Healing gardens; body and earth–and fire

Last night, after I gave a talk at Wellesley Booksmith (an *amazing* independent bookstore which you should visit immediately), a woman came up to me to remind me that women with breast cancer are survivors, not victims. I had talked about the  in Harvard, MA, and probably emphasized courtesy and respect for other visitors a bit too strongly. I worry sometimes about disturbing other visitors’ experiences in places that evoke such strong emotions.

Mind you, our local healing gardens are designed to calm emotions, not to express them. Boston has a few healing gardens, places that are supposed to quiet the mind, spirit, and perhaps the body of people who, well, want healing. The Thurston garden is designed for women who have breast cancer. It’s a quiet place in the woods; it’s easy to hear the wind chimes, water trickling in the fountains, even the neighing of the horses in a neighboring (invisible) farm. There are wooded paths, a lawn with a gazebo, and a small Japanese meditation garden– and stillness, everywhere stillness.

Cancer patients who cannot get to the Thurston garden can visit the Howard Ulfelder MD garden at Mass General Hospital. This green roof overlooks the Charles river, and repeats the Thurston garden’s East Asian motifs – gray granite and low grasses, urns and small stones. It’s a lovely space, wheelchair accessible (unlike much of the Thurston garden), a quiet place above the city and the machines and medicines and unending business below.

Still, these are just one New England version of healing, where Asian meditation gardens have been popular since the early 19th-century. But what if you’re not ready to be calm? What if you’re angry and burning inside?  What if you feel like you’re walking through fire?  Healing garden designer Topher Delaney will talk about her work creating healing gardens with flames, lilies, and other materials next Tuesday, May 4, at  7 pm at Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston.

Delaney has created elegant formal gardens with flowers and small stones–but she has also designed challenging, energetic landscapes that rage against the dying of the light. I’m looking forward to hearing what she has to say.

Climb that tree! (And get down off that horse.)

Friday, April 30 is Arbor Day! Boston’s Franklin Park, which boasts many very lovely trees, is celebrating Arbor day with a tree-climbing contest. Alas, the contest appears to be limited to professional arborists, not amateur enthusiasts, so children need not apply. Landlubbers of all ages and children playing hooky from school can enjoy a variety of tree-centered activities from 8 am-3pm

Arbor Day originated in 1872 Nebraska, a state not known for its forests. To quote Wikipedia, “In the 1860s, the first great wave of homesteaders poured into Nebraska to claim free land granted by the federal government. Many of the first farm settlers built their homes of sod because there were so few trees on the prairies.” Perhaps the situation has improved somewhat in the last 138 years of observances.

In other park news, the Boston Parks and Recreations Department is retiring its horses due to budget cuts; the City of Boston disbanded its own mounted police division last year. According to the Boston Herald, the mounted park patrols were saved last year by energetic fundraising by the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, which convinced private donors to contribute $140K to keep the riders on the range (well, the Boston  Common.)  The horses are useful for patrolling parks where there’s no pavement or paths, according to Christine Poff of the Franklin Park Coalition– although I imagine they need a fair bit of headroom.

The Boston Herald states, “The Boston Parks and Recreation Department, facing a $75,000 tab for caring for its horses, has decided to give the nags pink slips rather than layoff rangers, said spokeswoman Mary Hines.” Much as I enjoy the image of riderless horses patrolling the Public Garden by themselves, I think Parks and Recreation made the right choice.

Will park safety be affected?  Will rangers start running ruts into the Riverway on mountain bikes? How much money will Boston save by not having to pick up horse manure in the parks? How long have there been horse patrols in these parks anyway, and have they been discontinued before? Gentle readers, I do not know.

Dogs, Parks, and Poop

There have been years of brouhaha over whether dogs should be allowed to run off-leash in Boston’s leafy suburbs, including Newton and Lexington. Those battles are interesting community discussions of rights, responsibilities, access, and the purpose of public parks which the Selectmen and Alderman of the towns can explain at length. Me, I’d like to share two ways that local parks are accommodating dogs while reducing the total amount of fecal material in their parks.

