The Pen and the Trowel: Authors, Their Gardens and Mine with Marta McDowell
Emily Dickinson once described herself as “a lunatic on bulbs.” For the past 30 years Marta McDowell, author and teacher of landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden has been occupied (preoccupied?) — with writers who garden.
Researching their horticultural interests has changed her planting beds as well as her bookshelves. Starting with Mark Twain and connecting to authors ranging from Dickinson to Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe to Beatrix Potter, as well as literary and artistic personalities connected with the Cos Cob artists’ colony, McDowell will explore the writing-gardening connection in their gardens and her own. This lecture is made possible by the David R.A. Wierdsma Fund.
Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and consults for private clients and public gardens. Her latest book is Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life. Timber Press also published The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, New York Times-bestselling All the Presidents’ Gardens, and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, now in its seventh printing. Marta’s new book, Unearthing The Secret Garden about the children’s classic and its author, is due out from Timber Press in 2021. She is the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America’s Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement.
Members $10, Non-Members $15
