Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry. And that silence is
Speaker 1: because Tracy is out at the moment, So I had
Speaker 1: a special guest on for this show. I was so
Speaker 1: incredibly delighted that Sarah Roberts from the Atlanta History Center
Speaker 1: was able to join me here in the studio for
Speaker 1: a little chat. And the plant lovers in the crowd
Speaker 1: are in for a big treat because Sarah is the
Speaker 1: vice president of Goisetta Gardens and Living Collections at the
Speaker 1: History Center, and she knows so much about historical horticulture
Speaker 1: but also so much about running a community garden essentially
Speaker 1: and a living history center. But I actually wanted to
Speaker 1: have her on for a very specific reason, aside from
Speaker 1: hearing all that she has to share about both the
Speaker 1: History Center and horticulture. And it's because we often hear
Speaker 1: from listeners about how much they love history and they
Speaker 1: would like to perhaps do something in the history space
Speaker 1: as a career, but maybe they feel like academia isn't
Speaker 1: the career path for them. They don't necessarily want to teach,
Speaker 1: but they're wondering if there are other things, and there
Speaker 1: aren't always a lot of people encouraging them to find
Speaker 1: other paths or avenues that they can engage with. History
Speaker 1: is their jobs that do not involve standing behind a
Speaker 1: podium or electorn and so I thought Sarah was a
Speaker 1: perfect example of that. So we are going to jump
Speaker 1: right into her interview. So, first of all, for anyone
Speaker 1: listening who doesn't know, I think most Atlanta Natives know,
Speaker 1: but outside of that, they may not. Even some Atlanta
Speaker 1: Natives don't tell us about the Atlanta History Center and
Speaker 1: what it offers. Oh goodness, the Atlanta History Center has
Speaker 1: so much to offer. It has Atlanta's largest local history museum,
Speaker 1: with multiple permanent exhibits and temporary exhibits traveling exhibits. We
Speaker 1: have the thirty three acre Goy's Wetta Gardens, which is
Speaker 1: surrounding the entire museum complex all the way from the
Speaker 1: very entrance where you first pull into the back corners
Speaker 1: of the property. There is the Keenan Research Center, which
Speaker 1: also has the Cherokee Garden Library within it, and all
Speaker 1: of Atlanta's archives are housed there. Uh yeah, I think
Speaker 1: people don't always realize how much is going on there
Speaker 1: and how large and expansive it is. I didn't even
Speaker 1: then very complex. Until I started kind of working in
Speaker 1: the history space, I did not have a sense of
Speaker 1: just how expansive it is. UM. And then will you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about your role there and specifically
Speaker 1: how you ended up in this job, because it's it's
Speaker 1: a uniquely history oriented job. But that was not your
Speaker 1: career path. That's so true. How did that happen? How
Speaker 1: did I end up in history? Um? The boys Wetta
Speaker 1: Gardens was something that developed first with Louise Allen, the
Speaker 1: wife of Mayor I Have Allen Jr. And she recognized
Speaker 1: the cultural landscape of the Swan House and its iconic gardens.
Speaker 1: So she pushed, as a trustee at the time that
Speaker 1: we needed to move the Atlanta Historical Society to this property,
Speaker 1: and that's the origin of the Atlanta History Centers more
Speaker 1: than fifty years and historic gardens preservation. And she pushed
Speaker 1: for all of the community garden clubs and local people
Speaker 1: that were interested in gardens to come out and participate
Speaker 1: and have a role in preserving those gardens and maintaining them.
Speaker 1: So it really had a grassroots origin story, which I
Speaker 1: love it's very unusual for a public garden to have
Speaker 1: that community drive to get it started. Lots of gardens
Speaker 1: start with a big master plan from a landscape architect
Speaker 1: and then they slowly over time build that out, whereas
Speaker 1: the History Center's gardens started with the community saying, this
Speaker 1: is something that we want to do. We want to
Speaker 1: preserve this iconic landscape, and then we want to develop
Speaker 1: and add to it. And then will you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about your education and how you landed there. Yes,
Speaker 1: So I have a bachelor's degree in ornamental horticulture from
Speaker 1: Barry College, and while I was there, it was important
Speaker 1: to me to do some internships and to travel. So
Speaker 1: one of those internships was at the end Garboretum up
Speaker 1: at Harvard University, and that was my first taste of
Speaker 1: public gardens. So public gardens is something that people may
Speaker 1: not understand exactly what that means. Is a garden that's
Speaker 1: open to the public, Yes, but it's also an institution
Speaker 1: that preserves and collects plants and labels them. So it's
Speaker 1: for the betterment of your community, it's for educational purposes,
Speaker 1: and it could be for research. All of those things.
Speaker 1: And when I was at the Arnold I did my
Speaker 1: internship and curation, which is also something I think that
Speaker 1: just blows right pie people. They don't think of gardens
Speaker 1: as being curated, but they are so. Just like you
Speaker 1: might think of an art museum or a history museum,
Speaker 1: all of those outdoor spaces can be considered exhibits. So
Speaker 1: the gardens that we have are also like an open
Speaker 1: air museum or an accompaniment to the museum where you
Speaker 1: can look at something inside, learn all about the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and then step outside to our smith farm and immerse
Speaker 1: yourself and this environment that is authentic and real and
Speaker 1: start to really imagine what was this life like. But
Speaker 1: that requires really researched and thought out landscape to set
Speaker 1: that tone and also have the house and the plant
Speaker 1: collections and everything around it be accurate. And you also
Speaker 1: studied abroad as well. Did that contribute to your your
Speaker 1: knowledge and appreciation of history and how it relates to horticulture?
Speaker 1: Absolutely so. Um. Like I say, in my internship at
Speaker 1: the Arnold, was that first eye opening appreciation for plants
Speaker 1: being something beyond decorative. I had started an ornamental horticulture,
Speaker 1: and then when I started there in curation, I got
Speaker 1: to get into plant records and understanding that this plant
Speaker 1: that's BEAUTI full like paper bark maple. Why was the one?
Speaker 1: They're so old and how long had it been there? Well,
Speaker 1: it was the very first one brought there by this
Speaker 1: plan explorer from the far flong corners of Asia that
Speaker 1: had brought this back, and it was the very first
Speaker 1: one in this country. And I thought, well, hold on that,
Speaker 1: how's a whole interesting story. I want to know more
Speaker 1: about that. So I started looking at plan exploration and
Speaker 1: thinking that, boy, I want to do that that looks
Speaker 1: amazing and explore places and bring plants back and trial
Speaker 1: and can they work here? But also looking through their records,
Speaker 1: you find these photographs and their photographs of people and
Speaker 1: in those landscapes of how they use those plants and
Speaker 1: how they were significant, and those landscapes may no longer
Speaker 1: exist anymore, and those records were so critical. So I
Speaker 1: got on this path where I wanted to study plan
Speaker 1: exploration and I wanted to study the deeper and more
Speaker 1: nuanced and complex reasons between why we have plants in
Speaker 1: certain places in this country. So I ended up studying
Speaker 1: abroad at the University of Reading over in England and
Speaker 1: working on soil science and garden history and phylogenetics and
Speaker 1: just every different aspect of the field that I could
Speaker 1: study to really broaden my own understanding of how all
Speaker 1: these different things are connected. And while I was there,
Speaker 1: I met my future husband, um. But I came back
Speaker 1: to America and I got a job at the New
Speaker 1: York Botanical Garden and I worked there for five years
Speaker 1: as their curator of her basis Plants and outdoor Gardens.
