Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985) is one of the South’s best-known garden writers. Her book, A Southern Garden: A Handbook for the Middle South (University of North Carolina Press, 1942), is a standard on almost every gardener’s bookshelf.
After Elizabeth Lawrence’s death, her home and garden were sold to Mary Lindeman “Lindie” Wilson, who lovingly gardened and maintained the property for 23 years until it was purchased by the Wing Haven Foundation with a mission of preservation and opening it to the public as a “vibrant, dynamic, and undeniably inspiring living laboratory.” Visit Wing Haven’s website here:
https://winghavengardens.org/elizabeth-lawrence-house-and-garden
Garden Curator Andrea Sprott has worked at Elizabeth Lawrence House and Garden going on thirteen years. Andrea says, “As I began to familiarize myself with the garden, I soon realized I needed to discover Elizabeth Lawrence as wholly as possible in order to understand and better interpret her garden for the public. To merely maintain the garden within the confines of the job of gardener meant to ignore its most precious and powerful gift: its soul. This property, like its creator, is layered and multifaceted; nothing is as simple as it may appear. This is the living legacy of a truly brilliant woman–a sensitive and perceptive landscape architect, plant person of encyclopedic knowledge, and one of the South’s preeminent garden writers–who I fully believe infused this soil with herself.”
Andrea Sprott served for six years on the board of the Southern Garden History Society, and the Elizabeth Lawrence House and Garden maintains an Institutional Membership in the society.
In 2017 Andrea talked with Jennifer Jewel on Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden, a program of North State Public Radio, California State University, Chico. Listen to the podcast here:
https://www.mynspr.org/show/cultivating-place-conversations-on-natural-history-and-the-human-impulse-to-garden/2017-09-28/cultivating-place-elizabeth-lawrence-and-her-southern-garden
Images Courtesy Andrea Sprott
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