April showers…It’s true, They really do bring May flowers.

A very subtle bush has bloomed amid the hard gray stones just outside the walled garden. Looking at the colorful display from the horse chestnut allée, I can’t decide which is more graceful: the aged stone wall, stark and solemn, or the brilliant orange-red of the bush climbing its frame of gray. A closer look at its flowers may disappoint if your nose is like a bee or bird, searching for a scent. But you’ll surely forgive the lack of aroma once you see, up close, the full spectrum of color it offers—the cheerful red and orange shining like a desert sunset, the yellow pollen, and the purple sepal that embraces the flowers as if someone with violet gloves is holding a living trophy.

“What is this riot of color?” you may ask. It is a flowering quince, a hardy shrub native to Japan , China , and Korea with slender, spiny branches and crenellated leaves that are oval or lanceolate (a fancy word for spear-shaped). It’s known in the botanical world as the genus Chaenomeles. The name comes from the Greek chaino (to gape or to open) and melon (apple). A member of the rose family, Chaenomeles does have a small fruit that resembles an apple, and apparently when the botanists were handing out Greek names they thought the fruit split open. In fact, it doesn’t do so very often, and given how hard and astringent it is, you probably wouldn’t want to eat it raw, though some people make jam out of it. Instead, it’s the lovely flowers that most people treasure.

When the wind picks up, you might see the white and yellow heads of narcissus (more commonly known as daffodils) bobbing from side to side in the grass. Compared to the blazing tulips you’ll see around the formal garden, narcissus come in a limited range of colors—white, yellow, orange, and sometimes a hint of pink. But I wouldn’t want to experience spring without them. They’re deer-resistant and much easier to establish than tulips. If you leave them alone to grow in your garden and allow nature to crossbreed them, you will be surprised at the new varieties that seem to pop up every year. And their scent isn’t to be missed. Though legend has it that the flower is named after Narcissus (who fell in love with himself and was turned into a flower), garden writer Anna Pavord says in her book Bulb that the flower was given its name by the Roman poet and doctor Pliny, who believed the daffodil’s powerful scent had narcotic properties.

Text by Luis Marmol
Photographs by Richard Warren.

Tussie-Mussies—Do Flowers Talk?

One of the ways to send messages in the nineteenth century was tussie-mussies, little bouquets of flowers that ladies and gentlemen of the era used to send messages to one another. Today I guess we would probably call them instant messages.

“Do flowers talk?” Well, if Lewis Carroll’s Alice had paid more attention to the customs of the era, she would have known that the answer was unequivocally “yes.” For the Victorians, each flower represented a different emotion or meaning that—when combined—sent a message to the receiver.

An entire courtship could take place with the presentation of flowers. A small bouquet of rose, ivy, and myrtle would signify beauty, friendship, and hope. Bachelor’s buttons (hope) and roses (love) placed together would mean, “I hope to obtain your love.” A combination of jonquil and linden could signify a marriage proposal.

So this year on Mother’s Day, when you offer a bouquet of flowers or maybe even a tussie-mussie, why not try something new—or rather old-fashioned—and choose flowers that “talk?”

Amanda Kraemer, Education Assistant
Photography by Richard Warren

A Mansion Favorite Returns Home: Abigail Walker Needlework Mourning Picture, ca. 1803

A weeping willow tree shelters two lovely young women in a garden at the mansion this spring, and one would never know that these beautiful creatures, stitched in silk with exquisitely painted faces, are over two hundred years old. Thanks to recent conservation, however, they should continue to age gracefully.

One of two needlework mourning pictures in our collection, this one was made by Abigail Walker in memory of three babies who died between 1796 and 1803. One woman, probably their mother, sadly bends her head like a figure on a Greek funerary stele, and lovingly rests her hand on the urn that memorializes the children. The other figure points toward heaven and carries an anchor, a Christian symbol of hope—the “anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). The original verre églomisé frame survives.

Pictures like this one were made by well-to-do girls at “female academies” and were a genre of memorial artwork associated with 19th-century mourning rituals. Perhaps Abigail Walker was the sister of the three children named on the plinth. More research may reveal the school where this beautiful memorial was stitched, but it might have been located in Massachusetts. The skillfully executed faces were probably done by a professional artist.

Thanks to experts at the Textile Conservation Workshop in South Salem, New York, the delicate silk fabric has been repaired and the picture has been stabilized to prevent further damage. Now, after winding our way to the top of the mansion staircase, we can all stop to enjoy this particularly fine picture once again.

