I am one, provides input, expertise and support to its activities and strategic direction. Subjects covered in this meeting were all global in nature, encompassing: data standards and compatibility in botanic garden plant records; rigorous data-driven assessment globally of the conservation value of botanic garden plant collections and their contribution to science, conservation and habitat restoration; global coordination and promotional materials to combat the illegal trade in threatened plants; and the work BGCI and botanic gardens are doing to define and implement voluntary complementary actions within the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biodiversity.
If this all seems a little complex, it is! Global plant conservation is one of the biggest and most challenging environmental issues facing our generation, and while local action is critical, global coordination is also needed. It is extraordinary that such major undertakings are being led by the gardens community. We are honored to play a very small role in this.
Presently, the plant conservation work of Massachusetts Horticultural Society is limited to my ongoing professional contributions to the global garden community. As the Garden develops and funding allows, we will develop a plant collections policy that also seeks to maximize the value and use of the Garden for plant conservation.
As you enjoy the Garden and our programs this spring, remember that behind the beauty is also a conservation challenge. We would love to hear from anyone interested in supporting this directly or learning more, do get in touch.
Happy gardening!
James Hearsum President & Executive Director
Plants, Flowers, & Veggies in the New England Fall
Flower Show!
Cut Specimens
Display one stem of a blooming annual, blooming perennial, woody plant, dahlia, and more.
Fruits and Vegetables
Display your onions, peppers, apples, tomatoes and more. Show off your harvest by creating a display container with a collection of veggies, fruits, and herbs.
Container-Grown Plants
Display a herbs, cacti or succulents, foliage plants, and propagated plants.
ALL NEW:
Fairy Garden
Container! Create a miniature garden designed to look like a welcoming space for fairies.
Length of Ownership: All plants must have been owned and grown by the exhibitor since June 19, 2025 unless otherwise stated in the schedule.
Up until the middle of the 20th century, most women in the United States adopted the conventional practice of assuming their spouse’s first and last name as their own, preceded by Mrs.1 This makes researching women’s background difficult since women may not have a published school record, an obituary, and often, if she did have an obituary, it may be published under her husband’s name with a litany of his accomplishments and place in society. Knowing a woman’s complete history personifies her in her own right, gives recognition to her accomplishments and elucidates history.
We found out that the owners of the Whitney Estate in Milton, were avid horticulturists and life members of Massachusetts Horticultural Society (MHS.) While they appear to have been very private, we dug up some of interesting tidbits in “their story” that lead us down the proverbial rabbit hole. In this case, it did not take long to find out who they were.
Who were the Whitneys? What we found out:
Finding out who “Mrs. Whitney” was was not difficult, however her past may have led to her reticence for being in the spotlight. Finding out what she did was more difficult and she was often described by the scandals of men in her life.
Mrs. Whitney was Alice Cornelia Thaw (1880-1955), aka Alice Copley Thaw. She was the youngest child of railroad baron and philanthropist, William Thaw, Sr. and Mary Sibbett Copley. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Little was found about her early years. However, the unknown Alice soon became an innocent bystander in Gilded Age sensational gossip that captured the nation’s attention.
In 1903, after a short courtship, Alice married George Seymour, Earl of Yarmouth, later the 7th Marquess of Hertford. Thus, she became the Countess of Yarmouth. This was Seymour’s third marriage. Seymour was a penniless amateur actor and a friend of Alice’s elder brother Harry. The Earl turned out to be scoundrel with many debts and it was reported that Alice was kept waiting at the altar while Harry "extorted" a large marriage settlement from Alice’s family. From its inception, the marriage was not successful and it was annulled in 1908. After the annulment, Alice resumed using her maiden name and moved to Lenox, Massachusetts, where she intended to live out her days.
1A few women varied this practice by inserting their birth name before their husbands that reflects their tie to their past.
“Mrs. Whitney's walled garden from south pillar of lower terrace,“ the wrapper notes on film negative. (1935). Herbert Wendell Gleason Collection: Massachusetts Horticultural Society. This property, known as ‘Winter Valley,” was located on Highland Street in Milton, Massachusetts. The Whitneys were clients of the Olmsted firm between 1927-1934 and 1950-1952. In addition to the formal gardens, the property had a lake and an old forest where there was a profusion of spring flowering shrubs. One of the interesting tidbits in the Olmsted files reveals the Whitneys had a junior baseball field and a skating pond installed on the property. From these records, it was clear that both Whitneys were involved in the design of the garden. The Whitneys were the recipients of the prestigious Hunnewell Medal in 1938 for this estate.
Alice was the younger sister of Harry K. Thaw who murdered prominent architect Sanford White of the firm McKim, Mead and White, in 1906. It was the “trial of the century.” Alice returned to the United States during Harry’s trials and her ill-fated marriage was often included in the reporting. After two deadlocked jury trials, Harry was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity in 1908.
