“Gardening is not intellectual, you must get out and do it, ” she reflected later in life. “The absolute contact between the hand and the earth, the intimacy of it, that is the instinct of a gardener.” page 153, One Writer’s Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place
Every so often, a book stares down from a bookcase at me. It looks right into my soul and bids me to spend some time languishing upon its pages as it wraps me between its covers like a shawl. One Writer’s Garden did just that from the moment I first saw it sitting on prominent shelf in a local public library.
The book grew out of Susan Haltom’s efforts to restore the home gardens of Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Eudora Welty. Haltom, along with Jane Roy Brown, collaborated on the book. Told in chapters that span more than forty decades, we come to understand how the many plants and garden influenced Ms. Welty’s writing and we also learn how home gardening grew through much of the twentieth century.
Eudora Welty’s remarkable body of work has to do with her strong sense of place. It is easy to understand how this garden played a part in this and I am eager to read more of Welty’s books and stories, especially The Optimist’s Daughter, which just followed me home from the library.
The Welty garden was originally planted and maintained by Eudora Welty’s mother, Chestina. It helped her through the grief of her husband’s death as it helped them both as they saw loved ones going off to World War II.
I’ve been reading One Writer’s Garden just as my garden club is busy getting ready for our annual Garden Walk and Faire on July 8. I read the book in between visiting featured gardens on a preview walk for the homeowners and attending to details for the Faire that I am responsible for, as well as handling reservations for a Garden Clubs of Illinois luncheon later in July. Both organizations are under the umbrella of the National Garden Clubs. I write this not to draw attention to my endeavors, but to just say how enlightening it was for me to read this book right now and learn more about the founding of the National Garden Clubs, the history of women in gardens, and how vital gardens were in the early decades of the 20th century. Among other things, they yielded nosegays to be given when visiting, as well as floral arrangements to be taken to homes where deceased were waked. Our garden club members still bring a floral arrangement to members who have lost a close family member. It was heart warming to learn of how this custom came about.
I could go on about how the Garden Conservancy was called upon for advice on the historical significance of Eudora Welty’s garden, or even how often the Silver Moon rose is mentioned in One Writer’s Garden. I could point out how many wonderful personal pictures and quotes are in the book, or how relevant Chestina’s gardening journals were in the garden’s restoration, but I think, instead, that I will just urge you to read One Writer’s Garden and discover the many treasures growing there on your own.
Doesn’t this photo, found in the book, evoke a sense of place?
What a rich book this must be. I love your musings about gardens, and involvement in them, especially now that we are in the chill of winter and the gardens are mostly bare. The tradition of the nosegay sounds so lovely – I wonder what nosegay means?
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That is a good question, Juliet. I’m not sure where the term nosegay originated. I think it was most often used in Victorian times and is another name for a tussie-mussie, which I don’t know the origins of either. Hmmm? At any rate, a nosegay is a small, handheld bouquet of flowers. Women would gather the flowers from their own gardens to take while visiting. I actually carried a nosegay rather than wear a corsage for each of our daughters’ weddings.
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Hi there. As you know I recently visited Eudora Welty’s house and garden on my Grand Southern Literary Tour. I have a few photos that I would love to send you. One is of the sweetpeas growing up a fence erected just for that purpuse and another is of a stand of cornflowers which are my favorites. For some reason I don’t see cornflowers in gardens around here anymore. That is a shame as their color is astounding.
For some unexplained reason I failed to purchase this book on Welty’s garden. What was I thinking?
I believe that nosegays were used in medieval and Victorian times to offer relief from odors of the body and the street. To keep the nose gay! Tussie mussies were composed of flowers that sent a message to the receiver…I like you, I am sorry, Let’s be friends. Ah, the language of flowers.
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Belle, thank you for enlightening me. Keeping the nose gay – how delightful! And the message of tussie mussies – wonderful!
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I am green with envy at your recent visit to Eudora Welty’s house and garden, Belle, even more so now that I’ve had a chance to read this book. I would love to see your photos. Please do forward them on to me. I love sweet peas as well as cornflowers, though they aren’t so popular around here these days either.
You have such a lovely pile of books from your literary tour, I’m sure you had to resist many books. This is one you might enjoy owning. I’m thinking of putting it on my Amazon wishlist.
Thank you for the information regarding nosegays and tussie mussies. I have a book about the language of flowers that a dear friend gave me. You just reminded me of it. I’ll need to have a “look see”, then, of course, there is a book out with that title . . .
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Penny, I could go for that picture today, as hot as we are in Charleston. 🙂 I love the way you write about flowers and gardening. It is clearly such a passion, and it gives me something of a garden of my own again.
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What a nice thing to say, Andra. Thank you so very much.
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I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but I just posted the few photos I took on the GSLT on my blog. You will be able to see the ones taken in Eudora’s garden. I try not to take too many photos as I can get so caught up in the eye of the camera that I forget to ‘see’ what I am seeing.
