Getting the job

Cary’s story of how he came to be the Gardener for Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden was told to me one day when I was volunteering in the Martha Crone Shelter (and many others have heard it also) and it goes like this:

Because of the seniority rules there were three other gardeners that had first dibs to the job. Since the position of gardener at Eloise Butler required you to work alone all day and be responsible for the entire garden, none of the three wanted the job; to Cary, it was his dream job.

He further said that during his first days on the job as Head Gardener, he was excited but also nervous because he felt the weight, the responsibility of tending this special place.

As he was working in the Garden in those first few days, he started talking with a couple who were walking in the Garden. He told them he was the new Gardener, that he was taking over from Ken Avery. He evidently felt comfortable with these visitors because he blurted out, in an expression of his uncertainty, “I hope I can do this.” They looked a him calmly and replied, “I wouldn’t worry. You look like you belong here.” (Ref 1.)

Ken Avery also felt that Cary George would “belong there”. In Ken’s last letter to the membership of the Friends he wrote:

“Another reason for leaving at this time is that I can now do so with a clear conscience. Until recently there was no one in the Park system who I felt could take over the Garden. Those of you who have met my replacement, Cary George, know that he is an intelligent person who is interested the Garden and who will husband it very well. I have to admit that my one apprehension in leaving is that he will do such a good job, that this spring might be marked as the end of the dark ages for the Garden.” (Ref. 2)

Burning the Prairie Garden and Poaching: Ken Avery would return several times to help Cary with burning the Prairie area in the spring - a restorative process that Ken had begun. Cary’s first experience with a burn was on April 14-15, 1988 and Ken Avery was there to help. A permit had been issued for the burn, but even so the Minneapolis Fire Department showed up with fire trucks after a nearby office worker reported a wild fire.

Cary and the Garden were host to a visit by former President Jimmy Carter in June of 1988. Less illustrious and less wanted guests were those who came to the Garden in the springtime to cut succulent herbs - particularly fern fiddle heads, wild asparagus shoots and other native plants that make could salad greens.

Cary would usually find them early in the morning hours, some had even climbed over the fence to gain entry before the back gate was opened. On certain days he would confiscate large sacks of cuttings. The individuals, usually of Asian ethnicity where such greens are a diet staple, would never acknowledge that they understood anything Cary would try to tell them - that this was a preserve, not a public marketplace, but he felt they understood quite well that they should not be there. Perhaps one could understand their situation but some plantings were being decimated, and it could not be allowed. In recent years this seems to have become less of an issue.

Entire plants being poached from the Garden is an old story. Before the Garden was fenced in 1924, Eloise Butler had terrible problems with vandalism. Both Martha Crone and Ken Avery would always loose plants, sometimes entire groups of plants to thieves. Cary found that the “casual picker” was the most troublesome during his years. He could relate many stories of confronting someone who had secreted a cutting in his pockets. Another thing secreted in pockets were the plant identification signs. Cary was always making new ones to replace those stolen. Those most frequently stolen were "No Picking" and "Bastard Toadflax."

The Deer Problem: Creatures of the four-legged kind could also prove troublesome to a Gardener - deer in particular. With the explosion of the deer population in the metro area in the last quarter of the 20th century, the large and outlying city parks like Theodore Wirth became havens for the deer population. When they got into the Garden they found a banquet unlike any they could attend in Wirth Park. What usually happened was that a storm would down a large tree limb onto the perimeter fence allowing the deer to jump over. The Gardener could not walk the perimeter every day to check such things, and hardly at all in the winter time. Once deer were in the Garden, getting them out was a process of roundup proportions.

In the fall of 1988 two yearling deer were seen in the Garden. In early winter four were observed. With the help of a number of people the roundup got them out and the fence was repaired. In late winter of 1989 no deer tracks were seen. But - two additional young deer were observed in April and on the 28th, a group of 5 people did another roundup. There was a small fence hole near the back gate that had been missed during the earlier fence repair. Such “deer events” would happen several more times in the coming years.

