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The Greeting Card Garden Syndrome: Are You Afflicted? - Part II

© Georgene A. Bramlage

Sometimes enthusiastic old house owners can mix and blend several styles of gardens in such a way that the end result is graceful and charming. However, more often than not, home gardeners are left with a hodgepodge that leaves them feeling a little uncomfortable and ill-at-ease. Something is wrong, but they can't quite pinpoint the cause.

To avoid this aggravation, some hard thinking is necessary before the first plant is purchased or spadeful of soil overturned. Assembling useful references, and then reading and researching about period gardens will help the homeowner pinpoint realistic expectations because a crucial decision must be made:

• Do I want to be a purist and hold fast to one historical gardening period? or

• Should I allow myself some freedom in the landscape design by opting for an old-fashioned or traditionalist approach?

The purist can easily find and consult practical guides for reproducing many forms of period gardens. Colonial Williamsburg (VA) staff have assembled a Gardens Bibliography, while faculty teaching Historic American Landscapes and Gardens at Georgia State University (Atlanta) have also put together an extensive bibliography and reading list.

Inexpensive books with designs and lists of plant materials such as For Every House a Garden: A Guide for Reproducing Period Gardens and Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings, both by Rudy J. Favretti and Joy P. Favretti, are excellent resources for gardeners wanting to make an historical or period garden.

The purist can adopt a museum approach to choosing plants for an old-house-landscape by growing one or a little of every plant on a chosen list. Or, this question can be considered and answered:

• How many of the plants on the period list would have actually been grown by the people living in my house?

Just as there are differences in today's gardeners, and among their city and country gardens, all gardens of any place and century weren't identical.

Houses around the Old Sturbridge Village Common and in the Village countryside exhibit plant types, gardening practices, and garden styles of the 1830s. Based on extensive research by staff members using letters, diaries, reminiscences, seed and nursery catalogs, and garden advice books, Old Sturbridge Village gardens show a few of the variations possible for heritage gardens.

• The Townes, an urbane, well-traveled and well-read family, have a little extra money to spend and have laid out the garden in a formal slightly European Style, grow the newest plants available, and have help to maintain their garden.