After the annulment, Alice bought and renovated a residence in Washington, D.C., where she planned to raise rare plants and create a notable garden. However, after the renovations, she lived in the residence only for one year, 1912. In 1913, Alice married Geoffrey Gordon Whitney (1882-1953) and moved to Milton, Massachusetts. Geoffrey came from a prominent family and grew up in Milton, attended Milton Academy and became a stock broker in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Whitneys had two sons, Geoffrey Jr. and William. Their estate in Milton was called ‘Winter Valley.’ Alice bought the estate in 1920, formerly the estate of Mrs. Frederick A. Whitwell. They summered at their estate “Little Harbor Farm” on Church Street in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. They often opened their estates for charitable fundraising.
The garden at “Little Harbor Farm” was designed in 1927 by H. V. Lawrence of Falmouth, Massachusetts. Lawrence was an arborist and owner of Cape Cod Nurseries. Both Whitneys were involved in its creation. It overlooked Little Harbor and had a wide variety of plants. It included a yellow rose garden, a Delphinium cutting garden, an English style walled garden and a large herb garden that Alice arranged in a “delightful” border. It was here that Geoffrey, a noted authority on yellow rose culture, developed roses for Jackson and Perkins. Alice selected plants for the garden, importing many from England.
In 1931, the Whitneys were awarded a MHS Silver Medal for their “large and beautiful garden at their summer home in Woods Hole on Cape Cod, where Mr. Whitney made a “specialty of yellow roses.” In 1938, the Whitneys were awarded the H. H. Hunnewell Gold Medal for an estate "of unusual excellence, containing gardens of several types and planted with much choice material." In 1950, the Whitneys were awarded a Gold Medal for their Woods Hole estate that was of "unusual charm combining excellent architectural detail with exceptional plant material."
Alice was a quiet philanthropist and active in many nonprofits. Her avid interest in horticulture is shown by her membership and positions in plant societies, her participation at MHS shows and her exquisite gardens. Each year, she anonymously purchased flower show tickets for “underprivileged persons” so they “they might see the great exhibitions and thereby gain new hope and courage.”
Both Whitneys are buried in Woods Hole. Alice’s obituary in the Boston Globe described her with respect to her relationships to the men in her life: the “socially prominent wife of Geoffrey G Whitney;” “sister of Harry K. Thaw who was acquitted…,” and her prior annulment of her marriage to the Earl of Yarmouth. Geoffrey’s obituary mentioned his career, “his well-kept” garden on the cape, his wife and children. And that’s the end of their story.
MHS Book Club
The Book Club meetings take place on the third Tuesday of the month at 1:30 pm in the Crockett Garden. All are welcome to attend.
Here are the books for the Club’s upcoming discussions. There will not be a meeting in July.
May 20
Elements of Garden Design by Joe Eck
June 17
Garden Revolution by Larry Weaver
August 19 Merry Hall by Beverly Nichols
COME VISIT!
The Library is open on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and on Sundays from Noon to 3 p.m., and at other times by appointment. Please email Library & Archives Manager Maureen O’Brien for an appointment if you want to schedule a visit.
Please Note: The Library will be closed on Sunday, May 18, 2025.
A HORTICULTURAL HEART
BY JOHN LEE
John shares stories of Bert and Brenda and their gardening wisdom. These chronicles feature recipes, tried-and-true gardening practices, and seasonal struggles and successes. Bert and Brenda were first introduced in the March 2022 issue of Leaflet.
Back in 1971, Carly Simon released ‘Anticipation’. That anthem stayed on the radio for quite a while and the tune took root inside Bert’s head - especially the part about “...anticipation is making me late…”. This time of year, he began to fret about how soon he could begin to work the soil, how soon to plant the early peas. When would the weather change, would he miss the boat? On the occasional warm, sunny day, this really heated up his skillet. When spring was evanescent and winter wearing itself out, Brenda and Bert would start to get on each other’s nerves. Anticipation about maybe being late in the ground just nettled him. What some called cabin fever was usually infectious this time of year and what with the ice and snow of this aging winter season, the resultant ills of excessive cohabitation were beginning to show. Bert was beginning to get a little truculent about what he found on his dinner plate and Brenda was getting a little defensive. If they were going to eat out of their gardens the whole winter then at this time of year, life was about leftovers. Whatever was left over from what they had so laboriously put by over the course of the previous seasons was, at this juncture, all that was left. It certainly wasn’t her fault that there had been a bumper crop of string beans and
they had put them all by. Nor was she to blame for the dearth of delectable recipes in which string beans were a major player. ‘Believe you me” she said more than once, “I am just as sick of those G.d. beans as you are”. Not intending to seem catty, Bert could only shrug. Certainly, it wasn’t just his fault: they had planned the gardens together, after all. Who knew that the ‘improved strain’ would be prolific beyond their wildest expectation. A few feet less in the year ahead was clearly at least a partial remedy. Brenda told him that if the green beans might be in flood in the season ahead, she might simply harvest the bean blooms whether or not they had any ornamental value. So, there! Things were, indeed, getting chippy and for his own presence of mind if not self-preservation, it was clearly time for him to get out from under.
