{"id":6009,"date":"2010-05-14T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2010-05-14T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nybg.org\/wordpress\/?p=6009"},"modified":"2010-05-14T09:40:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-14T13:40:38","slug":"springtime-today-at-emily-dickinson%e2%80%99s-homestead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/2010\/05\/exhibit-news\/springtime-today-at-emily-dickinson%e2%80%99s-homestead\/","title":{"rendered":"Springtime Today at Emily Dickinson\u2019s Homestead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author Finds Striking Comparison with Garden\u2019s Re-Creation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nMarta McDowell is author of Emily Dickinson\u2019s Gardens: A Celebration of a Poet and Gardener and teaches landscape history at The New York Botanical Garden, where she studied landscape design.
\n<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\"Emily<\/a>The other day I drove from the Botanical Garden to Amherst, Massachusetts, bookending a visit to Emily Dickinson\u2019s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers<\/a><\/em> with a call on Emily Dickinson\u2019s home, the Homestead, at the Emily Dickinson Museum<\/a>. Winding through Westchester County and western Connecticut, I turned onto Interstate 91 following the Connecticut River up the so-called Pioneer Valley, settled by Dickinson\u2019s ancestors in search of good agricultural land. The unseasonably warm spring weather we were having trailed me north from the Bronx, with the temperature reading in the mid-80s on the car thermometer when I finally got to Emily\u2019s B&B (where else?) on North Prospect Street. <\/p>\n

Emily Dickinson\u2019s Amherst is pleasant in spring. Walking to her home early this morning, approaching from the west, I first encountered the Evergreens, home of her brother, Austin, and sister-in-law, Susan. The umbrella magnolias, Magnolia tripetala<\/em>, were in bloom with their huge, unlikely blossoms open as their even larger leaves emerge. It still seems more tropical than native, but the USDA reports its range from Florida to Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Strolling the path between the houses \u201cjust wide enough for two who love,\u201d I was struck by how beautifully the exhibition in the Botanical Garden\u2019s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory captures the feeling of the woodland walk as it must have been in Dickinson\u2019s day.<\/p>\n

The lilacs, those ancient shrubs, were in full bloom around the Dickinson Homestead, their lavender blooms complementing the yellow ochre of the painted bricks of the house. Peonies were in full bud, a bit behind the Botanical Garden\u2019s fine display opening up along Perennial Garden Way. Huge stands of bleeding heart, the old-fashioned Dicentra spectabilis<\/em>, dominate the Homestead\u2019s garden at the moment; the tulips were fading fast. I was taken by the fragrance wafting through the air, lilac and lily-of-the-valley no doubt, putting out their odors, as Dickinson put it, \u201cfrom flasks – so small – You marvel how they held.\u201d<\/p>\n

The birds were joining in their morning harmonies: the jay, the mockingbird, the robin, and others I couldn\u2019t place. The sun was lighting the clouds \u201ca ribbon at a time\u201d over the hills. What a joy it is to send her morning garden \u201cTo an admiring blog<\/em>\u201d!<\/p>\n

References to Dickinson\u2019s poems are from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. R.W. Franklin (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1998):<\/em> The lilac is an ancient shrub (F 1261);<\/em> I tend my flowers for thee (F 367); <\/em>I\u2019ll tell you how the sun rose (F 204); and<\/em> I\u2019m nobody! Who are you (F 260).<\/em><\/p>\n

Get Your Tickets<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author Finds Striking Comparison with Garden\u2019s Re-Creation Marta McDowell is author of Emily Dickinson\u2019s Gardens: A Celebration of a Poet and Gardener and teaches landscape history at The New York Botanical Garden, where she studied landscape design. The other day I drove from the Botanical Garden to Amherst, Massachusetts, bookending a visit to Emily Dickinson\u2019s… <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n