Emily Dickinson, Gardener
Text & Photos by Neil Soderstrom

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) is widely regarded as one of America’s greatest poets. Emily lived her adult years at the family’s 14-acre Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts—from age 24 onward until her parents’ death, along with her younger sister, “Vinnie” (Lavinia), until Emily’s death at age 55. Vinnie remained Emily’s lifelong ally and gardening companion, as well as rescuer and prime promoter of Emily’s poems. More than a third of her poems and most of her letters refer to flowers, often conveying meanings beyond the plants themselves. Very briefly, here’s how flowers and gardening gained such high importance in Emily’s heart and mind:

From childhood on, Emily delighted in all of nature, particularly wildflowers, which she often mentioned in poems and letters—along with birds, bees, and other small friends. Describing childhood to her literary mentor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, she wrote “when much in the Wood as a little Girl, I was told that the Snake would bite me, that I might pick a poisonous flower, or Goblins kidnap me, but I went along and met no one but Angels, who were shyer of me, than I could be of them.”

By age 12, Emily had begun helping Mother in the garden, boasting to a cousin, “I was born in the garden you know.” At 14, she began collecting and pressing wild and cultivated flowers into a large-format album that eventually contained more than 400 labeled specimens now in the Harvard archives and recently published as Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: A Facsimile Edition.

In her marvelous Emily Dickinson’s Gardens, author-horticulturist Marta McDowell assures, “Emily Dickinson shared love of plants with her parents and siblings. To friends, she sent bouquets, and to her numerous correspondents... she often enclosed flowers to punctuate a message. She collected wildflowers, walking with her dog, Carlo [a Newfoundland]. She studied botany at Amherst Academy.... In winter she forced hyacinth bulbs and in summer she knelt on a red blanket in her flower borders, performing horticulture’s familiar rituals.” In a small conservatory off her father’s study, Emily tended houseplants and tender perennials including begonias, carnations, ferns, fuchsias, heliotrope, jasmines, oleander, primroses.

Thanks to Emily’s grandfather and father, the Homestead property, temporarily lost but repurchased when Emily was a young woman, already had grapevines, currants, and fruit trees: apple, cherry, plum, pear, and peach. The 11-acre meadow out front provided hay and grain. Livestock provided well-aged manure for the garden beds. Mother had gained renown for growing figs, cold-sensitive trees she sheltered in the microclimate near the barn. During the gardening season, Emily heard birdsong, bees, crickets, livestock, and wind in the pines. She characterized the sound of hummingbird flight as “a resonance of emerald,” after which “every blossom on her bush/Adjusts its tumbled head.”

After danger of frost in May, Emily and Vinnie sowed seeds they’d collected in autumn or obtained from friends and the Bliss seed catalog. Although Emily favored perennials, biennials, and bulbs, which in her poems she often compared with resurrection and eternity, their bloom periods were brief. So she and Vinnie also sowed annuals because they continue blooming throughout the growing season.

Plants in Emily’s Garden
Long after Emily’s and Vinnie’s deaths, their niece, Mattie, described their collaborative garden east of the house as “a meandering mass of bloom.” Author Marta McDowell lists these favorites by season:

Early spring. Perennials, bulbs, and pussy willow: snowdrops, crocus, tulips, hyacinth, pansy, peony, bluebell, pussy willow.

Late spring. Perennials and lilac: bleeding heart, columbine, crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis), daffodil, forget-me-nots, lily-of-the-valley, myrtle (Vinca minor), primrose, and lilac.

Summer. Annuals: heliotrope, mignonette (Reseda odorata), nasturtiums, snapdragons, stock, sweet alyssum, sweet sultan (Centaurea moschata),

Summer. Perennials: daisies, daylilies, foxglove, hosta, lilies (Lilium species), pinks and sweet williams (Dianthus caryophyllus and D. barbatus), poppies (Papaver species, some also annuals). Note: Marta McDowell and I speculate that although Thomas Wentworth Higginson reported that Emily presented him with two “day lilies” on his first visit in mid-August 1870, he was probably referring to flowers we call hostas today. The large orange flowers we know as daylilies (Hemerocallis species) probably would not have remained in bloom that late.

Summer. Roses: blush rose, calico rose (Rosa gallica “Versicolor”), cinnamon rose (Rosa cinnamomea or majalis), damask rose (Rosa damascena), greville rose (Rosa multiflora grevillei), hedgehog rose (Rosa rugosa rubra), sweetbrier rose (Rosa eglanteria).

Summer. Vines: clematis, grapes, honeysuckle, morning glory, sweet pea.

Autumn. Artemesia (Artemesia species), asters, marigolds, mums.

The Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, is open March through December. This year, author-horticulturist Martha McDowell will supervise continuing garden restoration. Neil Soderstrom will help document this summer’s Emily Dickinson garden restoration.

Recommended Reading

Emily Dickinson’s Gardens: A Celebration of a Poet and Gardener by Marta McDowell.

The Gardens of Emily Dickinson by Judith Farr (Harvard, 2004).

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books by Alfred Habegger (Random House, 2001).

“Emily Dickinson’s Letters” by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.