An “Arborous” Occasion in the Garden

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We needed a garden gate. I knew it instinctively when I looked at our new arbor. Made of Osage orange posts and thus far unadorned with plants, it defined the garden space in a new, architectural way, and it suggested other possibilities. Vine-covered pergolas and rose-clad arbors look lovely in old garden books, but it’s hard to get a feel for their presence from the pictures.

When our arbor was new, I could look out my kitchen windows and see it standing in the old barnyard-turned-garden. Real horses browsed there for 100 years, and I remember thinking to myself that if this arbor was a horse, it surely would be a draft animal — big of heart, heavy of flesh, eager to work and in need of a good gate. In short, a real presence.

Although my husband, Richard, and I live on his 1875 family homestead, we didn’t start building our heirloom garden until 1996. Old ornamental plantings adorn the yard, but no formal garden previously existed. The arbor, now covered with grape vines and roses, was one of our first steps in garden building. Making it helped me understand the importance of structure in a garden. It helps define the space, especially in a rural area, as a formally planted place. In an heirloom garden, it can help impart an old-time ambience.

Herbs play a similar role here in the garden we’ve come to call “Back in Thyme.” Of all garden plants, they are the most recognizable today as historic. In a sense, they are a gateway themselves into gardening’s past. History plays as important and revealing a role in gardening as it does in any other aspect of our lives. We can garden without ever learning garden history, but knowing a bit imparts a sense of enlightenment and adventure to our efforts and helps us reach across time to our own grandmothers and grandfathers, who very well may have grown the same plants.

In this new column, I hope you’ll enjoy reading as I share the stories of some of the horticultural oldies that are still working hard for us in our garden plots. Many already may be old friends to you, but it’s always such a delight to learn something new about an old friend. Others may not be so familiar; all will be available in commerce, so you can try them for yourselves.