Bakalar,  of Ashfield and Heath, passed away peacefully at the age of 91 at Overlook Northampton in Leeds, Massachustts on  January 29, 2010.

Elsa was born in London in 1918 to Ernest Alfred Holtom and Rosalie Gilder Holtom. She attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls and Bishop Otter College, now part of the University of Chichester.

After graduation she began her teaching career at a school that was bombed, killing many students, while Elsa was out of the building.  She was lucky! She went on to teach at Penshurst Village School, often teaching 65 young children in a class. She married a German refugee artist, Erwin Wending.  After the war she came to the United States, working for British Information Services (BIS) in New York City lecturing and writing pamphlets, and several articles that appeared in Gourmet Magazine, introducing Americans to English traditions and recipes. There she and Wending divorced.  It was in New York that she met Michael Bakalar; it was love at first sight and they married in 1954.

After leaving BIS in the 1950’s, she worked for many years as a teacher in New York City at the Ethical Culture and Fieldston schools, now known as the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, first as a grade school teacher at Midtown (in Manhattan), then at the high school in Riverdale. As a much-loved teacher, she is remembered by her students for a demanding but highly engaging and inspiring teaching style and for her annual uniquely dramatic reading of the whole of  Dickens’ Great Expectations to her 6th grade class.

In 1958 she and Mike bought a small house in Heath where Elsa began making the garden that she would write and lecture about for many years. For several years she also ran a summer camp for girls, most of whom were her students at Ethical Culture and Fieldston.

In 1978 Elsa and Mike moved to West County full time. Mike founded the Shelburne Falls and West County News, and Elsa became Director of Community Services at Greenfield Community College. While there she instituted a series of Study and Travel Courses, leading groups through England and its great gardens. She also taught garden workshops in Heath and became well-known for her garden talks to local groups, encouraging new gardeners, and expanding the horizons of experienced gardeners. She was as well known for her charm, wit and turn of phrase as for her gardening expertise

When she retired from GCC she began a career of lecturing to garden groups all across the  United States and offered workshops under the auspices of Harvard University’s Arnold  Arboretum, the New England Wildflower Society, the New York Botanical Garden and many  professional organizations. In 1994 she published her book, A Garden of One’s Own: Making  and Keeping Your Flower Garden, made a garden video, and was interviewed on national TV.  In every endeavor her husband Mike was at her side, a perennial support: photographer,  mover of stones in the garden and slide projector operator on the lecture road until his death in 2000.

She is survived by her  cousin, with whom she was raised as a sister, Peter Kerry and his wife Iris of Almeria, Spain; stepson G. Michael Bakalar  and his wife Erika of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, granddaughters Dawn Byrd,  Amanda Eiras, Leigh Anne Jennings; and four great grandchildren as well as nephews, nieces, cousins and her beloved “honorary daughters” Marie Hershkowitz of Northampton and Nicole Gordon of New York City.

Interment is private. A memorial gathering is being planned for the spring. Memorial gifts can be sent to the Friends of the Heath Library, c/o Jane Deleeuw, Long Hill Rd, Heath, MA 01346, or the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 900 Washington Ave, Wellesley, MA 02482.

Garden Bloggers Book Club

My Friend Elsa

Though I haven’t read Dear Friend and Gardener I have my own great garden friend. When I moved to my Massachusetts hilltop, I found that one of our area’s most famous perennial gardeners, Elsa Bakalar, lived on a neighboring hilltop. She was a generation older, British, much more knowledgeable about flower gardens, and way more opinionated than I was about anything but happy to befriend a novice.

She is a born teacher, and even now living in a nursing home, she is always imagining classes and lectures she is ready to present.

I knew nothing about perennials and never imagined growing any flower more exotic than a marigold, but she taught me and I encouraged her to write, to put all those good lessons down on paper where they could be shared. We started writing together. It was my byline that appeared under The Flower Garden According to Elsa in the January 1987 issue of Horticulture Magazine with fabulous photographs by Gary Mottau, but the very definite and charming opinions were all Elsa’s.

Elsa not only has skill in the garden, as well as a strong aesthetic sense, she has a sharp wit. It is her sense of humor that helped make her a sought after lecturer at garden clubs, flower shows and botanical gardens all across the country. The tales she brought back from Williamsburg, Virginia, and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art entertained all of us in Heath.

The speaking engagements finally inspired her to put down her thoughts about gardening. Though she held strong opinions, she believed that gardeners should please themselves. Bring on the gnomes and flamingos if that’s what the gardener loved. Her book is aptly titled A Garden of One’s Own: Making and Keeping Your Flower Garden. Elsa was insistent about using those brisk Anglo-Saxon words – make and keep. Forget designing and creating she said. The book came out in time to mark her 75th birthday in 1994.

After we met she watched me put in a 90 foot perennial border and knew how foolish that was at that stage of my life and responsibilities. She just shrugged when it disappeared. She grew a single Queen Elizabeth rose, but appreciated my collection of hardy roses as it grew. Imitation was not considered a compliment in her book. For Elsa the garden is all about pleasure. That was the only thing she demanded a gardener find there. It is what I find with Elsa.