A Morbid Taste for Bones

In my book posts, I usually recommend favorite gardening books and references. Today I’m recommending a work of fiction! After studying medieval gardening the last couple of months, I was reminded of a mystery series that is set in medieval times. The first book in the series is A Morbid Taste for Bones, by Edith Pargeter, writing under the name Ellis Peters, and published by Grand Central Publishing (New York, 1977).

The central character is Brother Cadfael, a Welshman in his 60s, who was called to the monastery late in life after an adventurous life as a Crusader in the Middle East for 15 years, then as the captain of a fishing boat. While in the Middle East he learned about gardening and herbs. He returned to England, took his vows, and settled into life at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Shrewsbury. He tends the enclosed garden and is knowledgeable in healing. The story begins in the year 1137 with Brother Cadfael tending his vegetable garden. As the story unfolds, Cadfael embarks on a journey to Wales with his Prior and a small party from the abbey to procure the relics of Saint Winifred. Mystery and murder ensue, but Cadfael’s experience and good sense help bring justice.

I loved seeing elements of medieval gardens woven into the tale. Brother Cadfael’s vegetable garden is enclosed within walls, and near a fish pond, orchard, and a stream that powers the mill. He is in charge of the herbarium where many healing plants grow, including many that he brought back from the Middle East. Some of the plants listed include rue, sage, rosemary, gilvers, gromwell, ginger, mint, thyme, columbine, herb of grace, savory, mustard, fennel, tansy, basil and dill, parsley, chervil, and marjoram. He also grows peonies for spiced seeds, and poppies for their pain relieving seeds.

San Francisco Garden Show Highlights – 2013

My aunt and I are always on the lookout for interesting ideas, cool gadgets, and beautiful gardens at the San Francisco Garden Show. This year was no exception. With our creaky knees, we love finding raised bed options. Best of Show for us was the new GreenBed™ durable bed kit. You can purchase 4’x8’ feet of planting space, with either 1’ or 2’ high walls. The side slabs are made of wood chips and cement, and the kit provides all the hardware you need to assemble the beds. The 2’ high kit on display was engineered so the plantings were in easy reach, with no need for bending. This is ideal for seniors, or anyone with mobility problems.

GreenBed raised beds - ready to assemble

Other interesting hardscaping ideas include these stone and wire walls. I’ve seen them before in various sizes and shapes, but I’m always pleased to see variations. This seems like a very practical solution for a stone wall, when a stone mason is difficult to find or afford. The fence, consisting of small walls on the diagonal, was also interesting. It provides a hint of privacy, but is still open and inviting.

Stone and wire walls

Fence of diagonal walls

The Show is a great place to pick up plants, gadgets, and gardening supplies at great prices. I was taken with this Lee Valley tool display. My aunt bought a beautiful canvas shopping bag decorated with California poppies. We found chocolate, too - the salty kind from De Brito Chocolate Factory in Hollister, California. Yum.

Tool Appeal - beautiful tools ready for the garden

The Wanted Weeds display, by Urban Hedgerow, drew us both in. Their premise is that we should rethink weeds – they can “be virtuous host plants, nectar sources, and medicinal”. We loved seeing the messages posted on the walls of this interactive display – “Weeds are weeds too” read one sign, “Weeds give you something to do” read another, and “Death to Oxalis” read a third.

Wanted Weeds - extolling the benefits of weeds.

Another successful San Francisco Garden Show! We enjoyed a seminar on green roofs, a cooking demonstration, the Marketplace, and lots of beautiful gardens. I was pleased to see technology moving in – smart phone users could access sfgardenshow.com, and Sunset Magazine was advertising their new Western Gardening Book for the iPhone, iPad, and web (www.sunset.com/wgb). Very cool.

San Francisco Garden Show 2013

Gardens Make the World Go Round is the theme of this year’s San Francisco Garden Show, held in the San Mateo Convention Center. Today ends its five-day run, traditionally held over the spring weekend. My aunt and I always try to attend (sometimes with other family members in tow, if they are lucky enough to be in town)! Over the past couple of years, the show has integrated local food and chefs, green gardening concepts, and sustainable themes, which is perfect for the Bay Area.


Gardens Make the World Go Round - world's largest succulent globe

The Garden Displays are always interesting. The Assyrian Hanging Garden was fun, and took me back to the gardening history post on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It might be difficult to build a ziggurat in your backyard, but terraced gardens are plentiful with the steep hills in the Bay Area. The Seville style garden would also work well in our dry Mediterranean climate. I loved watching people approach the garden, as though they felt invited into its relaxed atmosphere.



Assyrian Hanging Garden - harkens back to the Hanging Garden of Babylon

Inviting outdoor room of this Seville Landscape

The Academy of Art garden was fun – futuristic and upside down. The world is changing quickly, so this type of unconventional thinking will be important for keeping things fresh, and solving problems on a global scale.

Another style of hanging gardens - suspended rocks on the left, inverted trees on the right

I still like a conventional approach as well. This thick garden hedge evokes childhood memories of looking for the perfect “fort” or “hideout” with my childhood friend, Theresa, and our siblings. But this boarder garden is appealing too – with its bright blue wall and dramatic plants.