Speaker 1: That was a tremendous learning curve and experience of managing
Speaker 1: plant collections. And also I got an opportunity to go
Speaker 1: on a plant exploration trip, So I got to go
Speaker 1: to the Republic of Georgia. I got to go in
Speaker 1: a seed collecting expedition. I got to learn about creating
Speaker 1: herbarium specimens called vouchers, How you drive them in the
Speaker 1: field and you're carrying them around, and you're meeting the
Speaker 1: local people and they're offering you the food they grow,
Speaker 1: and you're you're starting to appreciate how interconnected all of
Speaker 1: this as people and culture and plants and environment and
Speaker 1: landscape and how all that works together. So actually it
Speaker 1: ended up being tremendous training for this job that I
Speaker 1: have now where our mission and vision is connecting people
Speaker 1: and culture and history. So UM, that's part of our story.
Speaker 1: And then I ended up moving back to England for
Speaker 1: three years and working back in garden design again before
Speaker 1: moving back to Atlanta and UM back to my roots here.
Speaker 1: Nice uh, and we all get to reap the benefits
Speaker 1: of that. UM. When you're setting up a historic garden,
Speaker 1: you have a space and they want you to recreate
Speaker 1: something similar to what it would have looked like during
Speaker 1: a specific time period. How do you even start that?
Speaker 1: It's so interesting. The development of a new garden has
Speaker 1: so many facets you have to work through. So first,
Speaker 1: we live in the city of Atlanta. We're gardening there
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of rules. So there's rules about
Speaker 1: what can you build and what how and if there's
Speaker 1: a tree right there, So we work within. We all
Speaker 1: we are about preserving collections and trees, so we are
Speaker 1: always trying to save them. So any project we go
Speaker 1: in with preventative measures, how can we save our trees?
Speaker 1: Then we're looking at drainage and irrigation and other functional
Speaker 1: and engineering components of whatever we're trying to do with
Speaker 1: this landscape. UM. Then we're looking at what are well,
Speaker 1: I guess we would really begin with what is our
Speaker 1: whole scope and vision? What are we trying to achieve here?
Speaker 1: So with a new garden, it might be that um
Speaker 1: for example, our new entrance gardens that we're working on
Speaker 1: right now. What I want to do is set the
Speaker 1: stage for when people first drive in to the front
Speaker 1: door at the History Center, they see that we are
Speaker 1: a public garden. It is not solely a museum, which
Speaker 1: is I think what most people's understanding is of the
Speaker 1: History Center. So when you first drive in, you will
Speaker 1: arrive and be surrounded by a cultivated, curated landscape that
Speaker 1: draws you in. And so I have to think through
Speaker 1: how do I draw people in? For most people that's
Speaker 1: with flowers. They want to see something beautiful. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna have some flowers and draw people in that way,
Speaker 1: But how do I make it go beyond the decorative
Speaker 1: and the ornamental. So I want them to park and
Speaker 1: they come up. Maybe they'll go to Super Geni or
Speaker 1: we'll get to Brass which are right in our front entrance,
Speaker 1: and then head out into the gardens in the front
Speaker 1: and this new landscape we're working on and sit down
Speaker 1: at one of our tables, or walk through the landscape
Speaker 1: and really be immersed in it, because what I want
Speaker 1: to do there is echo the modern and progressive um
Speaker 1: take that the History Center has with our new architecture
Speaker 1: as well in the Cyclorama building, and everything looks beautiful
Speaker 1: and modern. I want the landscape to look beautiful and
Speaker 1: modern too. So one of the things that we're gonna
Speaker 1: do is utilize that acreage to reflect the style called
Speaker 1: the New Perennial movement or the Dutch Way. It goes
Speaker 1: by a lot of different names, and this is a
Speaker 1: forward thinking, more sustainable way of creating a new garden.
Speaker 1: So what we're gonna do is put in plants that
Speaker 1: are suited to that site, not trying to force a
Speaker 1: plant that needs a lot of water in a space
Speaker 1: that doesn't have much for example, but also create an
Speaker 1: environment where people want to ask some questions, why did
Speaker 1: they plant this like this? Why are there so many
Speaker 1: grasses up here? Why don't they mow this down? This
Speaker 1: is wild looking um because people's idea, especially in our neighborhood,
Speaker 1: is very cultivated and clipped, and there's boxwoods, and there's
Speaker 1: pansies and tulips and that's what a garden is. And
Speaker 1: I want to push that envelope. I want people to
Speaker 1: come out here and say, what is going on at
Speaker 1: the History Center? What are they doing up here? And
Speaker 1: then walk in there and learn how to appreciate plants
Speaker 1: for different reasons, like creating a relaxing and be beautiful
Speaker 1: and soothing atmosphere that you can walk through. And then
Speaker 1: when you slow down to look at it, you'll see
Speaker 1: it buzzing with pollinators. And you will see every time
Speaker 1: that you come past that garden, instead of being a
Speaker 1: static landscape, it'll be changing throughout the seasons. And part
Speaker 1: of this is teaching people to appreciate the seasonality of plants.
Speaker 1: The early spring to late spring to summer. The blooms
Speaker 1: are going to cycle in and out. Plants are going
Speaker 1: to get bigger in the summertime, and then they're going
Speaker 1: to fade into fall color. And then we're gonna leave
Speaker 1: those seed heads on so that birds will come out.
Speaker 1: We'll have goldfinches on our cone flowers, all that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Um you'll see the crysalists, you'll have from
Speaker 1: the butterflies that have visited. You'll see and appreciate all
Speaker 1: these smaller things when you walk through an environment and
Speaker 1: you're immersed in that landscape of a more ecological planting
Speaker 1: and more sustainable planting, and hopefully teach people that it's
Speaker 1: okay to have grasses that turn beige and the fall.
Speaker 1: You don't have to cut them to the ground, leave
Speaker 1: them up because that all so holds that soil in place,
Speaker 1: and that keeps that soil from a roading away. So
Speaker 1: there's there's all these reasons that we build landscapes way
Speaker 1: they do, how they look, how they make people feel
Speaker 1: when they're in that environment. To protect the soil health,
Speaker 1: which is how any garden survives and thrives is with
Speaker 1: its healthy soil. And then how that plants or that
Speaker 1: garden sinasas and to fall in winter, and that kind
Speaker 1: of landscape is also beautiful, and to teach people that
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be clipped and green and flower.
Speaker 1: It can also have a natural beauty to it and
Speaker 1: to learn to appreciate that. I like that because you're
Speaker 1: kind of teaching people like natural history along the way,
Speaker 1: and it's not all about the manicuring that we do,
Speaker 1: but letting plants be the same thing they have always
Speaker 1: been and appreciating them for that. I love that. UM.