Boston’s Public Garden, the city of Brookline, and Dedham Parks & Recreation are all using “Goosebusters” — that is, three border collies named  Jessie, Jamie, and J. Wilbur — to herd geese out of their parks. According to the Roslindale Transcript, the dogs are gentle, and only chase geese, not ducks. The geese are catching on to the Goosebusters, according to their owner, who says, “Sometimes before I even open up the door to let the dogs out, the geese are gone.”

Cambridge, as usual, has its own way with doggie-doo. Conceptual artist Matthew Mazzotta has proposed the Park Spark project to the Cambridge Arts Council. “Park Spark” would entail a giant buried methane digester with a tube sticking out of the ground. Dog walkers would throw bags of poop into the tubes, down into the digester, where it would be converted into methane for fuel. The Cambridge Chronicle reports that the fuel could be used for “a lamppost, a popcorn machine or a tea-maker with free samples for park-goers.”

Poop-powered popcorn! Every third-grader in Boston would flock to a park for that.

The Babe with the Braves

April 16 marked the 75th anniversary of Babe Ruth’s final Opening Day in the major leagues. While many baseball fans know that Ruth began his major league career in Boston, as a member of the Red Sox, far fewer know that the Sultan of Swat wrapped up his epic career in Boston as well. But not as a member of the Red Sox, but as a member of the National League Boston Braves.

The Babe’s skills had deteriorated markedly by 1935 and showed only faint glimmers of his legendary power. (Hopefully we’re not seeing the same twilight of a career with struggling David Ortiz right now.) Ruth would not last the season in Boston, playing in 28 games before retiring.

If, like most baseball fans, you are intrigued by the Babe and want to explore some sights connected to the Big Bam, there are a few places to check out around Boston–and the entire Northeast. Click here for an article I wrote for ESPN.com on a Babe Ruth road trip.

More about the Ruthian landmarks around Boston (including a Worcester watering hole with a Babe connection) is contained in The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston.

Mount Auburn Street: 1831

My third stop on Mount Auburn Street was Mount Auburn Cemetery of course. Founded in 1831 to create a beautiful environment for mourning and spiritual renewal–and to keep corpses out of Boston’s boneyards, which were burying up to five bodies in a grave in the early 1800’s– Mount Auburn is famous, enormous, and full of fluffy-looking trees at this time of year. The Japanese maples are leafed out (there are some stunning fall pictures of Mount Auburn’s Japanese maples here), but a number of other species aren’t, including the copper beeches. Stingy trees!

There have been mountains of essays about Mount Auburn. The place was one of Boston’s biggest tourist draws in the days when Revolutionary War history was still a bunch of stories Great-Grandpa used to tell. Thousands of people would ride carriages and streetcars out to the cemetery to stroll its shady walks. It’s still popular, but the crowds don’t come, except for the Brookline Bird Club during warbler migration season. If you see a crowd of 50 people with binoculars at Mount Auburn, get out of their way! The Brookline Birders stop for no man.

Today, the cemetery was quiet. I admired what looked like a monument to a dead sheaf of wheat, and one of the largest white oak galls I’ve ever seen. I suppose when you grow 150-year-old-trees, you can grow 150-year-old galls as well. Apart from a plot of incongruous sulphur-yellow pansies seemingly planted to make nearby pale purple azaleas and Japanese maples look ill, Mount Auburn was restful and calm– just like it’s supposed to be.

Landmarks along the Boston Marathon Course

If Monday’s 114th edition of the Boston Marathon has inspired you to explore the course of the famous foot race, there are plenty of landmarks you can check out all year long. And if, like me, the only thing you prefer to jog is your memory, well you can join in the spirit of the event without even lacing up your sneakers.

