Salem Gardens, June 2024

Let’s take a break from history and observe and enjoy the world around us, shall we? I’ve been asking my Salem friends and aquaintences about their gardens, and everyone is very happy: blooms abound! Shrubs and perennials are bigger and better than ever—the latter seem to be positively uncontainable. I’m enjoying my garden too, but am also a bit anxious as it is on the Salem Garden Stroll in mid-July and I know that this month’s blooms will not last: maybe I should cut back now to encourage regrowth? When I first started working on the garden years ago, I strove for cascading color and interesting greenery for texture, but still, July is tough. Here we are in the second week of June:

It’s a bit messy as the tulip tree next door just let loose, but that is easily remedied. I snuck in my lady slippers at the end here, but their peak is a few weeks back.  Looking at these pictures, I realize I still have phlox and bee balm and meadowsweet coming, and daylillies too. There are several varieties of mallow yet to bloom, and the catmint and  honeysuckle will just keep going. I popped my lady slippers in here too, but this last picture is from a few weeks back.

I took a walk around Salem on Saturday morning looking for flowers, and stopped in at the Ropes Mansion and Derby House gardens: the first is the property of the Peabody Essex Museum, and the latter is part of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. These are really the only “public” gardens in Salem, as their gates are always open. Quite a contrast: the Derby garden has the overgrown “colonial” look I strive for in my own garden, whereas the Ropes is quite formal. Peonies and roses were reigning in both at this particular time.

And while I have you here, looking for this garden gate below……..I’m giving a short talk on Chestnut Street gardens on the morning of the Stroll, July 13, at Hamilton Hall. I’ve got lots of old pictures, including some of gardens and garden structures that no longer exist, but I can’t identify this wonderful gate, which I pretty sure also no longer exists. I think it’s the gate to John Robinson’s (who designed the Ropes Garden) amazing garden on Summer Street, which is now a parking lot, but I’m not sure, so if it looks familiar, let me know. I also wanted to present a past and present view of the garden at the Peabody Essex Museum’s Andrew Safford House: this past weekend and June of 1941, with members of the Salem Garden Club in costume.