Speaker 1: So in an instance where maybe instead of having to
Speaker 1: create something that is um a little more modern, when
Speaker 1: you're asked with creating or recreating a historical garden, UM,
Speaker 1: how do you figure out what plants are going to
Speaker 1: be appropriate for that space? Because often they have been
Speaker 1: decimated and are no longer part of the area. How
Speaker 1: does that even begin? We have to go back to
Speaker 1: our records. The wonderful thing about working at a history centers,
Speaker 1: I don't have to go very far. I have to
Speaker 1: walk a hundred yards to get to the Keenan Research
Speaker 1: Center or to get to the Cherokee Garden Library and
Speaker 1: look up everything I can find about what would life
Speaker 1: have been like in this particular era. So let's use
Speaker 1: this Smith farm for example. We want it to be
Speaker 1: accurate to the eighteen sixties. Well, how do I find
Speaker 1: out what farmers were doing in the eighteen sixties. I
Speaker 1: need to read what they were reading. So I can
Speaker 1: go there to the library and work with Stacy Catcher
Speaker 1: and the director there, and not only pick her enormous
Speaker 1: brain for ideas and resources, she will pull out all
Speaker 1: the literature that they would have read. We have those
Speaker 1: original source documents, and it's one of them was the
Speaker 1: Southern Cultivator, And I could read through those and read
Speaker 1: the same thing that Robert Hiram Smith would have read
Speaker 1: and decide, all right, well, this is how they were
Speaker 1: growing this plant, not only which plants, but how they
Speaker 1: grew it. So it's not just okay, they grew tomatoes.
Speaker 1: Let's throw some tomatoes in the ground and grow them
Speaker 1: the way that we grow them today. We have to think, well,
Speaker 1: how did they grow tomatoes? And in fact, they had
Speaker 1: only one or two tomato varieties that they would have
Speaker 1: grown look at what we have today. So first it
Speaker 1: was looking at the plants and trying to decide, all right, well,
Speaker 1: if this is what they're listening, they go by this
Speaker 1: name in this catalog, but what are they called today?
Speaker 1: They might have a different name today. So we look
Speaker 1: up those, we look up seed catalogs, we look up
Speaker 1: resources from newspapers, like, we don't want to just grow
Speaker 1: it because it was available in eighteen sixty. We want
Speaker 1: to grow it is available in eighteen sixty in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: so it's authentic to this local area. So we then
Speaker 1: have to figure out how would they have grown these
Speaker 1: and steaked them, and we learned some methods about using
Speaker 1: natural branch material and weaving it together to create a
Speaker 1: tomato table, which is something we've never done before, or
Speaker 1: to grow them as a cordon to These are methods,
Speaker 1: the sort of methods of growing plants that you don't
Speaker 1: see today, and we want to keep that tradition alive
Speaker 1: and show people what used to be done. So you
Speaker 1: can see that if you go to the Smith Farm today,
Speaker 1: how we're growing them in the way that they would
Speaker 1: have been done in eighteen sixties. How they we don't
Speaker 1: we now. We in Atlanta, we have tough soil conditions,
Speaker 1: so we grow everything and raised beds. But if you
Speaker 1: go to the Smith Farm, you can see that precursor
Speaker 1: where you raise up the bed to get better drainage.
Speaker 1: But you can also do that so that the soil
Speaker 1: can warm up earlier in the season and you can
Speaker 1: start your crop faster. So in the Smith Farm you'll
Speaker 1: see that the the rows are held up or created
Speaker 1: like little small plateaus. That's the precursor to the is
Speaker 1: bad that you see today. That's the origins. You can
Speaker 1: go back and see them. I think it's interesting to
Speaker 1: trace that history. Um So yes, going back to the library,
Speaker 1: researching those materials there and then also talking to other
Speaker 1: gardeners and people that have Farmers aren't always, you know,
Speaker 1: the first to move on to the new technique in
Speaker 1: the new method and they'll remember. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of oral history that you can do as well and
Speaker 1: find out who else remembers growing these with their grandparents,
Speaker 1: and how did they grow them, and what did they
Speaker 1: grow and did they pass that seed along to anybody,
Speaker 1: did somebody save it? And can we get hold of
Speaker 1: some of that seed. So there's a there's a great
Speaker 1: process there that we love and then that way you
Speaker 1: end up adding to the collection. I would imagine this salutely.
Speaker 1: So we have an amazing urban agriculturists Emily Roberts, who
Speaker 1: does the Smith Farm now and she is very well
Speaker 1: connected with our network of local farmers, organic farmers, historic
Speaker 1: researchers of crops, and as they've been able to bring
Speaker 1: back crops that would have been grown here that have
Speaker 1: been loss that researchers at universities have been able to relocate,
Speaker 1: we discover grow on and then disseminate that seed to
Speaker 1: places like us to show them to the public now
Speaker 1: and the Smith Farm, uh is a pretty successful garden. Yes,
Speaker 1: what do you do with all that food? Isn't that
Speaker 1: a great question? We have cooking demonstrations, so we have
Speaker 1: an outstanding group of interpreters that come out there even
Speaker 1: if it's incredibly hot, and they will be doing open
Speaker 1: hearth cooking. I've had pancakes man on a grittel. We
Speaker 1: try to use crops from our farm and all of
Speaker 1: those demonstrations and they're using their research to historical receipts
Speaker 1: or recipes and looking for those ingredients. So we will
Speaker 1: work with them to say what do you need to
Speaker 1: create the food you want to create, and we'll grow
Speaker 1: those crops for you. So we have to do that
Speaker 1: way in advance in order to have those things ready
Speaker 1: at those times, and we've had some a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of public programs too, when we've
Speaker 1: had people like Michael Twitter come out and then he'll
Speaker 1: go out in the gardens and harvest what he wants
Speaker 1: to grow, our harvest what he wants to cook with
Speaker 1: and do those demonstrations as well. So we have public
Speaker 1: programs where we do a lot of the cooking demos
Speaker 1: and then we have school group tours with hundreds of
Speaker 1: kids on a daily basis. That gets to witness us
Speaker 1: harvesting and then preparing the food that we've grown there.
Speaker 1: And we also have given a lot of food to
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Food Bank when we have too many or
Speaker 1: sometimes we have a whole field full of cabbages coming
Speaker 1: at the same time, so we can donate some to them,
Speaker 1: or we can ask super Jenny at our location if
Speaker 1: they need anything, and so we can give them our
Speaker 1: herbs or any bonus crops that we have so none
Speaker 1: of it gets wasted and if there's anything left to
Speaker 1: goes home with the staff. We have loads more from
Speaker 1: Sarah coming up in just a moment, but first we're
Speaker 1: going to pause for just a little sponsor break, all right.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, Sarah and I talked about one of
Speaker 1: the Atlanta History Centers very important recreation gardens. You also
Speaker 1: have a really really very cool enslaved People's garden there, Um,
Speaker 1: Will you tell us about that and how it differs
Speaker 1: from some of the other recreation gardens that you have
Speaker 1: on site. Sure? So, yes, that is a very important garden,
Speaker 1: and we worked on restoring that about maybe seven or
Speaker 1: six years ago. Where what we want to do is
Speaker 1: demonstrate that these people that were brought here in bondage
Speaker 1: and enslaved on these farms um they occasionally by some
Speaker 1: of their owners, were given a plot of land and
Speaker 1: either they as a group of people at the farm
Speaker 1: would have their own spot, or they would work with
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other peoples in a larger group.