Normally, if not helping around the house fixing things neglected over the previous growing season, Bert could be found puttering in the barn or garage – the ‘roundtuit’ department (where whatever needed to be gotten to when he got around to it was gotten to). These were generally rather mindless but necessary jobs that insured the next growing season got off to a good start. He’d change out sparkplugs, change the oil in
his rototiller, sharpen the hoes, oil their handles and patch any hoses that had some hope of lasting one more season. But, by this time of year, he had most likely run out of odd jobs and today proved the rule. Today, he took the bow-saw and short-axe and went out to look for what had fallen under the weight of the winter’s snow and bluster.
and deeper into his bordering woodlands. Here he’d hunt for crooks and odd angles that might be fashioned into something useful (like door pulls and the like). Sadly, his enamored was less than over-joyed with the results of this kind of tinkering with Mother Nature’s detritus even if she deeply appreciated that these little excursions got him off her beat.
Bert always had it in mind that wood was always quieter than iron and if he had had his way, many of the latches and other small necessities would be crafted from scavenged forest fallings that might be repurposed into door handles, latches, donut hooks and the like. He took inordinate (and ill-understood) pleasure in traipsing around in the ecotone
Left to her own devices and a little benign neglect, she often felt a much-needed sense of relief during which the anticipation of warmer weather was that much more hopeful. It was during these moments of quietude that her horticultural heart harkened back to earlier times. Though certainly not advantaged as folks today might consider such
things, Brenda still cherished her childhood growing up and now growing older on the same farm on which she had been raised. While many of the discomforts of those days were no longer consequential, the place still had the warm and well-lived-in feeling that she remembered. Yes, the three-holer out-house was still there but now it served as a storage closet on the outside of the north wall where no-one asked questions about what it was used for these days. Younger visitors did, however, marvel at the beauty and seeming uselessness of her Home Comfort wood-fired cook stove that ornamented her kitchen to this day. Hers had a tin-lined water jacket off to the right of the oven from which she could draw off hot water as needed. Bert had ingeniously plumbed in a water reservoir to keep the ‘jacket’ full as that was the water they used to wash up after an evening’s canning or jelly-making.
More often she mused about how times had changed though how their lives remained much the same on their homestead. They still had the good fortune of growing their own although it was
now by choice rather of necessity. They did not need to save seed although Bert often did if only to see if the more modern F-1 hybrids were even close to true in the succeeding generation. Her folks had sometimes interplanted greens in with their ornamentals. But she and her siblings were often careless weeders in a hurry to get on to the next task (which was usually just as tiresome). Nowadays, varieties like ‘rainbow’ chard, red, speckled-leaf lettuces and other veggies with variegated foliage made interplanting her greens and ornamentals a much safer bet and she could keep them in the border gardens close to the foundations in the southfacing wall. Brenda imagined these ‘foundation plantings’ as her vestigial 4-H project. Bert did not have to take care of them for which he was grateful and so had no cause to grouse about how she used ‘her’ gardens especially since whatever she harvested brightened their evening meals often in more ways than one.
John Lee is the retired manager of MHS Gold Medal winner Allandale Farm, Cognoscenti contributor and president of MA Society for Promoting Agriculture. He sits on the UMASS Board of Public Overseers and is a long-time op-ed contributor to Edible Boston and other publications.
A Laissez-Faire Native Garden
By Catherine Cooper
Over time I have come to revise my ideas on what I want to grow in my garden. I was fortunate (or maybe unfortunate) to start my most recent yard from scratch—there were a couple of mature trees, screening trees and bushes around two sides, and some grass on the edge of one side but everything else was bare dirt. Grass was sown, flower beds marked out and so the creative process began.
As it began on a budget there were lots of seed grown perennials, which initially looked totally lost as they were in 4” pots when I transplanted
Seed grown plants, 18 months after planting (right), then seven years later, looking from the opposite direction (left). Note the yarrow (Achillea spp.) migrated to other parts of the yard. It also reverted to the wild species for the most part.
them. Trees and shrubs were added piecemeal as there wasn’t a budget for a grand design scheme, although I did follow a vision in my mind, one section at a time. To give some semblance of cohesion at the beginning I would use annuals, which had the advantage of being inexpensive - just sow seed where you want flowers and wait for swaths of color to develop and this worked well.
My choices weren’t always the best—I would be drawn to something new to me, or conversely which reminded me of something I used to grow in England, which meant I would push cultivation boundaries or sometimes I was just unlucky with the winter’s weather. However, mostly my choices worked out well although the dominance of certain perennials and annuals has changed over the years. And then there were other challenges from the weather: drought, winter cold or late spring frosts, as well as pests that I hadn’t encountered before—think Japanese beetles and tobacco hornworms of all things, which are happy to devour tomatoes in the absence of tobacco.
However, these problems are part of the natural ebb and flow of gardening tribulations but the problems that always seem to be around
