Elizabeth Lawrence House & Garden Blog
In her article for the Charlotte Observer “Bouquet Picked from a Garden on a Bleak December Morning”, published December 18, 1966, Elizabeth Lawrence wrote, “On the fourth of December, after a night when the temperature dropped to 20, and on a day when it did not rise above 35, I went out to pick a bouquet for Mrs. Stuart Gaul who was in the hospital.”
In the two weeks since my last post, I have continued to see vignettes of nature’s autumnal brilliance. Thanksgiving is a time for remembering to be grateful. Gardeners rarely need a holiday or calendar to remind them; I am grateful every day for these glimpses of beauty, so, once again, I thought I’d share.
As I walked through the garden this afternoon, the brisk cool air biting my cheeks, I thought of all that I see here, nearly every day of the year. There is so much beauty all around us—so much that can ground us and muffle the squeal of the outside world (or sometimes even the inside world)—if we take the time to really see.
One of the most valuable lessons I have learned from Elizabeth Lawrence is to not just look, but to really see the garden. So, I wanted to share the beauty that caught my eye today.
There are few flowers that I long more to see each year than those of lycoris. There is something bewitching about these bulbs. Perhaps it is the way they spring from the ground seemingly overnight; perhaps it is their brief but spectacular flowering. The anticipation is like a siren that lures me in more every year.
For the past ten years, I have been sussing out the identities of the 28 daylilies here in the garden that are original to Elizabeth Lawrence. Even after all that time, 12 remain a mystery. That may not sound like many to figure out, but there are records for 30 daylilies that could fit those 12 plants. There must be a method through this madness!
Elizabeth Lawrence is said to have been "obsessed" with color. Nowhere is that more apparent than in her research notes, a part of which are contained on handwritten 3.5”x5” index cards in her “card catalog.” When documenting details about every flowering plant she ever grew, Elizabeth noted very specific colors which she matched from one or two (or both) color charts she used throughout her lifetime.
I always find it fascinating to compare Elizabeth Lawrence's bloom journal entries with what's happening in her garden present-day. A better biographer this garden could not have had; on-site, we have 30 years of bloom journals - 1953 through 1983. Here are a couple of entries I recently found interesting:
"I love being asked to identify plants, and I don’t know which gives me more pleasure: to know what they are or not to know what they are."
- Elizabeth Lawrence, Charlotte Observer, February 23, 1969
As I stood in Elizabeth Lawrence's garden on a sunny Saturday in early May, talking with Katie Mullen (former Elizabeth Lawrence Garden Associate and Marco Polo Stufano Fellow), I noticed blooms in the top of a narrowly conical evergreen tree on the east property line.
