Green Thumb: Return to the 1860s at Carnton Plantation

Source: www.commercialappeal.com

At most of the horticultural programs I attend, I learn about new and improved plants that make gardening easier and more satisfying, as well as safer and better ways to control insects.

But after Justin Stelter's talk last Sunday at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, I realized that the past is a wonderful teacher, too.

Carnton Plantation Gardens

As head gardener at the Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tenn., since 2003, Stelter has been challenged to create and maintain a garden that would be recognizable to any Middle Tennessean living before 1869.

And guess what? Many of the design concepts of that era are as modern as our early 21st century garden, and many of the plants have proved to be enduringly functional and ornamental.

The current trend of mixing edibles and ornamentals was also popular in the mid-1800s. In the 1-acre formal gardens at Carnton Plantation, cabbages and greens thrive in artfully planted beds among flowers and shrubs.

Espaliering, the French method of training fruit and other trees to grow like vines on walls, fences and trellises, was popular in the mid-1800s and is once again favored by gardeners who want to maximize the use of small spaces.

Low-maintenance roses that bloom again and again have at least one antique counterpart at Carnton.

"Le Vesuve is an 1825 rose that's like an early version of Knock Outs," Stelter said. "They have self-cleaning perpetual blooms and very few disease problems."

Today's native plant nuts — and I mean that in respectful way — would find kinship with the man believed to be the designer of the Carnton gardens, Andrew Jackson Downing.

Downing admired the clipped topiary trees used by Italian landscape designers but accomplished a similar look with native Eastern cedars found all over Middle Tennessee.

Today, another generation of the cedars, pruned to resemble conical green lollipops, provide formal structure and evergreen color to the garden.

It would have been difficult to be a hosta-holic back then. Instead of several thousand varieties to choose from, there were only five species in Middle Tennessee gardens.

Still popular today, those historic hostas include Lancifolia plantaginea, whose fragrant large white flowers bloom in late summer, and Sieboldiana undulata, whose large, wavy variegated leaves pucker like seersucker fabric.

Also in the garden are blue flag irises, historic peonies, purple coneflowers, cockscombs, zinnias, phloxes and four o'clocks.

"We know Mrs. McGavock loved black hollyhocks," Stelter said. "But they always revert to pink for us."

Carrie McGavock was married to John McGavock, son of Randal McGavock, a former mayor of Nashville who built the plantation house in 1826.

In 1866, she had the remains of 1,500 Confederate soldiers killed in the Battle of Franklin moved to a 2-acre site next to the family cemetery on plantation property. It is the largest privately owned military cemetery in America.

Stelter was invited to speak in Memphis by members of the newly re-formed Mid-South Daffodil Society.

Carnton Plantation is believed to house the largest historic daffodil collection in the South.

Along its fence lines are some 2,000 daffodil bulbs representing 40 varieties in use before 1869.

Here are just a few:

Mrs. Langtry, named for the spirited actress whose affair with king-to-be Edward VII shocked Victorian England, has white petals and a crinkled canary-yellow cup that matures to cream.

Pheasant Eye, a late-blooming fragrant poeticus daffodil, has white petals and a green center eye.

Twin Sisters, also known as Cemetery Ladies and Loving Couples, are typically the last daffodils of the season to bloom. Each stem has two side-by-side flowers with white petals and lemon-yellow cups.

Hoop Petticoats are small Southern cuties with funnel-shaped cups and exclamation-point petals.

Bulbs for sale

Modern bulbs, chosen because they grow well in our climate and win prizes at daffodil shows, will be sold from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Dixon Gallery and Gardens.

Members of the daffodil society will be on hand to help with selecting the bulbs, which will be sold in packages of five.

Buy a few to enter in next year's daffodil show. You might just win a blue ribbon.

Speaking of peonies

Kathleen Gagan will speak on "A Passion for Peonies" at 6 p.m. Monday at the Memphis Botanic Garden.

She is the owner of Peony's Envy, a nursery and display garden in Bernardsville, N.J., with the most extensive collection of tree and herbaceous peonies in the Northeast.

The garden features more than 50,000 peony plants representing 250 cultivars. Cost: $10, $8 for botanic garden members.

