A public garden in South Bend, Indiana, has no usual “keep off the grass” or “don’t touch” signs. Instead, it is specially planned so that people can touch the flowers. It began in the mind of Mrs. G. W. Zeigler, past president of the South Bend Garden Club.
Many people who delight in the colors of flowers never stop to think of those who can’t see them. Mrs. Zeigler did.
She dreamed of establishing a garden of fragrance for the blind. Mrs. A. R. Bryson, then president, and other club members caught the vision. This would be new, different, and permanent.
So far as they knew, there was no such garden in the United States; they hoped to establish the first one. (They were to learn that Texas had been first, and there are now several others.) Accordingly, they wrote to England for information about such a garden there and began preliminary plans.
Of course, they wanted it to be beautiful, but their first consideration was fragrance. The texture was second, for the sightless to “see” by touch. They planned to have something growing for scent and texture every year.
If they could find fragrance, texture, and beauty combined in one plant, so much better, but nothing would be chosen for beauty alone.
Garden Of Fragrance For Everyone
Many plants with little blooms have enticing odors, and sighted people could enjoy the fragrance, too, couldn’t they?
In the minds of club members were thoughts of people who had once known the beauty of flowers, now shut out by darkness. Scent and texture would bring back the colors and shapes they had once known.
The Garden could teach children who had never had a sight to learn about plants. Interest in gardening is good therapy. Moreover, it is a means of education.
Tell a person who has never known sight, “this flower is red,” and you tell him nothing.
But say to him, “Smell the flower. Bruise a leaf and smell that. Feel the shape and texture. Measure the height of the plant. Feel the earth it grows in.”
You open a door for him. The enthusiasm of the South Bend club proliferated.
A public garden needs space; there was space in South Bend parks if they could get it. A garden needs care; could they get the city to take care of it along with the rest of the park grounds?
It needs walks; they cost money. It takes more money for plants, fertilizer, and sprays. A community garden needs community backing and cooperation.
Purposes And Plans For A Garden Of Fragrance
The club members got petitions asking the city of South Bend for space in one of the parks, outlining the purpose and plans for a Garden of Fragrance.
They promised that the garden club would buy the plants, help set them up, and even help care for them. They said that the Garden would be open to everyone without charge. They asked other organizations to cooperate.
Civic groups move slowly, but one day while Mrs. Bryson was going through a catalog to find fragrant daylilies, her phone rang.
Stanley Goard, landscape architect and assistant superintendent of the South Bend park system, said, “You get your plot for your garden.”
There were several parks in South Bend; which did they want? The club members were ready for that question. Leeper Park was big enough. It was accessible. It was on the main highway so that tourists would see the Garden.
And it had good natural possibilities. It lay alongside the St. Joseph River, whose shores were bordered with big trees, and the level grassy space under the trees would furnish parking space.
The First Building Began
The Club added a clincher: the first building ever erected in South Bend stood in the park. It was a small log house that had been the home of Pierre Navarre, pioneer fur trader and trapper.
It had once stood on one of the many bends of the St. Joseph River, eventually known to trappers as the south bend, for which the later city was named.
Recently placed in the corner of Leeper Park by the Historical Society, the cabin could be an intrinsic part of the Garden.
The garden club got its space, 75,000 square feet of it, and planting began.
The first plot was planted in 1954. It was a patio around a big basswood tree. An iron lace bench circles the tree.
Planting For Fragrance Or Texture
Across the graveled terrace is a raised bed held in place by a stone wall and planted with hyacinth, narcissus, and tulips. During the same year, the garden beds were laid out, and a walk of crushed stone was made.
Later, shrubs and flowers were planted, all chosen for fragrance or texture. There are lilies, phlox, fragrant daylilies, and nicotiana. Finally, a bed raised waist-high is filled with herbs and geraniums.
Among the geraniums are rose-scented and camphor-scented ones. Some geraniums smell like apples and nutmegs and lemons.
Others have intense scents – gooseberry and pine; and some smell like spices – ginger and mint. A few oak-Leaf geraniums were chosen for shape and texture, like ‘Sharp Toothed Oak’ and ‘Stag-horn Oak.’
Herbs aren’t much to look at, but this Garden was planted for fragrance, so there is parsley (for texture), garlic, rue, tansy, lemon verbena, savory, lavender, spearmint, and others.
Walking along the waist-high bed, with the sun warming the herbs or the dew on the leaves, you are entranced by the mingled scents.
You stop and shut your eyes and try to sort them out. You reach out a hand and feel a leaf: some are coot and smooth; some are rough and crinkled; some are hairy and velvety and warm. Their scent lingers on your fingers, and you understand the meaning of this Garden.
In June, the iris beds are in full bloom, and sweet shrub is loaded with odd brown blossoms. Roses are opening, and tuberoses are peeping through the ground, promising the latest fragrance.
In July, petunias replace bulbs that are dug each year. Sweet alyssum, geraniums, and herbs are at their best, and late-blooming lilies lift their cups.
The perfumes of fall-flowering plants, like chrysanthemums, will follow. In their season, there are honeysuckles, lilies of the valley, violets, syringa, lilacs, and carnations – any scented flower that will thrive in the South Bend area finds a place there.
Even winter is not forgotten; there are hollies and needled evergreens for fragrance and texture.
In the fall, the geraniums are “slipped” and potted for next year in the Potawatomi Greenhouse. Garden club members take sightless children there to “see” them.
They stop by benches of blooming sweet peas, trained on wires or strings, and young fingers trace the tendrils to learn how they cling and how and why stakes and supports are used. A teacher’s voice says, “This is a leaf; feel its underside.” A hand guides the lingers.
The Garden was dedicated in July 1955, with much still cloned. Since then, several fountains have been installed, and a pool was built near the rose garden.
Plans still call for developing a garden plot and tools where sightless people can participate in gardening if they can be persuaded that it is possible. Markers and plant name plates, lettered in Braille and conventional type, are being put in to make the garden self-teaching.
44659 by Na