Читать книгу Tower Hill - John W Trexler - Страница 9

In my sophomore year, I became friends with a senior, Tom Buchter, who clearly knew what direction his education would take him. In contrast, I couldn’t even figure out how to spend my summer. Tom suggested I apply for a job at Ringwood, a state park in northern New Jersey that had beautiful landscape gardens. I applied and was hired.

Tom Buchter and John, 1978

Ringwood State Park comprises approximately 16,000 acres. Primarily woodland, it contributes in part to the Wanaque Reservoir watershed. There are three large recreation areas: Erskine Lake, Ringwood Manor, and Skylands Manor. Ringwood Manor was the former country estate of the Cooper-Hewitt family and Skylands was the former summer home of Clarence McKenzie Lewis. Skylands was more interesting horticulturally, although Ringwood had a storied history going back to the late eighteenth century. I spent most of that first summer at Ringwood, weeding the beds around the house and cutting out invasive vines at the top of the large terrace garden, which was adjacent to, but had no relationship with, the manor house. My most memorable experiences at Ringwood involved poison ivy and pruning lilac.

The poison ivy was growing above the wall at the far end of the lower terrace. God only knows why I got it in my head to pull this vine out with my bare hands, but I did. There was hardly a square inch of my body that wasn’t affected. With the help of calamine lotion and perseverance, it slowly went away. I later learned from Euell Gibbons’ book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, that if you eat three leaves of poison ivy every day for three weeks in early spring, you will develop immunity. I followed the formula and I’m happy to say it worked—although everyone thought I was out of my mind. I have not had a case of poison ivy since.

The lilac at the entrance to Ringwood State Park, 2016

The lilac (Syringa vulgaris), located near the front gate, consisted of an exceptionally large colony of old gnarled trunks at least fifteen feet in height. One Saturday I decided to “rejuvenate” it. I began thinning out the oldest and, by the way, the most beautiful trunks. I sawed and sawed until I was completely exhausted. The end result was a thin thicket of small amorphic young growth. I had butchered the once noble planting—another horticultural failure.

Working at Ringwood gave me the opportunity to take a walk through the terrace gardens at Skylands with the superintendent of the park. Somewhat arrogantly, he rattled off the names of each shrub. To my surprise I remembered the name of every plant. Plant binomials became a new and second language.

That summer I came to the realization that public horticulture was my career path. I was stimulated by the restoration of fine old gardens. The work gave me the opportunity to take care of a great variety of plants as well as meet and talk to visitors. I enjoyed answering their questions and giving them gardening tips.

Thanks to Tom’s suggestion that I work at Ringwood, I developed a true sense of purpose and professional goals as I started my junior year. I returned to Ringwood the next summer and worked directly with Tom at Skylands Manor. That summer opened my eyes to the genius of the place.

Francis Lynde Stetson (1846-1920), legal consultant to J.P. Morgan, had pieced together Skylands from a collection of eighteenth century farms. His intention was to create a summer getaway from his Manhattan home. His landscape architect, Samuel Parsons, designed a comprehensive farm with an enormous barn and houses for staff dotted the 1,100 acres. Stetson’s impressive residence was built on a large level area at the foot of a hill called Mt. Defiance. A golf enthusiast, Stetson commissioned the design of a nine hole course adjacent to the mansion, interspersed with formal gardens and shrub plantings. A beautiful man-made pond acted as a water trap for the course. Parsons received an award from the American Society of Landscape Architects, an organization he helped to found, for the naturalistic design of the pond.

The overall effect of the estate was of great natural beauty. The property was accessible by miles of groomed dirt roads, and barns of varying sizes and pastures and fields accommodated cattle, horses, sheep, goats, ducks and chickens. There was even an abattoir for butchering. A carriage house and garage, and a pump house to provide water for the house, gardens, and golf course completed the complex.

Francis Stetson died in 1920. With no heirs the estate went on the market. Clarence MacKenzie Lewis (1877-1959), an acquaintance of Stetson’s who lived just over the mountain in Mahwah, New Jersey, and his mother Helen Lewis Salomon, widow of banker William A. Salomon, had had their eye on Skylands for some time. When it came on the market, they were quick to buy it. They had initially wanted to build a residence in the exclusive development of Tuxedo Park but were discouraged from doing so because Salomon was Jewish. Their goal was to raze the Stetson house and build a Tudor showplace designed by John Russell Pope along with a garden of enormous scale. Although Helen Salomon died in 1924 before the house was complete, Lewis went on to finish the house and landscape. Landscape architect Alfred Geiffert (1890-1957), designed a harmonious collection of formal gardens, sweeping lawns, and groves of trees. Lewis himself with his gardening staff laid out the more naturalistic gardens. The end result was considered to be the finest private garden in America. The garden themes were of three types: ornamental, economic, and ecologic. The two latter were separated from the former by a half-mile allée of 220 standard hybrid crabapple trees (Malus x atrosanguinea).

The front façade of Skylands as it looked in 1936

Coincidentally, John Russell Pope and Alfred Geiffert had also collaborated on the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., a building I admired as a teenager living in Alexandria. I rode my motor scooter many a time to visit the gallery and take in its classical splendor.

John at Skylands, 1974

Clarence Lewis owned Skylands from 1920 to 1953. At the age of seventy-six he sold the property to Shelton College, a private religious institution, for a mere $250,000. The college was poor and had no ability to maintain the buildings, gardens, or the extensive infrastructure. Skylands quickly slipped into neglect and disrepair. Because of its proximity to Ringwood State Park, Skylands was acquired by the State of New Jersey in 1966. Clarence Lewis’ head gardener, Stuart Longmuir, had been retained by the college and knew every nook and cranny of the place. The state poured millions of dollars into restoration. Stuart eventually taught me two very important lessons: 1. When backing-up a vehicle, only go as far as you need to make a desired turn. 2. When making a curve on a bed or border, be sure it doesn’t exceed a train’s ability to make such a curve.

In 1971, I became part of a team working on the restoration of Skylands. Until I left in 1978, I had the pleasure of restoring the Lilac Garden, Inner Park, Bog Garden, Cactus Garden, and Wildflower Garden. I oversaw the propagation greenhouse which grew 14,000 annual flowers every year. We also propagated hundreds of species of shrubs and trees by cutting and seed which were disseminated to other public gardens or to interested gardeners. My time at Skylands would have a profound influence on me for the remainder of my career.