Speaker 1: And what we're interpreting at the Smith farm is that
Speaker 1: the people that perhaps lived in this one cabin here,
Speaker 1: we're given this small plot of land and we want
Speaker 1: we want to make sure that people understand is this
Speaker 1: was not an act of generosity by their owners of
Speaker 1: oh you could have your own plot of land and
Speaker 1: aren't I nice? It was very uh sly. It was
Speaker 1: a way of saying, here's your plot of land, and
Speaker 1: you can you can grow your crops on your own
Speaker 1: time when I don't need it, which meant at night
Speaker 1: or you know, a few minutes here and there. And
Speaker 1: the crops that they would grow, they understood that if
Speaker 1: you have a harvest about to come in, you are
Speaker 1: less likely to leave because that has value. And that
Speaker 1: was their place where they might be able to grow
Speaker 1: a few plants for medicine because they didn't have access
Speaker 1: to western medicine um, and nobody was going to spend
Speaker 1: their money on that, and so they would have to
Speaker 1: grow their own and figure out what what can I use,
Speaker 1: what can I grow here? Learned from other people in
Speaker 1: exchange seeds and grow those in our own small plots
Speaker 1: and apply that to themselves. We also have we've done
Speaker 1: some oral history research on these things and have knowledge
Speaker 1: of some seeds that were tucked into folds of clothes
Speaker 1: and that's how those seeds made it over to the
Speaker 1: United States. Plants like eggplant are from Africa, so the
Speaker 1: other people don't think about So we like to tell
Speaker 1: those stories um by also immersing you in that landscape
Speaker 1: and showing you not only that there is a difference
Speaker 1: in the plant material that may have been grown, but
Speaker 1: also in how it was grown. So instead of having
Speaker 1: neat and tidy, orderly rows of crops like the kitchen
Speaker 1: garden that the Smith family had, it is a jumble
Speaker 1: of all different plants mixed together and fit into sort
Speaker 1: of a curved shape of a garden with slightly raised beds.
Speaker 1: And what it is is if they had an opportunity
Speaker 1: to utilize that plant, they'd harvest that one and plant
Speaker 1: something else in that spot, and so everything grew together
Speaker 1: in um like a luxuriant chaos in that garden. But actually,
Speaker 1: what we have found and learned from our history of
Speaker 1: our time is that is a healthier way to grow crops,
Speaker 1: the orderly rows of crops. If you get one pest,
Speaker 1: they just move on through that whole crop. But if
Speaker 1: you have it mixed and scattered throughout your garden, they
Speaker 1: might only get that one plant. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: to learn. It's a nuanced and deep and complex story,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that that is something that we talk
Speaker 1: about there. One thing that that we've talked about in
Speaker 1: all of this is that these are public gardens, and
Speaker 1: that you are. Of course, we're working in the modern
Speaker 1: era when soil has changed and climate has changed a
Speaker 1: little bit, and I'm wondering how you strike that balance
Speaker 1: between historical accuracy and also maintaining a functioning public garden
Speaker 1: that needs to thrive on its own with what we
Speaker 1: have today. Such a great question, and it's something that
Speaker 1: applies to so many public gardens there. That's a dance
Speaker 1: that we do every day. So when you have modern
Speaker 1: day pressures, let's say pests, for example, or disease on
Speaker 1: historic crops that never faced that pressure before. You do
Speaker 1: have to make it decision. Do we throw every effort
Speaker 1: and resource into preserving this historic plant or do we
Speaker 1: replace it with something that is more sustainable. That's a
Speaker 1: question that every single situation requires its own team to
Speaker 1: research and decide on. One example for us is the
Speaker 1: boxwood in front of the Swan House iconic boxwood. We
Speaker 1: have the historic ones that are that are still there
Speaker 1: right at the base of the house, and then opposite
Speaker 1: those closer to a big cascade fountain. War a box
Speaker 1: would that got box would blight and so that had
Speaker 1: to be treated rapidly and they had to be removed.
Speaker 1: That is the only thing to do when you have
Speaker 1: an infestation that was as bad as the one that
Speaker 1: we had. So they're gone and we had to think,
Speaker 1: do we want to replace it at some point, knowing
Speaker 1: that those tiny little spore are going to still be
Speaker 1: in that someone They're still going to infect the next plant,
Speaker 1: or do we put on something else? And so we
Speaker 1: decided there's a team of us that worked on this,
Speaker 1: so we decided to replace it with a little leaf
Speaker 1: holly that will provid I had the same impact that
Speaker 1: the boxwood dead, the same design intent from Philip trammel
Speaker 1: Shut see the architects and landscape architect of the Swan
Speaker 1: House and Gardens. So we did that. We bought them
Speaker 1: at a big size, We've pruned them, we've watered them
Speaker 1: by hand for years. They're thriving, and they cannot be
Speaker 1: affected by box would blight, so we know that long
Speaker 1: term those are there, they don't require a constant and
Speaker 1: heavy investment of fungicides or special treatment to that felt
Speaker 1: like a smart choice for that situation. But where we
Speaker 1: have hundred year old boxwood in front of this one
Speaker 1: else that are not infected or might have a tiny bit,
Speaker 1: we will. We want to preserve those and preserve that
Speaker 1: iconic look. So those do get more care and more treatment,
Speaker 1: but on a much smaller scale that's more affordable and sustainable.
Speaker 1: UM I want to shift gears a little bit to
Speaker 1: talk about something that people might not think of as
Speaker 1: part of your job. Animals. The History Center has an
Speaker 1: animal collection, is not insignificant inside it's so true, Well
Speaker 1: you talk about some of your heritage breeds and also
Speaker 1: just how you work that into your probably not ever
Speaker 1: a thing you thought when you were getting your horticulture degree.
Speaker 1: That's so true that there was a big learning curve there. Um. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: when I was at Barry College, the horticulture program was
Speaker 1: housed in the same building as animal Sciences, so I
Speaker 1: do have the smallest amount of training, and I didn't
Speaker 1: ever think I would use it though. But yes, we
Speaker 1: do have heritage breed animals at the Smith Farm, and
Speaker 1: it is also something people are so surprised to find
Speaker 1: when they think they're coming to a history museum and
Speaker 1: they step out the door and they find this gigantic
Speaker 1: garden and a farm with animals. So are animals that
Speaker 1: we have were just brought in when we were able
Speaker 1: to hire someone to do their day to day care.
Speaker 1: So we didn't have animals for a while, and then
Speaker 1: we hired our manager of Animal Collections, Prop Banner, and
Speaker 1: he does all of our daily work, and then we
Speaker 1: have other people filling in went on his off days.
Speaker 1: But we have golf coast sheep, which our heritage breed
Speaker 1: that can survive our heat and humidity. And we have
Speaker 1: Angora goats which also thrive here in Atlanta. They're not
Speaker 1: as commonly seen. They weren't as common as sheep. And
Speaker 1: then we have several different breeds of poultry, so we
Speaker 1: have Rhode Island red chickens and Plymouth rocks, and a
Speaker 1: couple of turkeys that are called standard bronze, which is
Speaker 1: like one step beyond a wild turkey. So all of those.
