Valley Gardens: Garden audio tour shares Dickinson's love of nature

Published on May 25, 2007

Emily Dickinson used images of flowers, birds, butterflies, trees, meadows and woodlands in her unique poetry. "I was reared in the garden, you know," she wrote.

The gardens she created in the 19th century with her mother and sister at the Homestead on Main Street in Amherst have changed radically over the years. The hemlock hedge planted in the 1860s now towers over the Homestead and adjacent Evergreens, once owned by the poet's brother, Austin.

Her beloved conservatory, where she grew bulbs and tropical plants in the winter, was torn down nearly a century ago. "I am a lunatic on bulbs," she wrote. Her informal gardens are now Colonial Revival-style formal beds. But her spirit lingers under the massive oak tree and many of her favorite flowers still bloom around the house.

There is a surge of interest in Dickinson's gardens and her love of nature. In recent years there have been two books published about her gardens and last fall Harvard University published a facsimile edition of her herbarium or collection of dried plants.

This spring the Emily Dickinson Museum launched a new audio tour of the landscape of the Homestead and the Evergreens. "Everyone who knows Dickinson knows how important it was to her," explained Jane Wald, executive director of the Emily Dickinson Museum.

Based on a visitor survey a few years ago, museum staff considered a variety of programs and projects related to the landscape, Wald said. There have been lectures and workshops on the gardens, several professional assessments of the historical garden, including two by Rudy Favretti, a renowned landscape historian, and a master plan that includes restoration of the gardens and the conservatory. The audio tour is just the first phase.

Narration by Wilbur

Visitors can rent an audio wand for $6 and wander at their own pace around the gardens of the two adjacent houses. The narrator of "Grounds of Memory" is Richard Wilbur, a past poet laureate of the United States who lives in Cummington and has many ties to the Dickinson museum. Poet Mary Jo Salter of South Hadley reads Dickinson's poems on the audio tape. Wald offers some historical background and John Martin, retired professor of landscape architecture at the University of Massachusetts, shares his research on the tape. Martin used to live next to the Homestead. The tape was recorded in the studios of WFCR.

There are 18 stops on the tour and at nearly each stop the visitor can listen to an optional poem related to the narrative. An alternative is simply to listen to other poems appropriate to the specific site. The tour takes just over an hour to complete.

The visitor learns about the white oak tree planted by the Dickinsons and the umbrella magnolia, an unusual tree with huge flowers and enormous seed cones, at The Evergreens. There is a description of the Main Street scene as it was known to the poet and the farmyard with animals and fruit trees, now long gone.

The script was written by Marta McDowell, a New Jersey landscape designer and horticultural lecturer and writer who visited the museum almost by accident. On a business trip to New England, "I had an afternoon to kill between Boston and Springfield and I saw a brochure for the Emily Dickinson Homestead in the brochure rack at one of the Mass Pike rest areas," she recalled in an email interview. "Off I went to Amherst and had the last tour of the day with Cindy Dickinson." Her guide, who is no relation to the poet, was curator of the Homestead at the time.

McDowell returned many times to Amherst and began writing articles and giving lectures about the poet and her garden. This grew into a full-fledged book, "Emily Dickinson's Gardens: A celebration of a poet and gardener," published in 2005 by McGraw-Hill.

In writing the audio script, McDowell said she set aside the book and sat at her computer and "imagined walking around the landscape of the Homestead and The Evergreens. I tried to follow Emily and her family around their property and to translate that into tidbits of information for the visitor," McDowell said.

Spirit of the family

Her method certainly worked, based on interviews with two members of the Alpine Garden Club who took the tour recently. "I just felt you could feel the spirit of the family on the grounds," said Debbie Windoloski of Hadley. When the narrator relates the story of Emily Dickinson returning at night from visiting her brother next door and signaling her safe return from her window, "I looked up at her window and almost felt I could see her up there," Windoloski said.

"It was just wonderful," said Ann Clark of Amherst who also took the tour. "The voices, the people were wonderful." She said the serenity of the grounds deeply affected her. "It made me feel the same way I felt at Tintern Abbey in Wales," she added, referring to the ruined abbey that inspired a poem by Wordsworth.

"I hope that the audio tour gives people a reason to come back to the Emily Dickinson Museum and support a very special place," McDowell said. Her wish certainly is being fulfilled by the Alpine Garden Club members and others. Clark said she now plans to purchase a book of Dickinson poems for herself and a child's version for her grand-daughter.

"I learned more about the family through that tour than I had ever known before," said Windoloski. She agreed that the museum with its grounds is a very special place.

I took the tour myself on Mother's Day, a beautiful clear, sunny day with moderate temperatures. Although there were other people wandering the grounds, it seemed like a very private place and very serene.

The bleeding hearts were in bloom in the Homestead garden along with late tulips. I walked down the path to the Evergreens, the path Dickinson said was "just wide enough for two who love." I walked under the unfurling leaves of Austin's umbrella magnolia, whose flowers were still in tight bud. Sitting on the piazza steps, I listened to the famous poem:

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church --

I keep it, staying at Home --

With a Bobolink for a Chorister--

And an Orchard, for a Dome --

It was like sharing the Sabbath with the poet who loved gardens and nature and made them an integral part of her literacy legacy to the world.

If you visit in June you will see columbine, foxglove, hollyhock, roses and feverfew in bloom, all plants Emily Dickinson grew. Surely the tour will inspire you to pick up a book of her poetry and learn more about the poet and her gardens.

The Emily Dickinson Museum, 280 Main St., Amherst, is open Wednesday through Sunday from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in May and opening at 9:30 a.m., except Sunday, for the summer, beginning June 1. Tours led by trained guides are available for $6 or $8 depending on length and depth of information. There is a gift shop in the tour center at the Homestead. The grounds are open dawn to dusk, free of charge. Parking is on the street or in the municipal parking lots for a fee. For information about group tours and special events, check the Web site at www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org or call 542-8161.

Cheryl B. Wilson can be reached at vallaygardens@comcast.net.