Louise Beebe Wilder

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Louise Beebe Wilder (January 30, 1878 – April 20, 1938) was an American gardening writer and designer whose books are now considered classics of their era.

Contents

Biography

Louise Beebe was born to a well-to-do family in Baltimore, Maryland in 1878. She showed an early interest in gardening. [1]

In 1902, she married architect Walter Robb Wilder, and the couple moved to Pomona, New York, [2] where she transformed the rural property (known as Balderbrae), [lower-alpha 1] adding pathways, a pair of half-moon fountains, a grape arbor, terraces, flowering trees, a walled garden, and an herb bed. [1] Later, they moved a bit further south to the village of Bronxville, where she designed Station Plaza and founded a local Working Gardeners Club (1925). [1] She designed residential gardens across the county; her philosophy, influenced by the aesthetic of British gardener Gertrude Jekyll, [3] was to create something "formal in design but most informal in execution". [1]

Wilder wrote ten books about her experiences as a gardener that were popular for offering clear, explicit advice rather than flowery nature writing. [1] She also wrote for newspapers and gardening and shelter magazines such as Horticulture, House & Garden, and the New York Times. [1] In particular, she took up the challenge of adapting Jekyll's aesthetic—developed for a substantially different climate and range of plant species—to the needs of American gardeners. [3] The title of her second book, Colour in My Garden, deliberately echoes Jekyll's influential 1908 book Colour in the Flower Garden.

Wilder's "socio-botanical commentaries"—as author Michael Pollan termed them [4] —captured the spirit of a moment in America when suburban gardening and its attendant forms of landscape design were on the rise and an older, more formal style of large estate garden was in decline. A New York Times editor called her a Romantic, but one "with a strong vein of scientific curiosity that she exercised on a domestic scale.” [1] Another New York Times editor, after noting that she was conversant with both classic British and recent American horticultural literature, praised her for the sharpness of her field observations. [5] Her books—especially Colour in My Garden—are now considered classics, [3] and in 2001 some were reissued as a four-volume collection, The Louise Beebe Wilder Gardener’s Library: Four Classic Books by America’s Greatest Garden Writer. [1]

Wilder also served on the board of the New York Botanical Garden. [2]

Walter Wilder died by suicide in 1934. Wilder died April 20, 1938. [1]

Awards

She was honored with the Garden Club of America's Gold Medal for Horticultural Achievement in 1937. [1]

Publications

Notes

  1. ↑ Wilder's second book, Colour in My Garden, is about Balderbrae, and the illustrations in the 1918 edition show many details of the garden design. In the 1980s, Balderbrae was renovated with a large new main building, but Wilder's original house (a stone cottage) and some of her landscaping elements still exist. See Joni Webb, "What a Mess: Balderbrae Then and Now!!!", Cote de Texas website, Oct. 12, 2010; accessed Dec. 22, 2015.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beatrix Farrand</span> American landscape architect (1872–1959)

Beatrix Cadwalader Farrand was an American landscape gardener and landscape architect. Her career included commissions to design about 110 gardens for private residences, estates and country homes, public parks, botanic gardens, college campuses, and the White House. Only a few of her major works survive: Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden on Mount Desert, Maine, the restored Farm House Garden in Bar Harbor, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, and elements of the campuses of Princeton, Yale, and Occidental.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gertrude Jekyll</span> British garden designer and writer

Gertrude Jekyll was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote over 1000 articles for magazines such as Country Life and William Robinson's The Garden. Jekyll has been described as "a premier influence in garden design" by British and American gardening enthusiasts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Robinson (gardener)</span> Irish practical gardener and journalist (1838–1935)

William Robinson: was an Irish practical gardener and journalist whose ideas about wild gardening spurred the movement that led to the popularising of the English cottage garden, a parallel to the search for honest simplicity and vernacular style of the British Arts and Crafts movement, and were important in promoting the woodland garden. Robinson is credited as an early practitioner of the mixed herbaceous border of hardy perennial plants, a champion too of the "wild garden", who vanquished the high Victorian pattern garden of planted-out bedding schemes. Robinson's new approach to gardening gained popularity through his magazines and several books—particularly The Wild Garden, illustrated by Alfred Parsons, and The English Flower Garden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cottage garden</span> Distinct style of garden

The cottage garden is a distinct style that uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, it depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure. Homely and functional gardens connected to cottages go back centuries, but their stylized reinvention occurred in 1870s England, as a reaction to the more structured, rigorously maintained estate gardens with their formal designs and mass plantings of greenhouse annuals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Biddle Shipman</span>

Ellen Biddle Shipman was an American landscape architect known for her formal gardens and lush planting style. Along with Beatrix Farrand and Marian Cruger Coffin, she dictated the style of the time and strongly influenced landscape design as a member of the first generation to break into the largely male occupation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Garnet Wolseley, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley</span> Gardener and author (1872–1936)

Frances Garnet Wolseley, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley was an English gardening author and instructor. Her Glynde College for Lady Gardeners in East Sussex had the patronage of famous gardening names such as Gertrude Jekyll, Ellen Willmott, and William Robinson.