Speaker 1: We have a historic chicken coop that we research nineteenth
Speaker 1: century poultry architecture. That was really something I didn't think
Speaker 1: i'd ever study. Um once I designed a coop, figure
Speaker 1: out what materials would be appropriate, square cut nails, dimensional
Speaker 1: lumber two inch by four inch, not today's two by
Speaker 1: four So all those little bitty details go into all
Speaker 1: the work that we do. Uh So, yes, all of
Speaker 1: those breeds are there. And it is not a petting zoo,
Speaker 1: make that real clear. It is a place where we
Speaker 1: preserve the a sort breeds and can educate the public
Speaker 1: about them. And I'm excited to say that we are
Speaker 1: going to attempt to carry on that heritage breed by
Speaker 1: bringing one of our sheep to another farm and see
Speaker 1: if she can get impregnated, and then we'll bring her
Speaker 1: back and if we're lucky, she will be pregnant to
Speaker 1: have a lamb for us in the spring. Or too,
Speaker 1: that'll be exciting, very exciting. So fingers crossed. It is
Speaker 1: really hard to not want to go in and put
Speaker 1: all the it's so hard. Most important, you can probably
Speaker 1: put them. The busters very friendly and if you just
Speaker 1: call him but sir, he'll probably walk up to you
Speaker 1: like scratching between the years. But most importantly, don't feed them.
Speaker 1: Please don't feed them. They're on a healthy diet already
Speaker 1: and they don't want any people food. That's one of
Speaker 1: my personal crusades is to always tell my friends not
Speaker 1: to be giving particularly birds that they see in places.
Speaker 1: Please stop giving them bread. Right, it's not good for
Speaker 1: It's not good for them. It means well, but don't
Speaker 1: do it. It makes them very sack. Um. You mentioned
Speaker 1: building this unique um chicken coop that is historically accurate.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I have heard you mentioned
Speaker 1: before is that you guys also mill your own lumber there,
Speaker 1: which may or may not have been involved in the coop,
Speaker 1: but I know in the fences it shows up. Will
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that. We actually we
Speaker 1: use um a contractor to do it, but we save
Speaker 1: our trees whenever we can, so if there is a
Speaker 1: tree that needs to come down because it's structurally hazard us.
Speaker 1: We will look at that and decide is there a
Speaker 1: way that we could use this lumber on site? UM, so, well,
Speaker 1: how we can have it milled locally and brought back
Speaker 1: here and we will store it and are we stored
Speaker 1: our last um a lot of wood. It took about
Speaker 1: eighteen months for it to dry, and once it got
Speaker 1: to that critical moisture point, we decided what we're gonna
Speaker 1: do with that. And I had eyebawled one tree in
Speaker 1: particular and thought it was a white oak and had
Speaker 1: lots of good lumber and it had to come down anyway.
Speaker 1: So I thought, well, let's see what we can do.
Speaker 1: And we are in the process now of creating an
Speaker 1: absolutely enormous table I call it the Tree Table, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna go up in this new landscape the entrance gardens,
Speaker 1: under some towering pines and oaks, and it's about it's
Speaker 1: gonna be about sixty ft long, be huge, and it's
Speaker 1: all made from this tree just on our property. All
Speaker 1: of it is going to be utilized for us for
Speaker 1: the and the tabletop is more than halfway through, so
Speaker 1: we're still working out all of its final um structural
Speaker 1: components and exactly how it's going to sit in the landscape.
Speaker 1: But it will be very cool, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: really represent bringing the community together in Atlanta. This is
Speaker 1: You're welcome to come here and eat your launch and
Speaker 1: enjoy these gardens and sit in the shade of this
Speaker 1: little remnant of forest and buckhead and join us and
Speaker 1: have conversations and talk to your neighbor and have a
Speaker 1: coffee and sit in this landscape and think about all
Speaker 1: these differ front things that we've brought up today, or um,
Speaker 1: you know, just enjoy being outside and appreciating that we
Speaker 1: have that opportunity. That's so cool. Oh, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see it. It's gonna be really cool. Um. Will
Speaker 1: you also talk a little bit about all of your
Speaker 1: building collection. Oh, there's so many buildings. So you mean
Speaker 1: the historic homes, Yes, we had so the smith form
Speaker 1: we've talked about, and there's a number of buildings there
Speaker 1: between our old barn, the blacksmith shop, a corn crib,
Speaker 1: dairy which is a small room, a kitchen, smokehouse, the coope,
Speaker 1: and the enslaved people's cabin, and then we have the
Speaker 1: Swan house from Philip Trimmell shut seas classical masterpiece. Then
Speaker 1: there's also a cabin out in swan Woods. Swan Woods
Speaker 1: is about a tent achere section of our property that
Speaker 1: is Piedmont Forest, and we have this very cool cabin
Speaker 1: that's out there and it's actually being utilized in a
Speaker 1: new school group tour that we're putting on where because
Speaker 1: this cabin has logs from multiple different eras it's been
Speaker 1: put together, has its own unique in long history. But
Speaker 1: there's no one date that we can put on that cabin,
Speaker 1: so we can use it to interpret different periods. And
Speaker 1: right now we're looking at what happened when the Creek
Speaker 1: Indians were pushed out on the Trail of Tears, and
Speaker 1: then who would have moved in? So this could have
Speaker 1: been their home and then they would have been pushed
Speaker 1: out and a settler during the land lottery could have
Speaker 1: moved in and acquired that home. So we were able
Speaker 1: to tell those stories with these historic homes and many
Speaker 1: many more stories. And I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that History Center is so good at, is telling
Speaker 1: stories that aren't often told. And I think that we
Speaker 1: can do that both within the museum, within our historic
Speaker 1: houses and in our gardens. Uh, there was one thing
Speaker 1: when I saw you speak before, you mentioned something that
Speaker 1: just struck my fancy, which is another call back to
Speaker 1: how you can't always recreate a garden the way it
Speaker 1: was holyander. Yeah, story, Yes, so that's a great point.
Speaker 1: It's just one of many little things that that we've
Speaker 1: worked out over the years. The Swan House is beautiful
Speaker 1: cascade fountain in the front. Mrs n Men used to
Speaker 1: put terra cotta pots on each of the little pedestals
Speaker 1: alongside that fountain, and we recreated that with terracotta pots,
Speaker 1: and what she had in it that we know from
Speaker 1: photographs and scrutinizing old photos was oleander, pink, oleander, pink
Speaker 1: and white were her favorite colors. So we eventually recreated that,
Speaker 1: and we found out, uh, that wasn't exactly what brides
Speaker 1: always want to have in their weddings. And we used
Speaker 1: that space in front of the cascade found as a
Speaker 1: as a rental space where we have lots of weddings
Speaker 1: every year. So it meant our staff would have to
Speaker 1: pull all those pots down every time they wanted to
Speaker 1: do their own arrangements of flowers there. So yes, well,
Speaker 1: well to be strictly true to historic accuracy, those pots
Speaker 1: with those oleanders would be there. But on the downside,
Speaker 1: oleander is toxic feet and so we don't want anyone
Speaker 1: to pick at an eat it. So I thought, maybe
Speaker 1: that's not the best thing to have out there. But
Speaker 1: also the idea of having to move those plants all
Speaker 1: the time in order to accommodate the weddings. So another
Speaker 1: example is we have a big gravel path very carefully
Speaker 1: designed in front of this one house that's not original.
Speaker 1: That was me. Sorry, But in order to accommodate opening
Speaker 1: to the public, you have to make some changes. You
Speaker 1: have to make it where people can get in and
Speaker 1: out and not have to walk through what might be
Speaker 1: wet and muddy ground after a heavy rain. So how
Speaker 1: do you do that, Well, you just you look at
Speaker 1: the original design intent, you try to be true to that,
Speaker 1: and you try not to put in something that couldn't
Speaker 1: be removed. So I put in a gravel path. So
Speaker 1: if one day we decided let's go back to strictly
Speaker 1: exactly what it was, that wouldn't be hard to remove.
