The writings of gardener Elizabeth Lawrence (1905-1985) have inspired generations of gardeners. Her columns for the Charlotte Observer which she started writing in 1957, as well as her own gardening experiences and those of her friends. In the Beautiful at All Seasons, Ann L Armstrong, a garden lecturer and writer based in Charlotte, and Lindie Wilson, who owns Lawrence’s former home, presented 132 of her 700 columns to show how timeless a relationship with the garden can be.

A good cross-section was chosen from Lawrence wrote during her tenure at the Observer. Chapters include "Seasonal Flowers," "Bulbs, Corms & Tubers," "Trees & Shrubs," "Vegetables and Herbs, Climbers & Creepers," "Gardeners & Gardens," "Gods, Legends & Rituals," and "Bits & Pieces." Each piece runs about 2 pages and includes a wealth of horticultural information as well as vivid descriptions and observations that Lawrence was known for.

Ten black & white photos of Lawrence and her garden are included. The amazing thing about these pieces are that they are as relevant today as they were over forty years ago when they were written.

The following excerpts capture the spirit of her work:

Hydrangeas (July 31-1960)

The relatively cool damp weather of June and early July brought the hydrangeas in my garden to perfection, particularly two lace-flower Chinese species that Dr. Mayer got from England ten years ago. These are not for gardeners who want to a sure thing. Like camellia they are dependent on the season; in a poor ne they come to nothing, but in a good one they are magnificent.

In mid-July, when Hydrangea aspera macrophylla [H. a ssp. Strigosa] was at its best, the bees and I hovered over it all day, and at night I took a candle and went our to look again. It is a graceful, spreading shrub (six feet tall) with large, rough, light-green leaves, and well-presented corymbs of lacy, violet flowers; the fuzzy, blue-violet fertile florets are encircled by pale sterile florets that are almost pink.

Night-blooming Cereus (September 14, 1960)

One night late in August, Hannah Wither and I went out to see Mrs W. H. Troutman’s night-blooming cereus. All my life I have heard about this fantastic flower but this is the first time I have seen it. …

The flowers begin to open about 8:30, or soon after dark, and watching them slowly unfurl is a fascinating pastime. Unfortunately, I lost my way and by the time we got there, six flowers were wide open and the seventh nearly so. … The flowers are like enormous and glorious white water lilies of delicate texture and powerful fragrance. The narrow pointed outer petals stand out in a fringe around the wider inner petals, which overlap to form a long delicate cup. The cup seems to glow, almost as if it were mysteriously lighted from within. Mars Troutman says she understands what people mean when they say that it reminds them of the manger. The pure white stigma is in the form of a star.

I borrowed a tape and measured a flower and found it to be nearly nine inches across. These heavy flowers on thick, curved, dark red stems spring from the tips of the leaves. The leaves are long, narrow, and so thin that it is unbelievable that they could bear such a weight, but Mrs. Troutman says they are very tough. …She, her daughter, Hannah, a neighbor and the neighbor’s little boy and I stood around it in awe, as if it were a miracle, and the flowering, so brief and so beautiful, does seem like one.

Ben Withers says he knows that night-blooming cereus well, as his boyhood chore was to take his mother’s out of doors in spring and back up the steep steps in the fall. Once he said his mother was so charmed with a famous opera singer, who gave a concert at the Academy of Music about forty-five years ago, that when she came home from the concert and found a flower in bloom in the dark, she make him cut it and take it to the singer at her hotel. His mother said nothing else was lovely enough to express her gratitude for the pleasure the singer had given her.

Peony (August 27, 1961)

When I think of planting peonies, I think of all of the years that people have been planting them, for they are as old as any plant in the garden, maybe older. The first peony was given to Paeon, the physician of the god, who received it on Mt. Olympus from the hands of Leto, the mother of Apollo. With it e healed Pluto’s wound, and so for centuries it was grown as only a medicinal herb. …

It was the Chinese who first appreciated the beauty of the flowers, In the eleventh century, Chinese gardeners began to think of peonies as ornamental, and to make them produce flowers of a very large size. By the end of the sixteenth century, Chinese growers listed thirty varieties, but English gardeners know only half a dozen. [John] Parkinson described these and wrote, “We cherish them for the beauty and delight of their goodly flowers as wells for their physical virtues.”