Here is the link. Scroll down for the goodness 🙂
http://bellebookandcandle.blogspot.com/p/grand-southern-literary-tour-2012.html
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Thank you, Belle, for the pictures and links to the GSLT tour. That was so nice of you to take the time to post them on your blog. I appreciate it – and I can see others do as well. I have enjoyed your posts on the tour and all that you have had to say about it. I know it is something I would enjoy doing some day.
You are wise to not take too many photos. I sometimes have to pull myself back and just enjoy the moments. I am, however, so glad that you took these. Penny
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I must read One Writer’s Garden since I am a true Miss Eudora fan like many who live in the South. I recommend another of her stories, “Why I Live at the P.O.” and “One Writer’s Beginnings”, her book about her writing life. I went to Belle’s link and couldn’t believe my eyes about the Rockabilly Museum in Jackson, TN. That is the area my parents and grandparents were from and I spent my first 9 years in Jackson. Surely do wish I’d known about that tour! The term of address I use, Miss Eudora, is what I was taught for unmarried ladies and I was a Miss Marilyn MANY years!
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You really must read this, Marilyn. You will enjoy the pictures, the Southern wisdom, pictures of the garden plans, excerpts from personal letters. “Why I Live at the P.O.” was actually referenced several times. Curious, I googled it and was able to find the story online. The voices were so clear to me and gave me such a sense of place. As soon as I finish “The Optimist’s Daughter” I plan to dig into “One Writer’s Beginnings”. It was so gracious of Belle to provide that link. You might want to check around to see when there might be another one. From one Miss Eudora fan to another, here’s hoping you have a good week.
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I shall duly read it, Penny. I adore true plantswomen, people who have a lifetime’s wisdom accumulated through experience. I am a huge fan of Vita Sackville West and Sissinghurst: such peaceful, patient passion in the garden.
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Someday, Kate. Someday I will visit Sissinghurst and come home sated from such a peaceful place. It has long been on my list of places to see.
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I would love to read it, Penny. It looks lovely and does indeed give a sense of place as you said. I would enjoy holding that hose and cooling off as I watered things.
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I think there are things in the book that would bring your grandmothers to mind, Janet. It became almost unbearably humid this evening. The temptation was there to stand under the hose.
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As so often, we are on a very similar page. Miss Welty has been on my mind, too…. 🙂
I was unfamiliar with her life as a gardener and will have to look for this book. You write of it with the same passion wherewith she must have gardened, and written her stories.
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It does seem to work that way with us, doesn’t it? Teresa, there are so many things in this book that I know you would relate to and appreciate it. Her personal correspondences brought such insight into her joy of gardening. If you can imagine, Miss Eudora actually mailed plants to friends – and they arrived the next day in good condition.
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Library loan brought this book to me this week. I’m hoping for the time to read it! So many books, so little time.
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It is such a dilemma, isn’t it Joyce? That was pretty fast. I’m so pleased to hear you have it already. I do hope you have some bits of time to enjoy it.
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Dear Penny, thank you for sharing this book with us. I haven’t gardened for the past three years although I hope that when/if I return to Minnesota I’ll begin again. But I so enjoy your writing about your own gardening and the gardening groups to which you belong. And now to learn about a book connected with Eudora Welty’s garden is a lovely gift today from you to me.
Peace.
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Thank you, Dee. I’m so honored to have you say so and it is so special a feeling that you take this gift. I think there are many things about this book that you will find peaceful and heartwarming, especially how Susan Haltom goes about resurrecting the garden for Miss Eudora.
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You’ve mentioned this book before and I think I want a copy! I relate so well to the garden as a sense of place! I think I could downsize and move from our home, but I would have a very hard time leaving our outdoor space. That’s where I seem to most identify! You garden club projects and the upcoming events are undoubtedly very time consuming, but I see them as a contribution to the community’s overall health and well-being, Penny. I wish I could attend! Who knows? Maybe some day! Debra
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Debra, you have hit the nail on the head. I believe in community involvement, service, and giving back however we can and the garden walk does that, whether one works on the committees, sells tickets, allows their garden to be shown, or purchases tickets and comes. The end result is good works for all to benefit from. If you are ever this way the second Sunday in July, I will have a ticket waiting for you, Debra. Some day!
I think you would enjoy this book. I’m seriously thinking of putting it on my wishlist. The photos are varied and beautiful, the writing wonderful and it is filled with so many interesting things about gardening past and present.
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I love the photo from the book and this was a great review Penny. The book sounds like it fits perfectly with your passion!
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Isn’t it great, Janet? I’m sure it is something lots of folks would like to be doing this week with this heat. I see you posted and will be by to check it out soon.
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[…] so enjoyed One Writer’s Garden that I was determined to read more of Eudora Welty, especially her Pulitzer Prize winning The […]
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