Some SGHS annual meetings have an élan or mystique hard to pin down, though it doubtlessly owes to a mix of speakers, gardens, and local ambiance. For this writer, the April 1991 St. Francisville gathering stands tall among them, as he recalls visits to Afton Villa, crossing the Mississippi on a ferry (with ladies selling pralines on the levee), and exploring Parlange and Maison Chenal near New Roads. To quote from the Magnolia review of the meeting, members were “captivated by the mysterious spell of this lush landscape.” At the center of these memorable garden sites was Rosedown, the West Feliciana Parish home of famed diarist Martha Turnbull and her husband Daniel.
Speaker and LSU professor, Dr. Neil Odenwald, friend and mentor of such prominent Society members as Bill Welch and Suzanne Turner, offered background for a Rosedown visit. In so doing, he discussed not only the overall garden configuration but also detailed the life and gardening habits of Martha Barrow Turnbull, referencing thereby her diary spanning the years 1836-1894. (Published in 2012 as transcribed and annotated by Suzanne Turner, Turnbull’s diary received a thorough review by Peter Hatch in Magnolia, fall 2012.*) Later, Odenwald joined Society members in walking about Martha’s garden, an indelible memory surviving for those present of an initial meander down the long live oak allée ending at Rosedown’s 1834 main house.
Spanning eighteen acres, Rosedown’s designed landscape joins many other southern gardens in reflecting a strong old-world design influence, revealing of the cotton-rich Daniel and Martha Turnbull’s travel experiences in Europe. They also drew from many written sources, along with visits to other American gardens. As noted at such twentieth-century properties as Mobile’s Bellingrath, the result partners rigidly formal spaces with large Jardin Anglais picturesque areas. (Students of Rosedown’s grounds should also explore the restoration done by Harvard-trained and Texas-based landscape architect Ralph Ellis Gunn. Rosedown, to quote from the Cultural Landscape Foundation website, was “his largest single project.”)**
The formal spaces dominate the grounds immediately adjoining the house, most especially in the forecourt and the numerous shrub-edged parterres on the southwest. Part of a formidable view from the upper porch, the forecourt consists of large diamond-outlined beds divided into equal parts by a path that continues the line of the main allée up to the front entry of the house. To the right and left of the allée, that viewer sees wooded areas beyond the forecourt, cut through by serpentine paths and all bespeaking Martha Turnbull’s Rosedown’s picturesque design interests.
The southwest area, clustered around a highly articulated ogee-roofed summerhouse, blends strictly geometric layouts on the east side with spaces shading towards the Rococo on the west. Further on, shrub-lined circles within circles characterize the Rose Garden design, a feature “Gardens” readers have seen echoed decades later at Ima Hogg’s Bayou Bend. Apropos of the name, Rosedown today features a great variety of roses, both modern and antique. Martha Turnbull’s horticultural interests are also evident in her choices of other plants to include camellias, azaleas, cherry laurel, etc., joined by the summer glory of coxcomb, verbena, begonia, and much more. Along with three summerhouses, the gardens are enriched by fountains, statuary, a rockery, conservatory remains, and various outbuildings.
As with Martha Washington’s garden-to-table efforts, Rosedown’s Martha also oversaw acres devoted to fruit and vegetable production, taking advantage of a greenhouse, conservatory, and cold frames to give an early start to tender plants. Her diary details the result in the form of pineapples, oranges, cabbage, asparagus, eggplant (which she sold at market), and turnips, to name but a fraction of Rosedown’s comestible output. After the Civil War a relatively impoverished Martha Turnbull not only relied on her home-grown vegetables for sustenance, but she also earned a small income from marketing that produce.
The story of this National Historic Landmark, like other antebellum properties discussed in “Gardens,” involves the efforts of large numbers of enslaved laborers, totaling approximately 450 people for a 3,500-acre complex of seven plantation tracts. Clearly, the gardens would never have achieved their size and level of quality without their endeavors. Martha Turnbull’s diary reveals, however, she did not fear the dirt and grime of gardening, this becoming all-the-more true in the hardscrabble years following Union victory.
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*https://southerngardenhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Magnolia_Fall_2012.pdf#page=8
**https://www.tclf.org/pioneer/ralph-ellis-gunn
For more on Rosedown, see: https://www.lastateparks.com/historic-sites/rosedown-plantation-state-historic-site
For an instructive 2022 LSU report on Rosedown with site plan, see:
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