Here are some marathon-related sights to visit:

Hopkinton. The starting line is painted across Route 135 at the town green. Nearby is a statue of George V. Brown, starter of the marathon between 1905 and 1937, with his starter’s pistol aloft. At the one-mile mark at Weston Nurseries on Route 135 is a statue honoring Stylianos Kyriakides, whose victory in the 1946 race brought worldwide attention and badly needed relief supplies to his war-torn homeland of Greece. The statue depicts the runner with Spiridon Louis, his mentor and winner of the 1896 Olympic Marathon. A similar statue is located in Marathon, Greece, a sister city of Hopkinton.

Ashland. Marathon Park on Pleasant Street, about a half-mile north of the current course, commemorates the Boston Marathon’s original starting line. The park includes a pathway lined with historic stations documenting the race.

Newton. Johnny Kelley was a two-time race winner and the ultimate iron man, finishing his last complete marathon at the age of 84. But these days you’ll find him in bronze at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Walnut Street, near Newton City Hall. A statue at the start of the Newton hills depicts a 27-year-old Kelley winning the 1935 race and an 84-year-old Kelley completing his final marathon in 1992. Just up Commonwealth Avenue is Heartbreak Hill, which was so dubbed after Ellison Brown pulled away from Kelley on the incline in the 1936 race and broke his heart.

Boston. The brightly painted finish line is right outside the Boston Public Library. In Copley Square, you’ll find a 15-foot granite medallion embedded in the Boylston Street sidewalk. It includes maps of the course and names of previous winners. Near Trinity Church is a tortoise and hare statue inscribed “In tribute to runners from all over the world.” Behind the John Hancock Building is the Boston Athletic Association headquarters on Trinity Place. Inside is a small museum with historical memorabilia related to the Boston Marathon including Johnny Kelley’s bronzed running shoes and his 1936 Olympic sweatshirt. (The Boston Globe had an article on the museum last week, but botched some of the facts. The sweatshirt belongs to Johnny Kelley the elder, not the 1957 champ.) To make an appointment to view the exhibit, call 617-236-1652 x2624.

More about the history of the Boston Marathon and these landmarks can be found in The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston.

Family adventures for the end of April Vacation

Bostonians really know how to celebrate the arrival of Spring and sunshine! With the Boston Marathon completed, Earth Day celebrations around the city, and the Big Apple Circus in town, might as well join the masses, get outside, and savor this last weekend of April Vacation with the kids. Here are some unique family-friendly activities happening this weekend at a few of the sites listed in Boston Baby: A Field Guide for Urban Parents:

Junior Ranger Day on the Boston Harbor Islands

On Saturday April 24 at 11AM (reservations recommended), the National Park Service, Boston Harbor Island Alliance, and the Mass DCR are offering a reduced rate for families to head out to Georges Island for the day. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity for your kids to earn their Junior Ranger badges and learn more about protecting and appreciating our heritage. Plus, families can bring their own picnics and participate in the many activities planned for all ages. (And parents, you can also learn more about the islands in Christopher Klein’s Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands, just in time for summer!)

Baby Animals on Shaker Farm at the Hancock Shaker Village

Baby animals!? Need we say more? Take a daytrip to the Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock MA to join in the festivities at the 8th Annual Barnyard Birthday Party. Parents can take in the spectacular sights of new growth in the gardens, while the little ones get to help out and play with Shaker Farm’s baby lambs, piglets, calves, and chicks!

International Children’s Film Festival at the ICA

If you’d rather stay a little closer to the city, as well as mix indoor and outdoor activities, go down to the Institute of Contemporary Art on Saturday at the Seaport. For fresh air, stroll along the Harborwalk and stop for a picnic with an unbeatable view of the waterfront. Stop by the ICA from 10AM-4PM for the International Children’s Film Festival. Families can watch short films made by children, join in on a drawing and animation workshop, create storyboard collages, as well as meet artist and filmmaker Jim Capobianco who will talk about his film, Leonardo.