Margaret Highland, Museum Curator

What’s in bloom?

Spring has always been a time for renewal and clean up, the emergence of green shoots and fond floral essences, and the hopes and childhood memories associated with warmer weather. Narcissi, snowdrops, witch hazel, wet grass, and magnolia flowers are all signs of spring. I still recall smelling my first magnolia, in my neighbor’s yard, on a mild spring morning and remember being so intoxicated by the fragrance that I was almost late for school.

But this spring has been unusual. For one, it’s rather late; we had snow flurries on April Fools’ Day. Cold nights, misty mornings, and howling afternoon winds feel more like autumn than April, leaving all of us here at Bartow-Pell wondering whether spring simply forgot about us this year.

Nature, however, finally proved us wrong. As the weather warms up, the two graceful angel magnolias (Magnolia stellata) on the east end of Bartow-Pell’s formal garden have started to bloom. Magnolia stellata are a sure sign of spring promise, being the first magnolia variety to flower as the new season arrives. From the parlor room windows of the mansion, you can see their whitish outline emerging behind the century-old Taxus trees.

Magnolias are slow-growing, medium-sized deciduous shrubs that can become trees. The leaves are narrowly obovate (a botanist’s fancy word for egg-shaped). And the flowers start out white, but develop a pinkish patina as the days pass. M. stellata have an elegant, spare fragrance, so you must get very close to smell them. If you sit under the magnolias in windy weather, you may find yourself baptised by water droplets blown off the flowers. Later in the season, you may feel like you’re in a ticker-tape parade as the flower petals start to blow down like confetti.

If you’re feeling triumphant and adventurous after your baptism or parade, why not venture further for a stroll across the nine rolling acres of our grounds. There, you’ll discover the inconspicuous spring ephemerals–large masses of snowdrops and Spanish bluebells that are blooming across the lawns.

While walking in the woods, basking in the slow warm light entering our Orangerie, or sitting beneath the white canopy of magnolia flowers, we realize that spring doesn’t arrive suddenly, like a thunderstorm. Instead, the season of renewal is gradual, a slow procession of flowers, scents, and promises of fattened daffodils waiting to spread softly on our lawns.

As I gather my rakes and shovels in my wheelbarrow and head to the garden toolshed in the cellar of the mansion, a spectacular sunset lights up the sky. The gray clouds have cleared, letting the sun’s rays in to illuminate the magnolia in a blaze of white and pink. Framed by an optimistic silence from the surrounding forest, it all feels like an omen of yet another great gardening day tomorrow.

Luis Marmol
Photographs by Richard Warren

About our horticulture intern

Luis Marmol is our intern from the School of Professional Horticulture at The New York Botanical Garden. He is drawing up a three-year horticultural historic restoration plan for the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum  grounds. This includes restoring and reinterpreting the garden planting beds, the mansion entrance gates, adding color and new plantings to the pebble court garden, restoring the historic Horse Chesnut allée and overall bringing an Arts and Craft garden style to the garden. The work and research will prepare the grounds for the centennial of the International Garden Club in 2014, now the Bartow-Pell Conservancy.    After graduating from SUNY Buffalo in 2001, Luis worked as a  middle school teacher in Manhattan ‘s Washington Heights neighborhood.  There, he developed a school garden with his students –and discovered a latent passion for getting his hands dirty with plants and soil. That spurred him to pursue gardening as a career. In 2008, Luis started a year-long internship at the 400-year-old Amsterdam Botanical Garden , where he worked in the Herb Gardens and the Palm and Cycad Collection House. Later, he worked as a gardener for the Carnegie Foundation at The Peace Palace in The Hague , where he spent three years helping with the ongoing restoration of a century-old garden. He spent a great deal of time studying and researching Thomas Mawson’s design for the garden, and his research; uncovered significant evidence of earlier gardens at the site dating to 1712. Luis has also gardened in Provence and his native Peru, as well as studied the botany of Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Panama.  At NYBG, Luis has learned soil science, botany, plant identification, and landscape design and theory. Those theoretical studies have been reinforced by countless hours working rotations with the horticulture crew at NYBG. After helping out at the museum, Luis heads to Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC , where he will complete a second three-month internship. At that historic garden, he will continue to do research pertaining to the Bartow-Pell grounds.