Speaker 1: If we put in a solid concrete or stone path,
Speaker 1: that would be a lot more work and a lot
Speaker 1: more expense. So this way we've put in a way
Speaker 1: where we can have wonderful rentals and weddings and people
Speaker 1: can walk on it and utilize the space, and everyday
Speaker 1: visitors come in and out without causing damaged landscape because
Speaker 1: they're on a regular path, whereas before when it was
Speaker 1: just lawn, when you put that much foot traffic on it,
Speaker 1: it's gonna die off. Well, it's the even though you
Speaker 1: apologize for it. It's the difference between keeping a historic
Speaker 1: space usable and something that people can interact with and appreciate,
Speaker 1: versus no, I swear it's beautiful inside, you may not
Speaker 1: be able to get there exactly. We want people to
Speaker 1: come and enjoy these beautiful historic homes. Who want everybody
Speaker 1: to be able to get there and walk around and
Speaker 1: take pictures and enjoy it and not put it behind
Speaker 1: a rope. I could let you walk through. And in
Speaker 1: many cases we have the opportunity to play hands on.
Speaker 1: So if you go to the little children's room, uh
Speaker 1: Sam and Mimi's playroom, then then children you can go
Speaker 1: play and so in the rocking horse and some in
Speaker 1: their beds and play with the toys. And that's just
Speaker 1: something you don't get to do it a lot of museum,
Speaker 1: and we're working on a new children's trail in the
Speaker 1: gardens as well, where any spot that you go to
Speaker 1: you'll see that there's a very obvious hands on play area.
Speaker 1: So as a caregiver or an adult, you can maybe
Speaker 1: read some of the panels or look around at the
Speaker 1: gardens or that particular location, but your children might be
Speaker 1: playing in the playhouse or uh, you know, investigating some
Speaker 1: little children's feature that we've added to the gardens. There
Speaker 1: is more coming up, including how the Atlanta History Center
Speaker 1: solved a problem of trying to recreate a meadow in
Speaker 1: a space where even weeds would not grow. But first
Speaker 1: we're gonna hear from one of the sponsors that keep
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class going all right, Now,
Speaker 1: we're about to get some great science in this discussion,
Speaker 1: including how the History Center is helping with breeding programs
Speaker 1: for chestnuts. There was another element of the land escape
Speaker 1: there that I love, which is that you have like
Speaker 1: a reclamation meadow going on. Well you talk about that
Speaker 1: a little bit. I love that you remember all these stories. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was taking note. We have several reclamation meadows so
Speaker 1: at the end of every construction project, we have to
Speaker 1: take what is left and figure out the mechanics of
Speaker 1: how to make that soil healthy again um as well
Speaker 1: as breathe life back into it. When you drive heavy
Speaker 1: machinery over soil, it is inevitable that it becomes compacted.
Speaker 1: So we always do preventative strategies first. And then there's
Speaker 1: the area where they have to drive the vehicles and
Speaker 1: so we have to come in and fix it. Well,
Speaker 1: when we built the wood cabin out and out in
Speaker 1: Swan Woods, there was quite a bit of compacted soil
Speaker 1: and I thought, what am I going to do here?
Speaker 1: But it was the first time also that I had
Speaker 1: any full sun out in that woodland. And the missing
Speaker 1: component to that woodland was a wild flower meadow. When
Speaker 1: in any forest, and in that that forest is a
Speaker 1: secondary succession forest, meaning it's been cut once and it's regrown.
Speaker 1: Uh So everybody left to go fight in the Civil War,
Speaker 1: the cotton fields were abandoned and upspring these woods and
Speaker 1: they have since been preserved since that time. So now
Speaker 1: I have this one opening where we build the cabin,
Speaker 1: and there was some sun in that spot, and I thought,
Speaker 1: now I can finally create the understory the perennial meadow
Speaker 1: that would have lived here. So just like if you
Speaker 1: had a natural disaster, if you had a tornado ripped through,
Speaker 1: it would clear out an opening. We're trying to recreate
Speaker 1: an authentic regrowth. What would that look like. So we
Speaker 1: use strictly Piedmont native plants and swan woods, which is
Speaker 1: this band across where Atlanta sits across Georgia between mountains
Speaker 1: and coastal plain. So we're only using those species. We
Speaker 1: use a flora. We use Alan Weekly's Flora of the
Speaker 1: Southeastern Region to identify which plants are really native here,
Speaker 1: so checking all of our accuracy, and then what kind
Speaker 1: of conditions do they want to grow? And these are
Speaker 1: not plants that you can just go to the store
Speaker 1: and buy and a one gallon pot. You have to
Speaker 1: grow these plants from seed, so then we have to
Speaker 1: source that. Well, you can't just throw seed on a
Speaker 1: compacted clay piece of earth, nothing will grow there. We
Speaker 1: knew when we didn't even have weeds in that spot
Speaker 1: that we had some serious soil issues. So the first
Speaker 1: step was trying to rent a tiller. It has very
Speaker 1: small acts as you can't get a tractor out there
Speaker 1: or anything. So he rented a tiller and it just
Speaker 1: went tingting ting tingtinging across the ground because it was
Speaker 1: so hard. So we tried another larger tiller and we
Speaker 1: worked in one inch of composts. We didn't want to
Speaker 1: make rich garden soil. I wanted to recreate a natural process,
Speaker 1: so basically speeding up a couple of thousand years of
Speaker 1: evolution within a couple of years. So we did that.
Speaker 1: They're um worked in a little bit of soil and
Speaker 1: in order to it's put our first round of seeds
Speaker 1: out and we use seeds like partridge p which is
Speaker 1: a legume, and it creates its own nitrogen, so we
Speaker 1: can feed itself. And then when you um let that
Speaker 1: crop die down and you see something else. It adds
Speaker 1: that little bit of layer of organic matter to the
Speaker 1: soil and it's a little bit richer and a little
Speaker 1: bit nicer soil, so then a higher species can be grown.
Speaker 1: And you keep doing this for a couple of passes,
Speaker 1: three or four passes in with our seed mixes, we
Speaker 1: started to see real vitality and that something was working.
Speaker 1: We also wanted to take the opportunity to grow another
Speaker 1: species in our living collections that we had not been
Speaker 1: able to do much, which was was American chestnuts. We
Speaker 1: know that the American chestnut was here. You can see
Speaker 1: them on platts. They were often used as the corner
Speaker 1: post of a property line because they were big. And
Speaker 1: when the chestnut pipe blew through and killed awful lot
Speaker 1: of the chestnuts, they would spring up from root suckers,
Speaker 1: but they were pretty much as a functioning species wiped out.
Speaker 1: So what we want to do is also tell that
Speaker 1: story of species that were once here that we no
Speaker 1: longer see today. So on the lower half of that meadow,
Speaker 1: we wanted to plant American chestnuts, but not just any chestnut.
Speaker 1: We wanted the ones that have The American Chestnut Foundation
Speaker 1: has been breeding for caids. So I worked with Dr
Speaker 1: Martin Sippollini at Barry College, who was my old bomby professor,
Speaker 1: to say, I know you're studying these. I remember researching
Speaker 1: them at school. Can't we grows some of your hybrids?
Speaker 1: And so that worked out to a great partnership with them,
Speaker 1: and we have forty American chestnuts and are orchard now.