Mount Auburn Street: 1904

Continuing my tour of “Three Gardens in Three Centuries!”, I pedaled along Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge to Longfellow Park, a great oval of green that stretches from Mount Auburn Street to the Longfellow National Historic Site on Brattle Street. The Historic Site consists of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s house and gardens. Since you could see the Charles River from the Longfellow house in 1900, I thought it behooved me to inspect the garden in my Mount Auburn Street tour.

Oh, it’s pretty. The crabapple was blooming by the house, and the formal garden behind the house is just beginning to give a glimmer of its June glory, with peonies, roses, and irises just beginning to sun their leaves. The restored garden incorporates Martha Brookes Hutcheson’s 1904 design and Ellen Biddle Shipman’s renovations in the 1920s.

Urban wild, this is not. When was the last time you went to a garden that compelled you to march to the nearest refreshment stand and order tea and a crumpet? They don’t make gardens like this any more. There’s a pergola! And a sundial! And dozens of oddly-shaped beds with little hedges! The garden is 100 feet long, at most, but you can’t walk straight through it. The “Persian pattern” of the place, as Hutcheson termed it, keeps strollers from arriving at their destination too soon.

It’s small, it’s lovely, and the house next door going to be chock-a-block with lilacs next week, judging by the few blooms I saw peeking out from the hedge.

Mount Auburn Streets Three Gardens: 2010

This morning I decided to ride my bike down Mount Auburn Street to see how spring was faring in three gardens; the Harvard Community Garden, installed on April 17 outside Lowell House; the Longfellow National Historic Site, which has had its historic 1904 garden restored in 2000-2006; and the Mount Auburn Cemetery, founded in 1831. Today, I’ll talk about Harvard’s garden, such as it is.

The Harvard Community Garden’s 25 raised beds look a bit spartan at this point. It’s strange to see boxes of unfinished lumber filled with dirt sitting in front of a venerable dormitory for the wealthiest university on the planet. This serious food-growing venture apparently didn’t have the budget for a few pansies or alyssum sprigs for onlookers to admire while the peas refuse to sprout. Can’t Harvard support bread and roses?

The Harvard Gazette article on the garden doesn’t indicate that any landscape architects or designers of any kind were involved in this project, and it shows. It’s also strange: Harvard has a school of landscape design three blocks away. Didn’t anybody tell them a new garden was going into one of the most visible sites at the college outside Harvard yard?  At a minimum, the site could have used a more interesting geometric layout like this rooftop garden — or how about this garden at Villandry?

Frankly, the garden looks like a nice little sandbox for students to play in. I’m sure Harvard plans to sweep it up in a few years and reseed the lawn when students have moved on to less labor-intensive concerns.

As I was photographing the garden, a maintenance worker walked through and picked up a few soda cans off the grass. What does it mean for a “community garden” to be cleaned up by a professional staff every day? The Boston Natural Area Network’s community gardens don’t get that kind of service.



Five Green Spots to Visit in the Rain

All right, it’s crummy weather out there. If you want to see flowers this weekend–or at least walk around somewhere that smells good–you still have some options.

Want a road trip? The Tower Hill Botanic Garden is having an Ikebana show this weekend through Sunday. If the rain does slow, you can stroll the charming grounds. The Garden includes a stunning orangerie. Tower Hill is what the Massachusetts Horticultural Society would have produced in an alternate universe where the board was competent.

In Concord, the Old Manse is opening for the season. This house was a “flashpoint for the American intellectual revolution that inspired transcendentalism and the modern conservation movement,” according to the Trustees of Reservations. Everyone there loved nature, but there *is* a roof– and an heirloom vegetable garden on the grounds.

The good old Margaret Ferguson Greenhouses in Wellesley are open, as are the Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham.The Ferguson Greenhouses have a wide variety of plants packed into a fairly small space. The Lyman Estate Greenhouses are smaller still, and focus on a few species (camellias, orchids, grapes), but they date from the 19th century and feature a resident cat.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is currently displaying very long trailing nasturtiums in honor of Ms. Gardner’s birthday.

And if you’re truly sick of the outdoors, you can always go stare at Harvard’s Glass Flowers.