HomeFeaturesWLife ‘The Hearitage Pear’ specialty cocktail highlights Heritage Ball

courtesy of Williamson Herald

Four years ago, acclaimed historic gardener Justin Stelter planted Kieffer heirloom pear trees in espalier on the grounds of Carnton Plantation. This Saturday night, those pears will be featured in the Heritage Pear, a specialty cocktail created for the 39th Annual Heritage Ball to be held on the adjacent Eastern Flank Battlefield Park."The 'Kieffer' Pear was discovered around 1860, and continues to be popular in the South because they are disease- and insect-resistant, and are self-fruiting," said Stelter, who has restored the historic gardens at Carnton and at The Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson, in Nashville. "They flower white in the spring, and the fruit ripens to a beautiful golden hue in late August or September."

The Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County turned to Burger Up Cool Springs' General Manager and Mixologist Ross Powells to create something special based on the pears for the Ball's cocktail hour.

"Pear is a really nice fall flavor, and it lends itself to making a great cocktail," Powells said. "This drink is not too sweet. It has a good balance, a little bubble on top and fits perfectly with such a beautiful September event."

The Heritage Pear's base is Heroes Vodka, a local brand carried by Lipman that was founded by United States Marine Corps veteran Travis McVey, and donates a portion of proceeds to support veterans. Other ingredients include Brillet Pear Liqueur, Emeri Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc, and a syrup and garnish created by Powells from the Carnton pears.

Heritage Ball Chair Jennifer Parker participated in a recent tasting, and says the concept is just another illustration of the Heritage Foundation's focus on preserving the things that matter.

"This event is about celebrating our history and our efforts to preserve it," Parker said. "The Ball is being held on the ground where these pears were grown, and it's a perfect tie-in with the harvest season and our farm-to-table menu. It's extra special that we can support Heroes as a local brand and give back in some small way to our veterans."

All proceeds from the 39th Annual Heritage Ball benefit the work of the Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and preserve the architectural, geographic and cultural heritage of Franklin and Williamson County, and to promote the ongoing economic revitalization of downtown Franklin in the context of historic preservation. For more information, visitwww.historicfranklin.com. The event is sold out.

In the Garden: Digging History

Source: www.gardenandgun.com

BY ROBERT HICKS - TENNESSEE - AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012

Carnton Plantation Gardens

There are only about thirty miles between Eagleville, Tennessee, and historic Carnton Plantation in Franklin. Yet it would seem that Justin Stelter, Carnton’s head gardener, has traveled much farther in his thirty-four years.

Stelter began mowing lawns in Eagleville when he was eleven. By the time he started college, he had a thriving lawn-care and landscaping service. But his career, and life, took a turn when he began work on the garden at Carnton, originally created by Colonel John McGavock in 1847 in preparation for his marriage to Carrie Winder.

It started with routine weeding. But there, under the chest-high weeds, Stelter discovered what he now considers to be his “hortus opus.” What lay beneath the weeds had once been a working garden of vegetable “squares,” each surrounded by ornamental borders. With the support of Carnton’s board, Stelter began to delve into the notes left by garden historian

Gerry Doell, brought in to research the garden some fifteen years earlier. Doell’s notes referred to scraps of information among McGavock’s papers as well as to the greater world of mid-nineteenth-century gardening in America. McGavock had based Carnton on ideas espoused in the writings of Andrew Jackson Downing, the “father of American landscape architecture.” But beyond a massive Osage orange, a cedar, and yuccas, nothing of the original garden survived.

Stelter began to tap into the wisdom of fellow gardeners in Middle Tennessee to help restore the site and track down heirloom plant stock. On more than one occasion, a missing plant that was considered rare or even lost showed up in a local yard after searches of nurseries nationwide had failed (as with the native grape honeysuckle Lonicera prolifera, found in a backyard garden in downtown Franklin). Heirloom roses, tomatoes, and species hostas have all been brought back, along with one of the Southeast’s largest historic daffodil displays and a growing collection of heirloom peonies.

Stelter has also brought fruit back to the garden, including bountiful grape arbors and four English-barrel arches of espalier Kieffer pears. At present, he is at work on plans to rebuild John McGavock’s apple orchard outside the garden fence.

His work has not gone unnoticed. In 2006, Stelter was one of a handful of gardeners selected for the Historic Landscape Institute program at Monticello, where he studied under the guidance of Peter Hatch. And in 2009, the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s home north of Nashville, brought Stelter on as historic gardener.

Today, the garden at Carnton thrives, not only offering its visitors a moment of peace and reflection but also providing an abundance of vegetables and fruit for the community. For Stelter, it’s been a good marriage indeed. “I would like to believe,” he says, “that Carrie McGavock would be pleased.”