Foxlily

This charming book, published in 1997, was a collaborative effort between octogenarian Emily Whaley of Charleston and South Carolina author and house designer William Baldwin.

It’s part memoir, part family history, part entertaining guide and recipe book, but mostly, a tribute to Mrs. Whaley’s own garden and what it meant to her, and to the generations of gardeners in her family.

This book is a delightful ramble, not too structured;  much like a walk in a well-tended garden.  It soothes and pleases.

Although she purports to be a ruthless pincher and pruner, Mrs. Whaley spares some blooms and speaks fondly of them:

Right at the start [of the garden] is a snowdrop lily. I’ve got a couple of truly ancient camellias, but I believe this snowdrop has been here since Charleston has been here.  I bet it came in 1680 from the other side of the ocean–from the snowfields of the Himalayas.  It was the same size when I came here almost sixty years ago.

She claims to have been a frugal gardener, substituting concrete statuary for originals, sometimes to her friends’ dismay:

At my feet is the statue of a cat about to pounce upon an unsuspecting statue of a bunny.  My friend Patty is such a purist.  She said,  ’Emily, you bought that concrete cat?  What’s wrong with you?   I thought somebody gave it to you.’ I don’t take my statues all that seriously.  I try not to take myself that seriously either.

Some of Mrs. Whaley’s best reminiscences are about her mother, whom she called “Nan.” Nan had grown up on Belvidere, a cotton plantation.  In 1910, she married a village doctor, of whom her mother initially disapproved, to the extent that she sent her daughter on a five-month tour of Europe with her maiden aunt to dampen the young woman’s enthusiasm for marriage.  But her suitor met her at the train station when she returned, with the whole town in tow, and that was that.

Here’s what I loved about Nan:  she had the leisure to ride her dapple gray mare for hours every day, with a pack of farm hounds following.   This sounds like heaven to me:

She would ride out our big gate, turn left, and ride a thousand yards to put herself on the edge of five or six thousand untrampled acres…lovely streams, incredible woods, a paradise for wildlife, a paradise for Nan.  These swamps were filled with untouched cypress and tupelo gum, dogwood, and holly.  Nan rode every day…she went alone.  Except for the hound dogs.

And of course, Nan wouldn’t have had to groom her own horse before or after, or muck stalls or drag bales of hay.  Heaven.  That is absolutely what I’d want in an ideal afterlife.

While Mrs. Whaley admits that remembering her family makes her nostalgiac, her little book is full of opinions and advice for the present.  Be gracious to people.  Draw them out.  You can talk to anyone.  A perfect evening of moonlight and good food in a fragrant garden may be a gift your guests will remember for the next 40 years.  The carriages and costumed characters in tourist-centered Charleston are tacky.  ”Camellia” is pronounced “ca-MAYL-ia.” And Jack Russell terriers (such as Mrs. Whaley’s dog Rosie) make good companions for a morning cup of coffee in the garden.

A sweet, restful book.  I’m ordering several copies as gifts.