A Country Garden: Observations and Advice from Both Sides of the Garden Gate

By Gwen Lutz

This book is not intended to be a manual. There are a lot of how-to books readily available if one needs a reference book. Rather this is a journey through the garden and beyond. It is full of tips and advice for green and low maintenance gardening, landscaping and lawn care but it is mostly a journal of life in and around the garden; past, long past and present. It was written to tell the story of not only the authors life in and around the garden but that of the garden, the wildlife that shares it and the land itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483657738

Gwen Lutz

Gwen Lutz has worked in the lawn and garden industry for over twenty seven years. She has been employed as a grower, garden center manager, nursery manager, and as a retail consultant to a major home improvement warehouse lawn and garden division. Currently she does private lawn and garden consultations, garden and landscape designs, public speaking engagements and freelance writing for periodicals. She also serves on the board of directors for the Harmony Museum in Harmony Pennsylvania, is an avid gardener, amateur naturalist and full time grandma.

Book preview

img02.png

An Eighteenth-Century

Herb Garden

When I am doing something tedious, like weeding or edging, my mind tends to wander, or should I say wonder. Most of the time, it thrashes through simple things like I wonder what I am going to make for dinner or just logs a mental reminder to take the garbage out. Every once in a while, my somewhat-feeble brainpower kicks in, and I find myself in deep thought about something of more substance. This morning, after the dew was off but before the sun made it too hot to work, I was trimming the herbs and began to wonder, What was it like years ago when your family’s health and, possibly, its very existence depended on the success of your herb garden? The previous chapter was fresh in my mind, and I began to put myself in the pioneer woman’s shoes (if she had any). She was not just a childbearing workhorse; there was much precise knowledge that she needed to possess or had to learn quickly just to survive the difficult lifestyle she was subjected to. Herbs played a number of roles—medicinal, nutritional, flavoring, dye, fragrance, and pesticides. Some were found here as native plants, but most were carefully brought from European homelands as seeds or small plants. Before that, many of them had been transported to Europe from the Mediterranean, Asian, or Middle-Eastern regions, so their origins are ancient and diverse.

The midday heat finally drove me indoors, and I sat down at the keyboard, armed with an iced tea, complete with fresh lemon balm, to begin an odyssey: what was an herb garden like in, say, 1750? Let’s begin with the question What is an herb? The Herb Society of America defines an herb as plants valued for their flavor, fragrance, medicinal qualities, economic and industrial uses, pesticide qualities and coloring materials. I think one of my favorite things about herbs is that most of them are closer to weeds than to domestic plants. In fact, most herbs are not far away from the original wild version that was first domesticated thousands of years ago. This actually works in our favor, as it did for the colonists, making many herbs easy to grow and quite prolific.

In the Middle Ages, herbs were mainly cultivated by the clergy in monastery gardens. Over time, the nobility began to realize their value, and they were adopted into castle gardens, used for flavoring, medicine, and to scent musty castle rooms. Have you ever seen artistic prints or paintings with the prim medieval woman, a gloved hand placed daintily under or near her nose? At the entrance to the castle hall, highly aromatic herb plants were often placed beside the doors. The ladies would rub their hands on the leaves and then hold them under their noses to make their stay in not-so-clean castle rooms with not-so-clean medieval men, women, dogs, cats, rats, mice, and food in various stages of spoilage a little more bearable. Monks and aristocracy could afford to trade for new and exotic herbs, and from these more lofty beginnings, they were distributed to commoners who embraced their many types and uses.

Where did the Europeans get their herbs? Some were native, but many were transients, brought in from many locations. In ancient Greece and Rome, rose petals and other herbs were used to scent water for bathing and for washing hands as well as medicinal and culinary applications. The agreeable Mediterranean climate lent itself to growing a wide variety of herbs, and villa gardens were common. Even the lower classes had small beds or pots of herbs next to the kitchen, and strewing herbs like sweet Annie or pennyroyal were strewn on the floor where they would be walked on repeatedly, releasing their beneficial fragrance and properties for deodorizing, repelling insects and vermin, and preventing contagion. The Roman army, who had also marched into the Middle East and Asia, brought their herbal lore with them as they conquered most of Europe. As their conquests brought them into various areas, soldiers were posted throughout the countryside, and Roman-style villages sprung up around their encampments. They wanted familiar comforts from home, and much-needed and desired herbs came along with other imported goods. Soon they became familiar plants all over Europe. The same thing happened as trade routes became more extensive from Europe to the Middle and Far East. Herb plants and seeds made their way westward and were readily accepted. The monks and nobility in particular preserved the new herbs as well as traditional ones, and Colonial America benefited from this as immigrants from various countries came here, bringing along seeds, plants, and traditions.

Next to the Bible, the most common book in an early American household may have been an herbalist. It listed the herb, its properties, and proper applications and doses. Better issues included cultural and harvesting advice. A kitchen herb garden was equally if not more essential than the vegetable garden. Colonists not only kept their own gardens and traded avidly with neighbors and travelers, but they quickly learned the native plants, gathering herbs and greens in the early spring for tonics and fresh salads to fight off the vitamin deficiencies of winter. Native plants were often moved into the garden to reside next to the imports, and the marvelous array of herbs we enjoy today is the result.

At the end of this chapter is a list of some of the first and most important herbs used by the colonists. Researching was great fun as I scoured through old garden books and journals on early life in America. I became fascinated by the huge diversity of plants that they used, and I learned the difference between an infusion, a decoction, and a tincture and how to make a proper poultice. In Europe, towns were hundreds if not thousands of years old, with a great diversity of herbs available, so if you didn’t happen to have something you needed, chances were you could buy or trade for it somewhere close by. In America, villages and homesteads were much newer, freshly hewn from the wilderness, and you could not always rely on someone having what you needed. Being self-sufficient was the best quality you could possess, so herbs were avidly collected, and herb lore was learned and passed down from generation to generation. In larger communities, herbs were a very common trade item, and even in remote areas, itinerant traders often brought in dried herbs and seeds.

Only the original varieties are listed as they first appeared. I have not included all the variations that have been bred out of them, although quite a few were available even then. Some were carried here, while others were found growing in woods and meadows and were learned about and traded for with the Native Americans. More than a few of the imports have naturalized themselves and are found growing wild, especially in the vicinity of old farmsteads. For example, the site of that log cabin long ago vanished into the ground on the property next to ours yields several different mints, garlic chive, woodruff, wood sorrel, pennyroyal, yarrow, and tansy. Of course, not every herb on the list was found in every garden, although most gardens had at least twelve or more different ones. A doctor, dentist, or midwife might have thirty or more, and most had more than one use. Many herbs we enjoy mainly as flavorings came here because they also had medicinal qualities. Some, like rosemary, would not overwinter in colder climates and were more common south of the Mason-Dixon line. This list is not complete by any measure. There are many more that were less well distributed throughout the colonies and the wilderness areas, but even this basic list gives us a feel for the vast variety and usefulness of herbs as well as a deep respect for the women and men of early America who knew how to grow and use