Speaker 1: But in order to plant those, we had to use
Speaker 1: a big gas powered auger to break through that ground
Speaker 1: because it was hard, so that requires drilling through and
Speaker 1: we finally found tops well about twenty eight inches down
Speaker 1: through that clay hard pam. So we broke it up
Speaker 1: with an augur because that was the only way to that.
Speaker 1: You couldn't get a shovel in. Broke that all up
Speaker 1: in a big area, amented a little bit and planted
Speaker 1: our new hybrid chestnuts, which are fifteen sixteenth American chestnut
Speaker 1: and one sixteenth Chinese chestnut, and that gives them that
Speaker 1: little bit of light resistance that and then allows you
Speaker 1: to still have what looks like an American chestnuts tall,
Speaker 1: tall and straight and grows the kind of chestnuts that
Speaker 1: you want to roast with just a little bit of
Speaker 1: that disease resistance. So we have the lower meadow that's
Speaker 1: the chestnut orchard and also surrounded by wildflowers. It's also
Speaker 1: where we started our apiary, and so we have our
Speaker 1: own honey bees down there. And then on the upper
Speaker 1: meadow um that's just purely grasses and wildflowers. So that
Speaker 1: we can show people what would have regenerated and a
Speaker 1: Piedmont forest had there been a force clearing um and
Speaker 1: that those hybrid chestnuts. Is there like reciprocal benefit. Does
Speaker 1: your former professor come and get to look at them
Speaker 1: and see how they're doing and examine what's going on
Speaker 1: when they have kind of all of the benefits of
Speaker 1: ideal growth. Yes, so what we will do, Yes, so
Speaker 1: he's been back here again, and we can send an
Speaker 1: annual report to say what's happening, what's doing well? Um.
Speaker 1: But also ideally this is an educational orchard. This is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to show people we have a few purely American,
Speaker 1: a few purely Chinese, and then here's what the hybrids
Speaker 1: look like. So we have it as an educational orchard,
Speaker 1: but also to contribute towards this science that we will
Speaker 1: grow these trees on. We will let them become teenagers
Speaker 1: or so when they're about twenty feet tall, that's when
Speaker 1: you would come through and inoculate the chestnuts and you
Speaker 1: would put cry an extray a parasiteica straight into the
Speaker 1: trunk of that tree and jacks it like a shot
Speaker 1: and see if it heals. So that is the chestnut blight.
Speaker 1: It's either going to grow a big, horrible weeping wound,
Speaker 1: and you'll know this tree has no disease resistance. Just
Speaker 1: cut it down or it's going to heal over and
Speaker 1: it'll be one of those that you think, this is
Speaker 1: one that we need to breed from to carry on
Speaker 1: this research for the next generation. So ideally that's what
Speaker 1: would happen. Will grow these trees on for another decade
Speaker 1: and then do the injections, and then call all the
Speaker 1: trees that aren't any good, and then utilize this last
Speaker 1: couple towards the breeding program and plant the next generation
Speaker 1: of chestnuts. I love it. Um you're kind of keeping
Speaker 1: the history of that plant alive. Is the modern era
Speaker 1: in like the most fabulous ways. So if somebody at
Speaker 1: home wants to add a little bit of history to
Speaker 1: their own garden, where do you recommend these start interesting? Well,
Speaker 1: all his story goes back to agricultural history, so I
Speaker 1: think if you want to be a part of this
Speaker 1: larger story, you should grow something that you're going to eat.
Speaker 1: Everything that we do in this world requires plants at
Speaker 1: the very root of it. We need oxygen to breathe,
Speaker 1: so we need plants to produce that oxygen. We need
Speaker 1: food to eat, so we have to grow it. So
Speaker 1: it all comes back to that very basic necessity. Um,
Speaker 1: so growing something, and I would say teaching a child
Speaker 1: or someone who is real, Um, you know, city dweller
Speaker 1: that has never spent much time in nature, has never
Speaker 1: grown anything on their own, sharing that story or that
Speaker 1: amazing sense of pride of having grown something from seed
Speaker 1: that actually grew and became like a little tree seedling,
Speaker 1: and then go plant it somewhere and water it in
Speaker 1: and keep it on it and watch it grow. Because
Speaker 1: there's really it's hard to even explain how much that
Speaker 1: gives back to you. And it's like I have two
Speaker 1: children that we collect seas and will plant them around
Speaker 1: and watch them grow, and they're astonished that it worked.
Speaker 1: It does work. Um, So I love that. And then
Speaker 1: I think, also there's a lot of plants with an
Speaker 1: interesting ornamental history to like. Um. Lilium regale is this
Speaker 1: beautiful trumpet lily, fragrant white, blooms in the summer when
Speaker 1: things are maybe a little bit flatter in your garden.
Speaker 1: But know that that lily came from a plant explorer
Speaker 1: that went all the way over to Asia and was
Speaker 1: looking and found a valley full of these lilies growing,
Speaker 1: and an avalanche hit him and crushed his leg and
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. Ernest Henry Wilson or
Speaker 1: Chinese Wilson walked with what he called his lily limp.
Speaker 1: And I have sixty of these bulbs flowering in Olgita's garden,
Speaker 1: which is the new garden that we belt last year
Speaker 1: and opened in the fall in honor of Oke took Osta.
Speaker 1: And there's sixties these Lilium or gali bulbs. And they're
Speaker 1: very fragrant and beautiful, and they're white, so they show
Speaker 1: up really well at night as well. And I think
Speaker 1: of that history instead of just going, oh, here's this
Speaker 1: plant I bought from a bulb company and stuck in
Speaker 1: the ground. I love to know some of that background
Speaker 1: and some of those stories behind the plants and how
Speaker 1: do they end up here. I love it. Even Azalea's
Speaker 1: are most every day hum drum. Everyone's seen azalia They're
Speaker 1: all over Atlanta. But why are they here? They're not
Speaker 1: from here, They're from Asia. Someone decided let's let's try
Speaker 1: these as a florist crop a rhythm and pots, and
Speaker 1: like you know, now we see him at the grocery store.
Speaker 1: But someone decided to plant it outside and someone else
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Frank Smith decided this will do really well here,
Speaker 1: and we should be promoting these and these the nursery
Speaker 1: men and started promoting to all of his customers to
Speaker 1: plant these azaleas and dogwoods. And what do you see
Speaker 1: now all over Atlanta you see that legacy from this
Speaker 1: nursery man who was promoting this plant that these explorers
Speaker 1: brought back. So this is long chain of events to
Speaker 1: make Atlanta have the spring landscape that it does. And
Speaker 1: that's one of our other gardens is the Frankie Smith, right,
Speaker 1: a dentry garden that's fantastic. Didn't Magnolia has also start
Speaker 1: out as coastal plants, and now people think of them
Speaker 1: are so sort of Atlanta classic, but they weren't. Here
Speaker 1: does southern magnolia with the leathery leaves and the huge
Speaker 1: fragrop flowers. Those our coastal plain species. And again this
Speaker 1: is these are the complex stories that we can tell.
Speaker 1: As we get warmer up here, those plants are finding
Speaker 1: their homes moving they can move further north, so now
Speaker 1: they'll recede and regenerate up here in the Piedmont when
Speaker 1: they used to live down by the coast. And that
Speaker 1: is that story of global warming. Climate change, and as
Speaker 1: that climate changes, we're seeing these species move north. And
Speaker 1: so what we consider a native plant is that it shifts.
