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Archive Dive: Gardening Freestyle for Exuberant Color
Welcome to Archive Dive—my new excuse to obsess over the absolute treasures hiding in House Beautiful’s 130-year-old archives. Every month, we’ll dig up a favorite story from the past (epic room makeovers, wildly bold design swings, and style moments that were way ahead of their time) and talk about why they still resonate today. It’s part history lesson, part design deep-dive, and 100 percent a love letter to the iconic taste that’s defined HB for over a century.
—Jo Saltz, House Beautiful Editor in Chief
Tucked into the pages of our February 1985 issue is a feature on gardening that eschews more traditional advice of the time. Instead of an overtly structured plan and lots of experience, the authors say that what you really need to cultivate a thriving garden is courage. Read on to see how Rosemary Verey and Ellen Samuels, two women who published a whole gardening tome from which this piece was excerpted, go about creating a truly resplendent summer garden.
This lush expanse of summer blossoms is glorious proof that, for some people, an artistic approach to gardening works much better than a precise, more carefully planned method. Georgianna Orsini, who has tried gardening both ways, explains: “I used to read a lot of gardening books, study the planting plans and try to translate them to my own garden in New York State, but so many things don’t work out—the high plants aren’t quite high enough, or the colors aren’t right. More than a plan, you need courage—courage to plunge in!”
This is exactly what Mrs. Orsini does each spring. “I take lots of flats from my greenhouse—whatever plants have germinated—and work with them the way a painter works on a canvas. For example, I’ll set out a blob of deep pink snapdragons, then sprinkle pale pink and white ones around. Then I put dahlias in the center of the ‘canvas’ because they are so big and impressive. I depend on dahlias a lot. They are a nuisance to dig up and store in the winter, but they do pull their own all summer long. I plant anything that blooms longer than two weeks.”
She likes dallies for the same reason. “I also plant anything blue because blue and gray—like dusty miller and lavender—bind all the colors together.” Says Mrs. Orsini, “I work long, long hours in May, and after that it’s maintenance. I go through and dead-head on my way to the pool or to the car, and I can water the whole garden in 40 minutes because I have hoses everywhere and underground pipes to attach them to.”
From The American Woman’s Garden by Rosemary Verey and Ellen Samuels. Copyright 1984 by Rosemary Verey and Ellen Samuels. Reprinted by permission of the New York Graphics Society/Little, Brown and Company Inc.