Petasites (January 7, 1968)

My friend Mr. W. O. Freeland would rather trade than sell. Whenever I order plants from him, they arrive with a list of plants he want from my garden instead of a bill. Now he wants winter heliotrope. He says the last clump I sent him died, and he never gives up on a plant until he has tried it three times. Mr. Freeland knows that even if he does get the winter heliotrope to grow he will certainly have trouble with it. …

I am gland Mr. Freeland wants it, and I hope it will catch on this time, for it is not likely to be found in the trade, and he will see that it gets about. Aside from any merit of their own (and any one who appreciates fragrance in winter will certainly want petasites), I like to see plants in old gardens preserved. A garden with only store-bought flowers is like house with only store-bought furniture.

This present book is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of the editors' introductory comments and by some vintage photos of Elizabeth Lawrence, her house and her garden. As a very amateurish writer myself, it's difficult for me to define and articulate just why Lawrence's writing is so special. There are no spectacular literary fireworks in her books, but just consider this quiet little passage (and remember, this is just a column she rapped off at her old desk looking out over her garden every week):

After lunch, Ginny (Mrs. McCarney) lent me warm boots and a cap, and she and I walked down to the little creek that is called Salt Run. It is nearly a mile from the house, all steeply downhill, with a pause halfway on a little wooden bridge across a ravine. Dr. McCarney calls the bridge a listening post, a place to hear the small voices of the wood. But we heard only silence deep and white.

After Elizabeth graduated from Barnard College in New York in 1926, she returned to Raleigh North Carolina. Her Raleigh home at 115 Park Avenue was the place where Elizabeth?s interest in gardening flourished, and its garden there was well known and visited regularly by friends and neighbors. In 1932 she became the first woman to receive a degree in landscape design from NC State University.?Elizabeth once said that she designed gardens but could not bear to be called a “landscape architect.” Her interest was in the plants themselves. “She was going to use her own garden as laboratory for learning about plants.”

Miss Lawrence’s desire and passion was to garden and writing about gardening was what she knew best. In the 1930?s she slowly gained publication in the smaller garden periodicals, and then in 1942, A Southern Garden was published. It was lauded immediately. It was reprinted in 1967,1984,1991 and 2001. It has long since been hailed as a classic.

In 1948, twelve years after her father’death, Elizabeth and her mother decided to move to Charlotte to be near her sister, Ann, Ann’s husband Warren Way and their family. The two sisters purchased adjoining lots on Ridgewood Avenue, down the street from the Clarksons’ Wing Haven and at the edge of Myers Park. Elizabeth designed her new smaller garden, and it is a reflection of her ingenuity, vision and thrift. Elizabeth’s house is a charming and inviting cottage with an enviable relationship between the house and garden.

Elizabeth lived in Charlotte for 35 years and wrote three more books; The Little Bulbs, A Tale of Two Gardens, Gardens in Winter, and Lob’s Wood. She also prepared over 700 columns for publication in THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER. One of the most significant and interesting aspects of her life was her friendships with plants people and gardeners from all over the country and the correspondence she enjoyed with them. Her relationship with Katharine White, another gardener and writer, is just one of these, and the book Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters edited by Emily Herring Wilson records their exchange from 1958-1977. Katharine White wrote in her book, Upward and Onward in the Garden, “I have learned more about horticulture, plants, and garden history and literature from Elizabeth Lawrence than from any other one person”.

Elizabeth Lawrence died in Maryland in 1985 and is buried at St. James Church, Lothian, Maryland. - posted by Wei-chin Chang 1-8-2008


- posted by Wei-chin Chang 1-8-2008