Newsletter/Friends News
Current Issue of The Fringed Gentian™
Spring 2021
Newsletter archive - all back issues.
Want to subscribe?
Sign-up for email newsletter notification and informational emails from us.
A tale from the Garden
Eloise Butler writes about the ghostly hermit. Article.
Minnesota Dwarf Troutlily
How the plant got into the Wildflower Garden.
Read Article Here.
Garden Plant of the Week
Selected from the many species in, or historical to, the Garden.
Can you identify this early Spring flowering plant?
LEARN ABOUT IT ON THIS PAGE
Link on name goes to more information and photos of this plant.
The Five earliest Spring flowers
Based on years of Wildflower Garden records these five the early birds. Article
A Remembrance Poem
I feel no pressure to look pretty
or be your refuge from the city.
I can’t consider it my aim
to furnish every flower-name.
I have reasons to exist,
though not the ones that you would list.
It took eleven thousand years
to make this place as it appears.
When the glacier last withdrew,
the land it left was brown and blue,
a lifeless, gravelly moraine. . . .
and I have turned it all to green.
The seeds that came by floating, flying,
I coaxed to root her and keep trying.
Leaf and husk and stalk would perish
and give me crumbs of loam to cherish.
Shrub and moss were my recruits;
my hillsides twine their reaching roots.
I have protected all I could
from winter wind and summer flood.
Taken from Letter of Thanks from the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden by
Betty Bridgman (1916 - 1999)
Reflections
In Remembrance of Eloise Butler
“Every plant in her garden, large and small, was her living child, upon whom she bestowed her devotion and care – and her love went to the birds and all other members of the Animal Kingdom who were in habitants of and attracted to the peaceful, beautifully-wooded glen in which she studiously and untiringly labored for her beloved beings of Dame Nature. I say “beloved” advisedly, for she did not shrink from manual labor in order to protect her treasures from the inexperienced or unthinking hands or feet of visitors or willing helpers. Hers was a life of happiness in a kingdom all of her own, and her spirit has not departed from those grounds which have been so fittingly named for her, and which should for all time in the future be devoted to the purpose for which they were dedicated at her wish and that of her co-workers in nature study.”
Theodore Wirth, April 19 1933, Letter to the Board of Park Commissioners on the death of Eloise Butler on April 10.
Garden theme items for sale
Downloadable PDF format books.
1907-1933. Companion book to The Wild Gardener
Martha Crone and the Wild Flower Garden
1933-1958. Companion book to the Crone History
Find us on Facebook.Last site update: 04/10/2021. Next planned update: 04/17/2021