Birdhouses:

Cary appreciated the birds of the Garden but sometimes the humans were a nuisance to the birds. In early 1989 four bluebird houses were placed in the Upland Prairie Garden. By midsummer they had to be taken down - human visitors were trampling the vegetation to get a closer look at the birds while others criticized them as aesthetic blight, which is interesting as there were always bird houses in the Garden. In Martha Crone’s time there were several hugh bird houses in the Prairie Garden. (Photo at left shows a large martin house in the Upland Garden in 1950. Kodachrome slide by Martha Crone, 1950, courtesy Minnesota Historical Society, Martha Crone Collection.)

Heritage Trees:

The Garden has long been the residence of a number of specimen trees. During Cary’s tenure as Gardener, he recommended a number of trees in the Garden for inclusion in the Minneapolis Heritage Tree Program. The Garden has nine Heritage trees noted for their large size. [Cary’s article “The Garden Boasts Nine Heritage Trees”]

Documenting the Garden:

Certain types of plants are particularly fascinating to each gardener. Cary would have his favorites also. He wrote a number of articles that were published in The Fringed Gentian™ about these plants, including:

• Gentian in the Garden;
• The Pea Family Thrives in Hot Prairie Sun;
• From Tall to Tallest in the Summer Garden;
• Native Grasses for your Home Landscape;
• Orchids in the Garden.

Orchids have been a perpetual favorite of all who have nurtured the Garden. Those orchids native to the State of Minnesota that were not already native to the Garden site in 1907, were brought in over the years, especially during the time of Eloise Butler and Martha Crone. Today only two remain. Changes in habitat, theft, and just the particular problems of transplantation would be the demise of many. Cary would make his attempts to transplant as well.

In 1991 he planted 12 Large Twayblades (Liparis lilifolia) by the new front gate. They were gathered from a large patch that had been discovered by Ken Avery near old Highway 12. They did not transplant well and have not survived. In the same year volunteer Judy Jones donated a large clump of Yellow Lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum Salisb. var. pubescens) from her mother’s garden. Cary divided it and planted it in two places - near the front gate and near the shelter. The plant had been absent from the Garden for years (and had been replanted numerous times by the previous caretakers). One of the plants remains in the Garden today.

Photo left: Large Twayblade (Liparis lilifolia) Photo ©Merel R. Black, University of Wisconsin, Steven's Point.

In 1998 twelve clumps of Showy Lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium reginae) were rescued from road construction projects in northern Minnesota and planted in the bog. This plant has been replanted a number of times since Eloise Butler brought in the first ones and this new addition would replace clumps that had been declining in vigor. Cary understood that native populations had developed where they were because of specific and perfect habitat. Moving them was always risky but in the case of the State Flower, worth a try. Cary writes of this flower:

“The wildflower most often asked about by Garden visitors is the Showy Lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium reginae). Each spring dozens of inquiries are made about the existence of this wild orchid in the Garden, its cultural requirements, sources of purchase and the legal and ethical ramifications of digging and transporting it. By the time it blooms at the end of May, I must confess, I’m relieved. Yet, when I walk the bog trail each morning to open the back gate, I stop to look at this wild orchid as the morning sun filters through the dewy bog air. Its beauty always amazes me. It must be one of the most magnificent flowers God ever created.” (Ref 3.)

The Prairie Garden Extension:

During Cary’s tenure as Gardener the Upland Garden was expanded by one acre with the approval by the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board on Dec. 8, 1992, to transfer one acre of Theodore Wirth Park to the Garden. This was accomplished by the efforts of Cary and Friends member and volunteer Elaine Christenson. Elaine had met with Cary George and his predecessor, Ken Avery and they discussed expanding the Garden boundary - the pros and cons, gradually acceptance and enthusiasm for the project won. The Friends of the Wild Flower Garden paid for the fence work to enclose the additional space. Cost for the new fence line was considerably lessened by the re-use of some old fence that separated the Upland and Woodland Gardens. (Complete Article)

