Remembering Louise Beebe Wilder: The Grande Dame of American Garden Writing

April 20, 1938

On this day, we commemorate the anniversary of the passing of Louise Beebe Wilder, a luminary in the world of American garden writing and one of the 20th century's most distinguished horticulturists.

Born into Baltimore's affluent circles, Louise's life, at first glance, appears to have been a veritable rose garden. Yet, as we shall see, her path was not entirely sweet-scented.

Imagine, if you will, the young Louise surrounded by the famous rose garden of her childhood home.

In her own words from The Fragrant Path, she paints a vivid picture:

Great bushes of Provence, Damask and Gallica Roses... a collection of the finest Teas and Noisettes of the day.

Marechal Niel, Lamarque and Gloire de Dijon climbed high on trellises against the stone of the old house and looked in at the second-story windows.

Can you not almost smell the heady perfume of those roses, dear gardeners?

Louise's journey into the realm of gardening began in earnest after her marriage to architect Walter Wilder.

Imagine, dear readers, the grandeur of Balderbrae, the Wilders' 200-acre estate in Pomona, New York. It was here that Louise first dipped her toes into the verdant world of gardening, transforming the land with fountains, terraces, and walled gardens.

One can almost picture the charm of her first flower bed, quaintly bordered with clothespins - a detail that endears her to us all the more.

It was at Balderbrae that Louise penned her magnum opus, Color in My Garden, published in 1918. This work, my fellow gardeners, broke new ground in horticultural literature.

Louise, ever the innovator, was the first to expound upon the use of gray as a garden color and to introduce the concept of Moonlight Gardens.

Can you envision it?

The soft, silvery light of the moon illuminating carefully chosen blooms, creating a nocturnal paradise.

Post-World War I saw the Wilders settling in Bronxville, New York.

Here, on a mere acre of land, Louise crafted a personal Eden complete with stone pillars and a long grape arbor. It was in this compact space that she discovered her passion for rock gardening, a subject that would dominate her writing after 1920.

By 1925, our intrepid gardener had founded the Working Gardeners Club in Bronxville, while simultaneously pursuing careers in garden design and writing. Her columns, often peppered with references to local Bronxville residents, became affectionately known as "a Bronxville Family Affair."

Louise's literary output was prodigious, with eleven books on gardening to her name. Her writing style, pragmatic and pointed, endeared her to gardeners seeking no-nonsense advice. Consider this delightfully forthright opinion on double flowers from her 1932 work, The Fragrant Path:

Some flowers are, I am sure, intended by a wise God to remain single. The hyacinth doubled, for instance, is a fat abomination.

Our Louise was not one to mince words, was she?

Yet, for all her success, Louise's life was not without its thorns.

In 1937, a year before her passing, Louise received the Gold Medal for Horticultural Achievement from the Garden Club of America. This accolade, the pinnacle of her career, came at a time of personal tragedy. She was still reeling from the collapse of her marriage and losing her husband in spite of her attempts to keep it all together. Walter had repeatedly asked for a divorce in order to pursue a relationship with another woman, but Louisa had refused.  In the spring of 1934, her husband Walter succumbed to his mental illness and committed suicide. 

A few years later, Louise herself would die at 59, buried not with Walter in New York but in her parents' plot in Maryland.

In The Fragrant Path, dedicated to the "memory of Balderbrae," Louise hints at the bittersweet nature of life when describing the scent of wild grape blossoms:

Indescribably gentle yet searching. It searches out old memories, old scenes, old loves, and brings them before you without warning, between two breaths, sometimes with cruel clarity.

Despite her trials, Louise's legacy lives on in her considerable work, including her books, which inspire gardeners today. Louise's articles graced the pages of prestigious publications such as the Journal of The Royal Horticultural Society of England and The New York Times. The House and Garden magazine published nearly one hundred fifty of her articles alone.

Let us savor a few more of her poetic observations:

On Snowdrops: "Theirs is a fragile but hardy celebration...in the very teeth of winter."

On Rosemary: "It makes a charming pot plant, neat, svelte, with its dark, felt-lined leaves held sleek against its sides. The smell... is keen and heady, resinous, yet sweet, with a hint of nutmeg."

On Roses: "Over and over again, I have experienced the quieting influence of rose scent upon a disturbed state of mind."

And perhaps most tellingly, on the art of gardening itself:

In the garden, every person may be their own artist without apology or explanation. Each within their green enclosure is a creator, and no two shall reach the same conclusion.

On this day of all days, it is with a heavy heart that I must report Louise's final resting place in Lakeside Cemetery, Wakefield, Massachusetts, lies unmarked and unadorned. No flowers grace her plot, nor does the shade of a tree offer solace.

How fitting it would be, dear readers, if we were to remedy this oversight and pay homage to this grande dame of gardening with a fittingly beautiful memorial.

As we tend to our own gardens this spring, let us remember Louise Beebe Wilder, whose words and wisdom continue to bloom in the hearts and minds of gardeners everywhere.

May we approach our gardening with the same blend of romance and practicality that she brought to her writing.

After all, are we not all creators in our own green enclosures, forever chasing that elusive vision of perfection?