Darien Green Thumbs Prepare Garden for Winter

If Ellen Biddle Shipman returned to Darien today, she would surely be pleased.

An influential pioneer in landscape design, and the first woman to make a successful career of it, Shipman (1869-1950) designed the formal flower garden at the Darien Community Association in 1931, when it was the country estate of a wealthy New Yorker, James H. Stark.

And on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009, a dozen green-thumbed Darienites of the DCA Garden Club (and two-year-old helper John, son of President Marianne Wadleigh) volunteered to honor Shipman’s legacy by tidying the plantings and readying them for winter.

After several hours of yanking, potting and digging in the dirt under threatening skies, the garden was pronounced "healthy, groomed and nearly ready to go to sleep for the winter," by club member Pam Heberton.

Pink blossoms remained on the roses and White Phlox were still in bloom. In another week or two, they too will be pruned back. A local landscaper who cuts the lawns will return to rake free-falling pine needles into their beds as mulch for the long cold spell ahead.

Maintaining the garden is labor-intensive; weekly maintenance checks are required to keep Shipman’s spirit alive.

The Meadowlands mansion and grounds achieved listing on the National Register of Historic Places—one of only three sites in Darien to be so recognized—specifically because of the Shipman garden and architectural work performed on the mansion itself by Donald G. Tarpley.

Besides, say members of the club, the gardens and grounds must be picture-perfect during peak wedding season, May to September, when DCA rents out the mansion.

Shipman designed over 600 gardens during her career, which took off after her horticultural talents were noticed by architect Charles A. Platt at her farm in Plainfield, New Hampshire.

During the heyday of estate-building by wealthy industrialists in the early part of the 20th century, Shipman's business soared. She would hire only women graduates of horticultural schools as a gesture to open the professions to women. She was known to say, "A garden became for me the most essential part of a home."

With the passage of time, most of Shipman’s gardens have disappeared and only a few retain their original plantings and look.

The DCA garden is thus rather unique, retaining the architectural elements of Shipman’s "Planting Plan of Perennials for Garden for Mrs. James H. Stark," including its tall yew hedge enclosure, flower beds arranged symmetrically around a central circular pool, flowering bushes and abundant displays of flowers, including Peonies, Phlox, Roses, Astilbe, Rose of Sharon and Lilies of the Valley. The DCA Garden Club keeps it in perpetual bloom throughout the growing season.

Still, the DCA garden has had to adapt to the times, when economics rule out employing a full-time staff of gardeners. Today’s garden lacks the surfeit of floral variety of Shipman’s design, which called for eight kinds of Dahlias, thirteen varieties of Chrysanthemum and thirteen types of Gladiola.

Twenty-first century concessions include low-maintenance hybrids, such as pink Knockout Rose and Carefree Roses.

Shipman’s original blueprint is kept by the DCA; a framed copy is on the wall of a second-floor room. It continues to guide the volunteer caretakers.

"Do not cut back Anemones in fall," the plan dictates.

By mistake last year, that stern caution was not observed. And the anemones died, according to Eve Mauger.

This year, the Anemones were left alone.

The DCA Garden Club volunteers will return in spring to tend their treasure and honor the spirit of Ellen Dibble Shipman.