Speaker 1: Is that at a certain line in the sand, a
Speaker 1: certain era, a certain time or do we have to
Speaker 1: evolve as gardens with the plants as they move themselves
Speaker 1: around the country and around the world. So, yes, our
Speaker 1: southern magnolia is moving its way north and it is
Speaker 1: seating around it everywhere. Will you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about Ogita's garden and perhaps even her Camellia. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: sois Wetta as it was a trustee at the Atlanta
Speaker 1: History Center and an amazing leader and philanthropic person. And
Speaker 1: when she passed away, in her family said we would
Speaker 1: love to honor her legacy with a new garden space
Speaker 1: at the History Center at the gois Wedda Gardens, which
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. And so we learned a
Speaker 1: little bit about what she loved about gardens and that
Speaker 1: she loved English gardens and French gardens and formal gardens
Speaker 1: and that was very exciting. That is something we didn't have.
Speaker 1: We have all these different styles of gardens at the
Speaker 1: History Center, but not in England garden And given my background,
Speaker 1: having lived there for many years, I couldn't wait to
Speaker 1: create an English garden at the History Center. So the
Speaker 1: gardens itself, they also greatly expand our living collections by
Speaker 1: letting us grow all these ornamental perennials and full sun.
Speaker 1: And it's right behind the museum. When you got the
Speaker 1: back doors, you are ensconced within Algitas Garden right left
Speaker 1: and center to the right hand side is the more
Speaker 1: formal side of it, where there is a walled garden
Speaker 1: space with a double border, very English look, and billowing
Speaker 1: perennials coming over a gravel path leading to a focal
Speaker 1: point of a fountain with neil read columns flanking four
Speaker 1: sides of the fountain, and that water feature is full
Speaker 1: of water lilies and papyrus. So this whole space was
Speaker 1: created with the idea of creating a garden that was
Speaker 1: beautiful all year, always had something in bloom, and had
Speaker 1: a special emphasis on fragrance. So we have all kinds
Speaker 1: of plants like the lilies that I mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: are fragrant, or they might be hyacinths or roses or
Speaker 1: other traditional English garden plants that are talked within those
Speaker 1: double borders. Also very special was the History Center's first
Speaker 1: plant introduction. So when we went to plant around that fountain,
Speaker 1: those very tall columns, we needed some really big plants
Speaker 1: to immediately seat that garden in and have it look
Speaker 1: full and lush and form one and to scale. So
Speaker 1: we did a lot of research and we ended up
Speaker 1: going to Alabama, where Bobby Green's nursery is, and we found,
Speaker 1: through a lot of discussion, the largest chameleas for sale
Speaker 1: in the United States, which was a huge find. Our
Speaker 1: director of horticulture, Tiffany Jones, managed that with all of
Speaker 1: her connections in the nursery world, and we went down
Speaker 1: there in November when they were in full bloom and
Speaker 1: just it just blew my mind to walking this field
Speaker 1: where these communities are growing in one hundred gallon pots,
Speaker 1: so I mean, just imagine hugging the biggest tree possible.
Speaker 1: They're about that big around the size of those pots,
Speaker 1: very heavy. But we managed to select a variety of
Speaker 1: his hybrid seedlings, and he was willing to share this
Speaker 1: with us, and so we we purchased those and one
Speaker 1: of them was unlike any chamelia I've ever seen before.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely covered in flowers and they're white, and
Speaker 1: they have streaks of this raspberry pink through the petals
Speaker 1: and a central boss of golden stamens. But just it's
Speaker 1: floriferous in nature, and it's beautiful small leaves, and its
Speaker 1: form was very elegant. So we asked him, would it
Speaker 1: be possible for us to perhaps name this plant and
Speaker 1: honor this family. He's done so much for Atlanta and
Speaker 1: especially as Wetta, and he said he loved that idea.
Speaker 1: He loves that people are making public gardens happen, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to honor that too, So he gave us
Speaker 1: the naming rights and we named it Camelia o Quita
Speaker 1: And that isn't one of a kind camelia. And it
Speaker 1: is growing right alongside the little limestone terrorists of that
Speaker 1: garden where everybody can see it right up close and
Speaker 1: see this gorgeous flowers. That such a beautiful story. Ah, Sarah,
Speaker 1: You're such a delight. Thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me on the show. I can talk about plants all
Speaker 1: the time. I love it. But thank you so much
Speaker 1: for spending so much of your morning with me. I
Speaker 1: feel so lucky and spoiled. It was a pleasure to
Speaker 1: be here. Thank you. For having Where can people find
Speaker 1: you or the History Center on our website Atlanta History
Speaker 1: Center dot com. You'll also find us on our blog,
Speaker 1: and we have Facebook and Twitter, so we're all over
Speaker 1: the place. Perfect. Thank you so much, many many thanks
Speaker 1: to Sarah and to the Atlanta History Center. You can
Speaker 1: check out everything that they've got going on at Atlanta
Speaker 1: History Center dot com. They do a lot of great programs.
Speaker 1: We are in the autumn season and they are doing
Speaker 1: some fun Halloween activities and if you're in Atlanta, highly
Speaker 1: recommend visiting. It is an absolutely beautiful space. You can
Speaker 1: see all of the amazing things that Sarah described, which
Speaker 1: you might have been surprised to learn exist there, so
Speaker 1: I hope you all go and check it out. I
Speaker 1: also have a little bit of listener mail. I'll keep
Speaker 1: it short since this was kind of a longish episode.
Speaker 1: I believe this is from our listener Sharon. It is
Speaker 1: a postcard, and I know I always tell you, but
Speaker 1: it really is true. Things often get a little bit
Speaker 1: blurred or distorted because they put stamps on the postcards
Speaker 1: at the post office. So she writes, Dear Tracy and Holly,
Speaker 1: I love the show. On a recent trip to Tillamook
Speaker 1: and the Oregon Coast. I thought about how there are
Speaker 1: very few lighthouse episodes. Oregon has some great and spooky ones.
Speaker 1: She recommends some specific ones, and she says, just a thought,
Speaker 1: thanks for making my long commute better. I love learning
Speaker 1: from you and sharing with my students. Uh. And she
Speaker 1: just writes, ps, I thought the cow was just cute,
Speaker 1: which is it is on a cow postcard one. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to take this opportunity since she is an educator,
Speaker 1: to thank her for being an educator and all of
Speaker 1: the educators out there who listened to the show. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're doing such important work and we're so grateful that
Speaker 1: you're out there. Uh. And also just to say I
Speaker 1: will always talk about a lighthouse. Those are fun, So
Speaker 1: I'll I'll hunt for some of those stories. I can't
Speaker 1: ever promise we have a long list, and it kind
Speaker 1: of just depends when things shuffle into rotation. But uh no,
Speaker 1: take in. If you would like to write to us,
Speaker 1: you can do so at History Podcast at how stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us everywhere on social
Speaker 1: media as Missed in History and at our website missed
Speaker 1: in History dot com. If you would like to subscribe
Speaker 1: to the podcast and you haven't yet, now it is
Speaker 1: a perfect time and you can do that on the
Speaker 1: I heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts, or wherever it
Speaker 1: is that you listen. Stuff you Missed in History Class
Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.