Work in the Garden: More on Bartam's Garden

When my husband and I visited Bartram's Garden, which includes a historic house and partially reconstructed gardens, we went to see the gardens. Seth and I have been living in Philadelphia for a full month now and I think we both occasionally need to find a little space beneath the canopy of trees, or to breathe deep near a real working garden to feel that we’ve truly been outside.

The gardens were a nice relief. However, not quite as much of a relief as I imagined they would be. I imagined a giant operation, planted with practical, experimental, new world, and old world plants. There’s some of that there. There’s the oldest Ginko tree in the U.S. which is really, really big. My mom’s beautiful ginko (the most beautiful ginko ever) is a toddler in comparison. And there is a miniature kitchen garden and numerous specimen trees that an arborist would enjoy.

The site made me think of another place we went to this spring. A few months ago, when we were still living in Kansas City, we visited a place that struck an interesting balance between interpreting the work done at the site and the house where the “important historical figures” lived. Watkins Woolen Mill State Park (MO) has done a particularly excellent job of explaining the kind of work that was done in an historic woolen mill. It does less of a good job explaining that many of those “workers” were, in fact, enslaved peoples.

It is a remarkably intact site with working mill machines, industrial looms, and a working historic farm (including feisty lambs and sheep), surrounded by acres of pristine Missouri wooded hills; so it has many advantages. Whereas, Bartram’s Garden is fenced in by the Schuylkill River on one side, public housing on another, and a neighborhood in need on the other sides. The garden seemed cramped, but I realize I’m still thinking with Midwestern standards for garden space.

Bartram’s site counts a literary site of sorts, but we didn’t tour the house (I hope to have a follow-up post for when we do venture inside). Many still read William Bartram’s Travels as a way to “travel” back to a pristine American continent. But times have changed. Here the city has grown around the little park and grounds and the little bit of garden that remains is all the more precious.

The John Bartram Association has taken a proactive approach to extending its influence in Philadelphia; it offers workshops for those interested in gardening and it has a current art exhibit that brings the house into the world of "found object" art. But with so many historic homes and sites in the Philadelphia area, it seems a shame that they can't all be furnished with heirloom flowers and landscaping supplies provided by the historic Bartram's garden. Colonial Williamsburg offers "colonial" plants for sale to tourists who are interested in having a CW boxwood or CW heirloom artichoke in their gardens at home. The heirloom seed business is also booming today. Perhaps such a working garden could help provide for the historic site's future and help provide support for the surrounding neighborhoods. But it's easy to come up with fool-proof development plans for historic sites when you are a mere tourist.

Most historic sites have to put the historic house and its artifacts first, but here, the gardens, plants and walkways, vegetables, historic trees, and the work involved in collecting and maintaining them matter most.