A writer's roots: Eudora Welty's home garden, long a source of inspiration for her colorful prose, is restored to recapture the quiet beauty of its early 20th-century beginnings.

"Every evening when the sun is going down and it is cool enough to water the garden and it is all quiet except, for the locusts in great waves of sound, and I stand still one place for a long time putting water on the plants, I feel something new ... as if my will went out of me, as if I had a stubbornness and it was melting ... "

--Eudora Welty in a 1941 letter to literary agent Diarmuid Russell

"I feel without ceasing every change in the garden itself, the changes of light as the atmosphere grows darker, and the springing up of a wind, and the rhythm of the locusts, and the colors of certain flowers that become very moving ... "

--Eudora Welty to Diarmuid Russell

Literary scholars have long recognized the impact of the natural world on Eudora Welty's fictional settings, from her use of plants as metaphors for larger themes in her work to her practice of giving flower names to her characters. So naturally, when Welty determined to will her home on Pinehurst Street in Jackson to the state of Mississippi for use as a writers' center and museum, the rightness of restoring the home's flower gardens was evident: visitors could see not only the home that nurtured Welty's writing but the blooms and blossoms that did so as well.

Opening Welty's gardens to the public in April was the culmination of several years of research by historic garden consultant Susan Haltom that began in 1994, well before Welty's death in 2001 at age 92. Aided by Welty's memories, old photographs, and some initial observations Haltom made on her own while inspecting the old beds, Haltom began the painstaking work of not only uncovering what was still in the garden but determining what Welty's mother, Chestina, had envisioned for the beds when she planned them in 1925.

"Laurel's eye traveled among the urns that marked the gravers of the Mckelvas and saw the favorite camellia of her father's, the old-fashioned Chandlerii Elegans, that he had planted on her mother's grave-now big as a pony, saddled with unplucked bloom living and dead, standing on a fading carpet of its own flowers."

--Passage from Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter, 1972

Haltom began her work by studying the information available about Chestina Welty's garden--she looked at photos, drawings Chestina had made of where she wanted certain beds to go, and what types of flowers were available in the area when the garden was being planned. The research process resulted in a cultural landscape report that became a preliminary basis for all the work that would eventually be done in the garden.

"We are restoring this garden to the period of significance--when it fulfilled Chestina's dream," said Haltom. Haltom decided that the height of the garden's glory was the period between 1925 and 1945--the years in which Chestina took the 3/4-acre garden from planning to completion before age and infirmity began to limit her ability to continue gardening.

>From discussions with Welty, Haltom determined the locations of the various beds and "garden rooms," including the cutting garden, the perennial border, the rose garden, and the woodland garden, all with their own plantings and uses by the family. During their talks, Welty would often mention her mother's habit of keeping a garden journal, and in 2001, after Welty's death, her niece Mary Alice White was going through her voluminous papers and found Chestina's gardening books, filled with dated entries, notes for garden club talks, and detailed writings on the very garden under restoration. "Every year, she took notes on what she planted and how it grew and drew pictures of her beds," said White.

What Haltom discovered in studying the journals once they were found is that the gardens were not nearly as unchanging as she had first thought--different drawings from different years showed different sets of plantings that Chestina attempted. "These ladies were real gardeners who were trying different combinations," said Haltom. But the detailed drawings and lists of which plants worked and which didn't proved to be invaluable to the ensuing work. "Some people call this above-ground archeology," said Haltom.

Chestina Welty was particularly enamored with roses, with two large beds in what the family called the "lower garden." "She grew what we would call early hybrid teas," said Haltom.

Visual inspections uncovered the remains of the original beds; Haltom and her assistant scouted out their size and outline based on Welty's memory. "We squatted down here, and we could see the humps!" said Haltom. While the beds were still visible, none of those roses had survived the intervening years. Haltom, through her research, began piecing together what varieties Chestina had planted and found versions appropriate to the time period: "Etoile de Holland," "Duchess de Brabant," "Gruss an Aachen," and "Dainty Bess."

Some original roses still remain, however; a yellow "Lady Banks" and an "American Beauty" climb up the fence in the lower garden next to the hybrid beds, while a Silver Moon contentedly resides on the corner of the garage, according to Haltom.

The side of the house showcases Welty's pride and joy--more than 30 varieties of camellias, most standing taller than the roof of the side porch and loaded with bloom in winter and early spring. "Chandlerii Elegans" is there, as are "Pink Empress," "Magnoliaflora," "Pink Perfection," "Berenice Boddy," and "Debutante." Many of the trees date back to the mid-1920s, with some that Welty herself grafted taking up residence during the '30s. "We're still trying to identify them!" said Haltom of some of the more unusual varieties.

"And I notice when I read other people's works, often a man will something blooming at the wrong time, because he never has been out in the garden. He doesn't think it matters; he just names some flowers. Well, that destroys something for me when I read it, and I try not to make these mistakes.

--Eudora Welty, "A Visit with Eudora Welty, Summer 1975 and 1976" in Conversations with Eudora Welty, ed. Peggy Prenshaw, 1984

A bench surrounded by camellias is original to the garden, turning up in many photos Welty took of family and friends. Scholars who study Welty's extensive correspondence find many references to her camellia-growing experiments--one letter refers to a late freeze that caught them in full bloom, and her correspondence with literary agent Diarmuid Russell includes as much information about camellias and their care as it does her literary career, according to Suzanne Marts in One Writer's Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty.

The perennial border and the cutting garden were planted for year-round bloom, according to Haltom. Much of the information Haltom had on the layout of the perennial border came from a color drawing Chestina drew herself. The plants were arranged to bloom in sequence from the outside in, Haltom noted--early jonquils bloomed first in February, followed by verbena, daylilies, and a 50-foot-long border of bearded iris.

All the original flowers were still growing in the perennial border except the iris--so Haltom recruited help for period flowers from the Historic Iris Preservation Society. Over 47 different varieties from California, Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia now reside in the newly restored bed.

The cutting garden behind the garage features the flowers Chestina loved to use in bouquets and arrangements: phlox drummondii, snapdragons, hollyhocks, "Shirley" poppies, ragged robins, tiger lilies. Summer and fall bloomers include cosmos, zinnias, and chrysanthemums. "There's more than you can imagine here," said Haltom. "One of the things this garden can be is a museum of early 20th-century flowers."

Work remains to be done even now after the gardens have opened--some cleaning up in the "woodland garden" is needed, with stands of bamboo threatening to take over. White holds a particular fondness for that area with its roots in her childhood. "The fun thing about the woodland garden, I remember, is my father and his brother built a clubhouse back there," she said, adding that she hopes maybe a similar structure can be rebuilt in the area eventually. Other hidden details may come to light as the garden work continues and as the archival process continues on Welty's papers in preparation for the home's eventual transformation into a museum. "There may be other things we haven't found yet!" said Haltom.

Docent-led tours of the Welty Garden are free with reservations on Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 2p.m., March to October. Call 601/353-7762 or email [e-mail].