Sydney Eddison Featured Speaker

At Newtown Forest Association Annual Meeting

By Nancy K. Crevier

Those in attendance at the annual meeting of the Newtown Forest Association, Thursday, May 14, at the C.H. Booth Library, were treated to a sneak preview of Newtown author and gardener Sydney Eddison’s newest book, A Simpler Way to Garden. The book is in the works and will most likely be published next year, said Ms Eddison.

“Eventually, gardens and gardeners age and change,” said Ms Eddison, reading from the preface of the book, “Yet old age takes us by surprise.”

Ms Eddison and her late husband, Martin, worked on the gardens on their property for more than 45 years, creating a “bond between garden and gardener” that has offered many “moments of heart-stopping delight,” Ms Eddison said.

She has watched her garden emerge in fits and starts, and in her most recent process of streamlining the garden beds has rediscovered a love for her garden all over again. “My determination to stay here is my reason to write this book,” Ms Eddison said, offering thoughts on aging gardens and gardeners to come to terms with simplifying the garden and gardening techniques.

It occurred to her, after her husband suffered a car accident in 1995 that incapacitated him, that one day she might have not only the care of her aging husband, but the care of her aging self and a garden that would continue to need her as the years went by. She has been blessed, she said, with incredible friends and workers who have aided her in recent years, but even so, she realized that her beloved gardens would need to be reassessed so that she could continue to appreciate their beauty and not be overwhelmed by the care.

Simplifying does not have to mean diminishing the size of a garden, but rather addressing the plan and methodology of caring for a garden, as well as rethinking the plantings that have brought joy but require a great deal of attention in order to thrive and look their best. Perennials may have to go in favor of hardier, less time-consuming shrubs, leaving a garden as inviting as ever — just different.

“Change is the name of it all, and that is something that is rarely addressed books and magazines,” said Ms Eddison, whose enthusiasm as she shared a slide show of her gardens through the past four decades was palpable.

“I have loved my gardens at every state. They are no less interesting to me now in trying to simplify,” she said.

Shown in quick sequence, audience members could watch as the slides depicted Ms Eddison’s garden from the time that she and her husband first cleared the property to the fence and put in tiny shrubs and trees, to later years when the trees and thriving plants obscured the property line, and even as cherry trees grew, blossomed, waned, and fell.

“Sometimes the departure of some things is to the benefit of others,” she noted to her audience. “Don’t hurry to replace something in the garden. Wait, and see what happens,” she urged.

How a garden — and the gardener — ages is to be appreciated, Ms Eddison said, so long as the gardener has given some thought along the way to the design of the garden. Use colors and design skills from the art world, she suggested, and think about the balance in a garden so that every season offers something delightful to consider. Container gardening became her passion at one point, said Ms Eddison, and her terrace became an experiment of colors, often inspired by the works of great artists.

“Gardens are about lines and shapes, and then they are beautiful even in winter,” she said. “In winter, you really see what you have.”

Slide after slide of her garden in stages of rest, renewal, growth, and full bloom showcased what Ms Eddison has lived and learned from her gardens over the years. “You think at every stage that you have learned something, and then there is always so much more to learn,” she said.

Ms Eddison also shared a special announcement. To honor her late husband, she has deeded a 4½-acre plot of forest adjacent to her gardens to the Newtown Forest Association. “It is a beautiful piece of property, with incredible outcrops of rocks, a beautiful view into the forest and to Lake Lillinonah, old walls, and a gorgeous high ridge,” said Ms Eddison. “I wanted that to never, never have a house on it. I’m very happy that what has meant so much to me, that there is still a woods, belongs to a lot of people now,” Ms Eddison said, thanking the Newtown Forest Association.

In closing, Ms Eddison reminded the audience, “Every day is different. Every morning is different, every evening is different. My garden wasn’t meant to be anything but the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life. The garden was meant for my friends to hang around and visit and have fun. A garden is about all of the other creatures we are going to share our lives with: the turkeys, the snake, the frogs — and the wonderful, wonderful people,” said Ms Eddison. “What my garden is really about is Martin and me. It’s home, it’s everything to me. And now the garden is surrounded by state forest, and your land.”