Inviting tangle of flowers and vegetation - appeals to my inner kid

Intense blue wall, and an interesting palette of plants

These are some of my favorites, but there were many more beautiful gardens and garden ideas at the show. As you can tell, I look forward to this show all year.
 

Sacramento Historic City Cemetary - Native Plants

The California Native Plant Society demonstration garden is integrated with the Sacramento City Historic Cemetery – bordering the Grand Army, Spanish American War, Veterans, and Old Soldiers sections. Here you can find California native plants, trees, and signage, co-mingled with headstones and grave markers from 150 years ago. It sounds a little weird, but it works. It is tasteful, thoughtfully done, and helps make the cemetery a beautiful place to visit.

Native sons and daughters, and native plants

Recall from our visit to Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, that park-like cemeteries, representing harmony between nature and man, began to emerge in the early 19^th century. It would not be unusual at the time to take the family out for a Sunday picnic in the beautiful setting of a cemetery. This creative, multiple-use of space at the Old City Cemetery may be the trend of the future, as more and more of us populate the planet.

Hummingbird Sage	Weeping Willow Motif
Wildlife Gardening Tips	Native Shrub

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I have enjoyed visiting winter gardens over the last several months, to study the “winter bones” of gardens and consider how to integrate winter interest into garden design. Still, with the acacia and cherry trees blooming along Highway 13 and the occasional "chinook," I am ready to embrace the spring garden!

Sacramento City Historic Cemetery – Roses and Perennials

While in Sacramento, I visited the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery (or Old City Cemetery). I had planned to visit the Native Plant Society demo garden in Sacramento, as part of my winter garden viewing project, and was surprised to learn that the NPS garden is actually integrated with the cemetery. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but was intrigued with the idea – mixing a Victorian era burial ground, with Sacramento gold rush history and beautiful plants. What could be more enticing!

Old City Cemetery in Sacramento - graves, history, and plants!

The Sacramento City Cemetery was established in 1849, with a 10-acre land donation by Captain John Sutter. The cemetery design is based on the Victorian Garden style, and is a series of “raised beds” for burial plots (not surprising given the city’s history of flooding). Over the last 150 years the cemetery has expanded to 44 acres. The cemetery includes a historic rose garden, which includes old or antique roses that were popular in the Gold Rush era (1850 – 1915). They were originally brought by settlers and pioneers, and then later collected from road sides, home sites, and cemeteries. My visit was too early to see the blooms, but I enjoyed seeing the “winter bones” of the rose garden.

  Graves and roses - with an iron trellis in the background

   Victorian draped marker - with rose bushes in the foreground

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The cemetery also includes perennial plantings among the headstones, crypts, and chapels, centering on the Hamilton Square Perennial Garden. It was a pleasure to see the perennial plantings, evident even in winter.

Rosemary and headstones

Geranium and raised beds

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Capitol Park in Sacramento

Recently my husband and I visited Sacramento – he was attending a conference for therapists and psychologists, and I saw an opportunity for exploring winter gardens! We have passed Sacramento many times on our way up and down Interstate 5 between Southern California and Seattle to visit family and friends, but never stopped (our son did travel to the State Capitol with his fourth grade class many years ago)! The conference was held at a hotel within walking distance of Old Town on the Sacramento River, and near Capitol Park.

California State Capitol - palm trees grace the wide walking path,
characteristic of Victorian era (1837 - 1901) planting

Capitol Park covers 40 acres and spans 12 city blocks, providing a beautiful setting for the State Capitol building. Landscaping efforts began in 1870, four years before the Capitol’s completion. The land was graded, and enriched with river silt and soil. Eight hundred trees, shrubs, and flowers were planted, both native and non-native. Native plants were collected from each of the State’s 58 counties. Non-native plants were collected from climate zones all over the world. Many of the non-native trees thrive in Sacramento’s mild climate, over 100 years after planting.

 

Mature cedar trees

Grove of oak and magnolia trees 

 

I had heard about some of the beautiful heritage trees in Sacramento, while attending landscape horticulture classes at Merritt College in Oakland. It was a pleasure to see so many mature trees, such as olive, sequoia, redwood, magnolia, Deodar cedar, orange, palm, oak, bunya-bunya, and many others. I also enjoyed Capitol Park’s theme gardens, including the famous Camellia Grove; the World Peace Rose Garden; a Civil War Memorial Grove planted with trees from every major battle; and an oak and grinding stone tribute to California Native Indians. I definitely need to return for more exploration, possibly in another season to experience the landscape more fully. I'm encouraging my husband to register for a fall conference in Sacramento! Learn more: http://capitolmuseum.ca.gov/VirtualTour.aspx?Content1=1416&Content2=1414&Content3=508

 

Mature olive tree in Capitol Park

 

 

The Cloisters Medieval Garden

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are no surviving European Medieval gardens, and little documentation about them. In New York City, we have The Cloisters, which is a composite of at least five different ancient European cloisters, on the banks of the Hudson in Fort Tryon Park. The Cloisters is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and dedicated to the scholarly study of Medieval Europe.