Sarah Gildersleeve Fife was a prominent force among women bibliophiles in the first half of the 20th century and a leader in gardening and horticulture, advocating the use of plantings around army bases and military hospitals.

Helen Van Pelt Wilson was a twentieth-century American garden writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Morgenthau Fox</span> American botanist and author of gardening books (1884–1974)

Helen Morgenthau Fox was an American botanist and author of popular gardening books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foodscaping</span> Ornamental landscaping with edible plants

Foodscaping is a modern term for the practice of integrating edible plants into ornamental landscapes. It is also referred to as edible landscaping and has been described as a crossbreed between landscaping and farming. As an ideology, foodscaping aims to show that edible plants are not only consumable but can also be appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. Foodscaping spaces are seen as multi-functional landscapes which are visually attractive and also provide edible returns. Foodscaping is a great way to provide fresh food in an affordable way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Rutherfurd Jay</span>

Mary Rutherfurd Jay (1872–1953) was one of America's earliest landscape architects and an advocate of horticultural education and careers for women. The great-great granddaughter of American Founding Father John Jay, she grew up in Rye, New York surrounded by the gardens of her ancestral homestead at the Jay Estate in Westchester County overlooking Long Island Sound. Her education was fostered by travel abroad with her mother and domestically through classes in design and horticulture taken at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Bussey Institute in Forest Hills, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Recknagel Ireys</span>

Alice Recknagel Ireys was an American landscape architect whose notable clients included the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the New York Botanical Garden, the Clark Botanic Garden, the Abigail Adams Smith Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women</span> Horticultural college associated with Temple University

The Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women was one of the first horticultural schools to be established by and for women in the United States, opening on February 10, 1911. As the second institution to provide women with a practical education in horticulture and landscape architecture, it made possible their entry into a professional field. Although some men were employed in faculty positions, the school's leadership was intentionally female. As of 1919, the board of trustees consisted of twenty-five prominent women citizens. All but the last director of the school were women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence Yoch</span> American architect

Florence Yoch (1890–1972) was an American landscape architect in California who was active from 1915 through the 1950s. Her career included commissions for private residential clients, parks, public spaces, and film sets for Hollywood movies, including the grounds for Tara in Gone with the Wind. Many credit Florence with helping develop a distinctively Californian interpretation of classic European Gardens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nellie B. Allen</span> American landscape architect

Nellie Beatrice Osborn Allen (1874–1961) was an American landscape architect. She is known for her knot gardens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louisa Boyd Yeomans King</span> American gardener, author, and advocate of gardening and horticulture

Louisa Boyd Yeomans King was an American gardener and author who became a leading advocate of gardening and horticulture, especially in connection with the garden club movement. She wrote on horticultural topics as Mrs. Francis King.

The American Iris Society is an organization dedicated to sharing information about and sponsoring research on the iris, a temperate zone plant that is often cultivated for its showy flowers. A major goal in its early years was to bring order to the then-confused nomenclature of the genus Iris, especially garden iris species and cultivars. Its members comprise horticulturists, botanists, gardeners, plant breeders, and nursery owners.

Mary Helen Wingate Lloyd (1868–1934) was an American horticulturist who was a founding member of the American Iris Society and creator of a celebrated "iris bowl" garden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynden Miller</span> American landscape designer (born 1938)

Lynden B. Miller is an author, an advocate for public parks and gardens, and a garden designer, best known for her restoration of the Conservatory Garden in New York's Central Park, completed in 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Klein Miller</span> American landscape architect

Louise Klein Miller was an American landscape architect, educator, and curator of school gardens for the Cleveland public school system.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Robbins, Dan. "Landscaping Matriarch Louise Beebe Wilder Brought Gardening Clubs To Westchester County". Westchester Magazine, April 2014. Accessed Dec. 22, 2015.
  2. 1 2 "The Fragrant Path". Horthistoria website. Accessed Dec. 22, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 Tankard, Judith B. "An American Perspective on Gertrude Jekyll’s Legacy". Reprinted from the Journal of the New England Garden History Society, vol. 6, Fall 1998. Accessed Dec. 22, 2015.
  4. ↑ Pollan, Michael. "A Gardener's Guide to Sex, Politics, and Class". New York Times, July 21, 1991. Accessed Dec. 22, 2015.
  5. ↑ Lacy, Allen. "A Gardener's World; British Roots in American Soil? A Cry for Straddling the Fence". New York Times, Dec. 12, 1990. Accessed Dec. 22, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Book Notes". The New York Times. 16 September 1931. p. 26. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.