Читать книгу Tower Hill - John W Trexler - Страница 12

Skylands was a near perfect garden. No detail was too small to consider when planting the immense landscape. The landscape surrounding the house was simple, but every plant was located to the precise inch so that it could mature properly and compliment the large structure. A given plant had a thoughtful relationship to its coinciding plant. When you travelled around the house from front to back, north to south, you were greeted by a mature red maple (Acer rubrum). The tree was perfectly proportioned to the house. Its distance from the house was approximately one third the width of the lawn on which it was located. The tree complimenting it to the west was on the other side of a low retaining wall. When you walked around to the south lawn, the two trees framed the view. This level of continuous harmony with plants that change and grow is credit to the skill of the gardeners that sited and planted them. In the mid-seventies the red maple began to die from the top down, always a bad sign. The tree had a “girdling” root that was choking it. A decision was made to cut the maple down and a brief meeting was held to determine what the replacement tree should be. I suggested another red maple.

“An English oak,” sang the majority.

“No, it will grow too big,” I warned. “Okay, an English oak but it has to be planted in the exact same spot as the maple to preserve the harmony established fifty years earlier.”

“No, it’s too much work to remove the stump,” the majority ruled.

“But we have to respect the historic landscape—the artistry!” I pleaded.

Deaf ears were turned; the English oak was planted. The oak is now huge and hogs the once beautifully framed view. When I visit this spot, I avert my eyes and visualize the landscape as it once was—perfect.

The restored Pool Garden at Bamboo Brook, 1980

Because of my particular status with the State of New Jersey, my job came with no official title, no health insurance, no sick time, no personal time and no vacation. I was twenty-six and needed to find employment that would give me more security. The Morris County Park Commission offered me the position of superintendent of horticulture. In June of 1978, I moved the fifty miles south to Morristown, and began my second job. The Park Commission hired me to oversee horticultural activity at eighteen parks. However, they were primarily interested in the restoration of the private garden of the late Martha Brookes (Brown) Hutcheson (1871–1959), Merchiston Farm, a.k.a. Bamboo Brook.

Five of the hundred acres that made up Bamboo Brook were devoted to formal gardens. The layout, though much more rustic, was not dissimilar to Skylands. There is little doubt that Mrs. Hutcheson was familiar with Clarence Lewis and his nationally acclaimed estate and had visited on the days it was open to the public. Martha Hutcheson began laying out her garden in 1916, Lewis in 1924. The common thread were the many axes: parallel, perpendicular, and diagonal. They both understood the continuity and opportunity axial layout provides. In many ways Skylands was an easier landscape to restore. The Bamboo Brook garden was “muddy,” the details not as clearly defined. The time I spent solving the problems of and restoring Bamboo Brook itself was a joy. The odd tug of war in which my supervisor was engaged with his supervisor was not. After six years of internal “politics,” I was ready to move on.