Cloister refers to a covered walkway that surrounds a quadrangle, usually in a religious institution. Typically there is a wall on one side of the walkway, and a colonnade on the other opening into the quadrangle, which is frequently a garden. This cloister, or “closed place”, is the heart of the medieval European garden. The Cloisters includes three such gardens:

• The Cuxa Cloister and Gardens – consists of crossed paths and a central fountain, in which both medieval and modern plant species are grown.
• The Bonnefont Cloister and Garden – an herb garden that contains more than 250 plant species grown in the middle ages. Hardscaping elements include a central well head, raised beds, and wattle fences (woven of strips of willow or hazel).
• The Trie Cloister and Garden – a garden planted with medieval species that mimic the “millefleurs” background of tapestries, such as the Unicorn series that is housed at the Cloisters.

Learn more about The Cloisters, the medieval collection, and the gardens: http://youtu.be/tiYENYz_v4s 



John D. Rockefeller Jr. provided funds for the building and purchasing land for the Cloisters, as well as across the river, with the stipulation that it not be developed to keep the feeling of an ancient monastery. Building pieces were purchased in Europe from a variety of sources, and the architect Charles Collens incorporated them into a unified whole. The Cloisters houses the George Grey Barnard medieval collection. The Cloisters opened in 1938. Learn more: http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-the-cloisters

Elements of the Medieval Garden

Life in the middle ages was difficult for most people, and gardening was a practical necessity. Plants were grown for their usefulness, with fruits, vegetables, and healing plants as the main focus. Some flowers, typically selected for their religious symbolism, were grown to decorate church sanctuaries. Some elements of the medieval garden, summarized from Christopher Thacker’s The History of Gardens and augmented by Penelope Hobhouse in The Story of Gardening:

• Square, enclosed garden – the square or rectangle garden comes from the shape of the cloister. A wall encloses the garden for protection and privacy. It also has religious symbolism; in paintings, the Virgin Mary is often depicted in a walled garden. Garden beds within the walls are often square or rectangular as well, with paths between them. According to Thacker, this basic layout forms the basis later for all formal gardens in Europe (reinforced by exposure to the Persian four-square garden design).
• Hedges and trellises – for the prosperous, walls were built of stone; for others, walls took the form of hedges of bushes or trees, or fences woven of willow or hazel strips. Trellises and arbors were also woven and provided shade, protection, and a structure for climbing plants.
• Water fountain – a water source was required for irrigation, and seen as a symbolic fount of life. Sometimes a fish pond was maintained for harvesting fresh fish.
• Raised beds – raised beds provided planting areas with good drainage. The height of the beds varies in depictions, which may indicate there was an awareness that lower beds worked for drier soil, and higher beds were required for moist soil.
• Orchards and vines – fruiting trees and grapes were grown where the climate allowed. Bees were often kept as well, providing honey (and pollination).
• Plants – produce and herb gardens were often separated from healing plants. In monasteries, the healing plants were often grown close to the infirmary.
• Flowery mead – many depictions show the ground covered with small flowers and grasses, in sort of a ground covering.

Look for some of these elements in the demonstration herb garden at Stafford Castle in England.

Herb Garden, Stafford Castle - spring color and a profusion of scents in the replica medieval herb garden at Stafford Castle. Copyright Simon Huguet and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

 

Garden History – Medieval Gardens

It’s time for more garden history, this time looking at Medieval European gardens. I’ve been using Christopher Thacker’s classic text The History of Gardens for my research, and comparing notes with The Story of Gardening by the British gardener, Penelope Hobhouse. The Medieval period—also called the Dark Ages—extends from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5^th century to the 15^th century. The thousand year period is typically categorized into three main periods – early (476-1000), High (1000-1300), and late middle ages (1300-1453). Out of this period of decline, illiteracy, upheaval, war, power struggles, The Plague, and establishment of the Christian church, Western culture was born.

There are no surviving gardens, and few written documents about medieval gardens and gardening. Information has been pieced together from literature, illustrated prayer books, art and tapestries, records of monastic life, and a few documents. It is unclear whether these documents represent reality, or an idealization. Three key documents include:

• A monastery proposal found in St. Gall in Switzerland, with a garden plan that includes herbs and medicinal plants (820 AD).
• The regulations for administering towns in Charlemagne’s empire, with a list plants and fruit trees that must be grown, called Capitulare de villis vel curtis imperii (795).
• A Latin poem about a “little garden”, with first-hand knowledge of the pleasure of work, the plants, and the produce, called Liber de cultura hortorum, by monk Walafrid Strabo (809-49).

Piecing together the information, scholars believe that early medieval gardens were “useful” – centering around produce, orchards, and healing plants. Only later did medieval gardens start to include elements of the pleasure garden – beauty for its own sake. Monasteries often had access to ancient Latin texts, making them havens for learning and technology. Monks grew their own food and healing plants, using ancient farming techniques adapted to their respective climates. The healing knowledge and plants benefited both travelers and the surrounding community. Monks also grew flowers to decorate the church; some flowers represented religious themes, such as the rose representing Mary or the blood of martyrs, and the lily representing purity of faith. In this video, observe the art for gardening evidence:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lM86cmbYZeQ