Some gardens, like mine, look pretty desolate in winter. Bartram's Garden in Southwest Philly is one that has so much more going for it ... it looks haunting and beautiful when the weather's cold. It's at 54th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard, next to Bartram Village, a housing project, and right up against the Schuylkill. Access wasn't always so easy. Where a 15-acre wildflower meadow exists today, there once was a concrete company. There are two other former industrial parcels next door that are cleared and awaiting development.
It would be lovely news if this very special place were to be rediscovered for what must be the 500th time. This is the home, after all, of the famed botanist John Bartram, the self-taught naturalist and farmer who is considered "the father of American botany." On his adventures up and down the East Coast and west to Ohio, he and his son William discovered and brought back many unusual and rare plants.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson visited this place. John was good friends with Ben Franklin. These guys hung out right there off Lindbergh Boulevard, which I'll bet most Philadelphians couldn't find with an atlas.
I visited the other other day. It was very cold but the ground was still muddy. Louise Turan, the new director, apologized for the mud, but I just had to wander out into the wildflower meadow. Not many wildflowers in evidence this time of year, but it's so cool to stand in the middle of the meadow and gaze across the river to the skyline.
There's a new dock just at river's edge, and it's brought a few tourists over from the Walnut Street dock, but Louise is determined to boost the numbers big time. She's a dynamo, and while she clearly relishes the serenity this place affords, she also has big ideas for how to reposition it, enhance its public profile and attract a lot more visitors.
Bicyclists, birders, gardeners, artists, walkers, school children .. they all find their way here but not in the numbers they could or should. That, most likely, will change shortly. I hope so. This is one of those historic sites - of which there are so many in Philadelphia - that people consider off the beaten track or hard to get to. It's closer than the Linc. Parking is a whole lot easier than it is in Center City. And imagine taking a boat ride to get here. That would send me right back to the 18th century.
Visiting places like Bartram's Garden, which dates to 1728, always inspires me to read about the people who lived and worked there. Louise gave me a copy of William Bartram's memoirs, which I've already started reading. And guess what! I found the account of his discovery in North Carolina of the native red hibiscus I love so much and wrote about in summer 2006 - Hibiscus coccineus or scarlet hibiscus. I saw it growing in a tiny row house yard in Roxborough, of all places, knocked on the door and talked to the people growing this thing.
They insisted cars slowed down to look at it and people yelled from within, "What IS that thing?" It was huge, with poinsettia-type red flowers and (how would I know) marijuana-type leaves. A real looker.
So the Bartrams' adventures came home to me in vivid red in Roxborough that day. As they say, it all started here.
Comments (1)
just happen to read you col on wedesday. we neighbors trade papers . i live at berryman's branch vineland nj i had to laugh because some strange thing have happen to us with the cemetery.in 1979 my father-in-law(sick at the time ) had lost track of his step mother who was 90. i got a call on the phone of someone looking for him. now he was down the camp ground (the people had gone through the camden county phone book)i got the phone no and he call back . verg had died and they could not find her son and she had no other family. so we were the only family to attend the funeral.my father in law died the next year. so did not see that verg's name was not on the stone. so a couple years later we put it on (she is in her family plot ross family) we would go out at least once a year to check the graves. (leon and virginia dubois)in 2002 we got a call from califorinia looking for family that verg's son earl ross ennis had died and they were looking for his heirs but we were steps but they need information . he had been buried in the family plot and we only found out after the fact. he had taken off to califoria a couple of years before his mothers death . but had a note from his mothers lawyer in his wallet. he died at 91 in a bording house in sandiago calf.and they shipped the remanins to laurel hill. the only requiest was that he have a tomestone with his and his aunt's name on it. i think the her last name was bailey. we went to check it out one day . my husband is a hunter as was his father and grandfather. and as we came around a curve in the road in the cenetry there was about 20 deer . and they just stood and watched us. just to say they do come to us. especilly since my husband tom had just say he had not seen any deer.
Posted by mary dubois | February 13, 2008 4:40 PM
Posted on February 13, 2008 16:40