GardenDesignOnline: Books: Beatrix, Again

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of Beatrix Farrand's death ... so it's certainly appropriate to have another volume on the life and work of America's first female landscape architect and a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

In her new book, Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes, landscape historian Judith B. Tankard takes us again through the familiar Farrand territory: her privileged childhood in a prominent upper-class New York family (she was the niece of author Edith Wharton); her fascination with plants and landscapes; her early tutelage under Charles Sprague Sargent of Boston's Arnold Arboretum; and her many commissions that stemmed from her personal acquaintances among the well to do in high society.

Tankard takes the reader briefly through Farrand's childhood, then quickly moves on to her decision to pursue a career as a "landscape gardener," and her early commissions for clients in Newport, Providence, Maine, and Long Island.

Farrand's most famous garden, which still survives today, is Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC, pictured above. Tankard calls it "her most challenging yet rewarding project and the one for which she is most remembered today." While the lower part of the garden is now overgrown and unused, the "designed" parts of it are still as lovely as they were in their original state, although many plantings have been replaced.

Tankard concentrates on Farrand's gardens that are still intact throughout the country. They include gardens at The Mount, Edith Wharton's home in Lenox, MA; Hill-Stead, the home of architect Theodate Pope Riddle in Farmington, CT; several college campuses, including Vassar, Princeton, Oberlin, and Yale; and also The Huntington in San Marino, CA and Farrand's own garden on Mount Desert Island, Maine.

The book includes a number of Farrand drawings and photos of many gardens.

If, however, you already have the Diana Balmori book, Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes: Her Gardens and Campuses (Sagapress, 1985) or British author Jane Brown's book Beatrix: The Gardening Life of Beatrix Jones Farrand 1872-1959 (Viking, 1995), you many not feel the need for another book on Beatrix Farrand which covers much of the same ground.

If, however, you missed those two volumes, you certainly won't be disappointed with the new book by Judith Tankard. It's a welcome addition to the genre, written in a easy to read style, and it covers all the important facts and facets in the life of a most fascinating woman.

(photo of Dumbarton Oaks ©Jane Berger)