By the time she reached her late twenties, Eudora Welty
(1909-2001) was launching a distinguished literary career. She was
also becoming a capable gardener under the tutelage of her mother,
Chestina Welty, who designed their modest garden in Jackson,
Mississippi. From the beginning, Eudora wove images of southern
flora and gardens into her writing, yet few outside her personal
circle knew that the images were drawn directly from her passionate
connection to and abiding knowledge of her own garden.
Near the end of her life, Welty still resided in her parents'
house, but the garden-and the friends who remembered it-had all but
vanished. When a local garden designer offered to help bring it
back, Welty began remembering the flowers that had grown in what
she called "my mother's garden." By the time Eudora died, that
gardener, Susan Haltom, was leading a historic restoration. When
Welty's private papers were released several years after her death,
they confirmed that the writer had sought both inspiration and a
creative outlet there. This book contains many previously
unpublished writings, including literary passages and excerpts from
Welty's private correspondence about the garden.
The authors of "One Writer's Garden" also draw connections
between Welty's gardening and her writing. They show how the garden
echoed the prevailing style of Welty's mother's generation, which
in turn mirrored wider trends in American life: Progressive-era
optimism, a rising middle class, prosperity, new technology,
women's clubs, garden clubs, streetcar suburbs, civic
beautification, conservation, plant introductions, and garden
writing. The authors illustrate this garden's history--and the
broader story of how American gardens evolved in the early
twentieth century-with images from contemporary garden literature,
seed catalogs, and advertisements, as well as unique historic
photographs. Noted landscape photographer Langdon Clay captures the
restored garden through the seasons.
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