“There are enough of those around here. I’ve never seen so many buildings falling down as there are here in North Carolina.”
Looking up from her book, Eden stared at him in silence.
“What’s that look for?”
“Maybe I could work with the Arundel Historical Society and Restoration North Carolina and move some of the smaller buildings into Queen Anne. The buildings could be restored.”
“Good idea. Glad I thought of it.”
She shook her head at him. “Your ego must reach the moon.”
He smiled at her and didn’t seem as though he planned to go away. “So tell me about all this,” he said, motioning to the many books on the table. “It looks interesting.”
She opened her favorite book, The Gardens of Colonial Williamsburg by Brinkley and Chappell, to the Benjamin Waller garden. “See,” she said, “you need pattern and symmetry, and different plants are used together.”
When Jared’s face showed that he didn’t understand but wanted to hear more, she warmed to her subject. “In America today, because we have so much land, we tend to plant one crop in one space. Modern American families will plant a quarter acre of corn, for instance. Or they’ll put in a dozen tomato plants and make sure that nothing else is near their tomatoes. All very clean and sterile. The colonials lived in a dangerous world, so they lived close to one another, but they still had to grow a lot of their own food.”
“Country in the city.”
“More or less. In Williamsburg, the houses had half-acre lots, and it is amazing that they could fit so many plantings into that small space. Every inch of their lots was used. And nothing was barren. They didn’t have the luxury of space.”
Jared looked as though he wanted her to go on.
“Take herbs, for instance. Today, if an American wants to plant herbs, they put in an herb garden. They tend to separate everything. Herbs are here, fruit trees are there, vegetables are there, and flowers are over there. All separate. But the colonials mixed things up—which, today, we’re rediscovering is a better idea.”
“A cottage garden,” Jared said, looking pleased with himself.
“No. A cottage garden prides itself on having twenty-five different species in one bed, and everything is free-form. The colonials couldn’t have stood that. They wanted order and symmetry, so they’d make a design, architectural really, and each shape would be bordered by a hedge of one plant, such as boxwood, or lavender. Then, inside, they’d put their flowers or vegetables. And they would put plants together that helped each other.”
“How do plants help each other?”
Eden opened a new book put out by her publishing house on companion gardening. “Certain plants like each other, and there’s a theory that if you have problems with bugs on your crop, then you should plant something else nearby that the bugs like more than your crop. In the Middle Ages, no one would plant strawberries without planting borage next to it. Lovage goes near the tomatoes, and hyssop has to be with grapes. They’re best friends. You grow catnip and use the branches as a mulch to repel the odious Japanese beetles—which, thankfully, the colonials didn’t have. Valerian draws worms to the surface to aerate the soil, and it adds minerals to the compost pile. And marigolds should be everywhere. Bugs hate the smell of marigolds.”
Jared blinked at her. “And you say you’ve forgotten what you knew.”
Eden smiled at his praise. “I think I can remember most of it with some study, and of course there’s so much more that’s been published since I was gardening. Back then, people didn’t even believe in mulch, and only a few people had any idea what a compost heap was.”
“Imagine that.”
Eden laughed. “It’s a matter of what’s old is new again. We’re finally learning that nature and our ancestors knew what they were doing. They were organic gardeners out of necessity, and now a lot of people are looking into how they did it.” She looked down at her paper. “Designing these gardens for other people is my problem. How do I do that? The colonials could get four gardens out of a half-acre lot.”
“How big are the lots at Queen Anne?”
She looked at him. “Unfortunately, I don’t know, but I assume the ones not on the water are from one to three acres.”
“What would you do with three acres?”
“In colonial times it would have been pastureland, with sheep, cows, and horses, but now it could be a croquet lawn or a putting green. Just so it’s not two and a half acres of lawn that has to be mowed.” When she looked down at her pad and began to write, Jared leaned across the table and looked at the paper. “Must have,” she’d written at the top of the page.
must be enclosed
must have outdoor structure(s)
must have walkways
must re-create the past
“So show me a hypothetical design,” he said.