In the fall of 1993 the work began to remove sumac and trees. The following spring showed some stumps peaking through the snow and the beginning of a new and different look. Summer healed most wounds, as if all plants joined hands and danced in the new openness. No scars showed. (Photo at left - Cary and Elaine in 1993)

"In itself the phrase “State of the Garden” has a somewhat foreboding tone. The implication is, I think, to somehow describe the Garden as either better or worse than in the past. A plant census would be one way to accomplish this. Are there more species of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants extant in the Garden than there were during the Eloise Butler, Martha Crone or Ken Avery tenures? An evaluation of physical improvements - visitor amenities, landscape enhancements - could give us another look at where we’ve been and where we’re headed. Visitor counts, staffing, and Park Board budget commitments would be a “bean counter” approach. All of these methods, while valid and necessary at times, seem to me to miss the broader philosophical mission of the Garden.

Eloise Butler’s intention was to have visitors experience plant communities similar to those of pre-settlement times. As a teacher and scientist, she chose to establish the original three-acre Garden on a site that contained ecosystems usually found only on much larger parcels of land. Was her selection of this small bog happenstance? A convenient teaching tool? Or something much more?

As a pantheist, Eloise Butler looked to nature for spiritual truths. She was instinctively drawn to Wirth Park and the site that would become her spiritual core.

So, I think, the true “State of the Garden” should be examined not by plant surveys, programming, and architectural adornments, but by asking the question, “Is the primary purpose of the Garden - to comprehend the grace of nature - still valid?” My contention is that more so than ever, a sanctuary that protects all life, both human and non-human, should be a touchstone for living our daily lives, not just a quaint natural history lesson.

The Garden is more than a remnant of what Wirth Park used to be. It is different geographically. It also has a transcendental spirit. Has Wirth Park been lost to invasive plants and a labyrinth of eroded trails made by kids and young adults on expensive mountain bikes? Maybe, but I trust the Garden. Yes, it’s being squeezed by a consumer-oriented world, but in the end there will always be the Garden. The Garden is non-materialistic. It is a humble, modest place, unaffected by affluence.

 

Much like the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi, the beauty of the Wildflower Garden is found in the imperfect, incomplete, and impermanent. Indeed, it is just this discovery of truth in the inconspicuous that comforts us with the calculus of nature that surpasses mathematics and man. At a time when “Open Space” means tot lots, paved bike trails, crushed aggregate softball fields and beach parking lots, when wetland restoration is a filtering system for urban runoff, let us begin again at the Garden.” (Ref. 4)

Career summation.

Cary would, of course, attend to the daily tasks of being the Gardener. He would keep the records of plant bloom dates begun by Ken Avery, he would talk to visiting school groups, but he would always share his philosophy, by his writings and by his commentary at meetings with The Friends.

The best summation of his career at Eloise Butler is best expressed by Cary himself. Here is his final article for The Fringed Gentian™.

"As many of you already know, this is my last season as Gardener at Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden. After 29 years as a gardener for the Minneapolis Park Board the time has come for a change. Retirement is a word that has a pejorative, almost funereal tone, yet one of the many gifts the Garden has given me is a realization that new things always emerge from the ephemeral. I have confidence that the Environmental Department will choose a successor who will husband the Garden well; someone who understands the legacy begun by Eloise Butler and nurtured through the stewardship of those that followed.

I will be back next year to assist the new gardener. Much information can only be accurately transferred orally: Where wildflowers are planted, topographical changes,archeological remnants, and an introduction the cast of characters both human and non-human to whom the Garden belongs. This seems like a perfect transition. As we all know, a garden is never done. This incompleteness, this imperfection is really the secret to the Wildflower Garden’s beauty.

Hopefully, most will agree that the state of the Garden has improved during my tenure: Buckthorn, while not eliminated, is under control; the plant communities are healthy’ the list of species extant has grown; both the climax and understory trees are thriving, and the philosophy of the naturalists’ programming is in keeping with the restorative maintenance agenda of the Garden.

As I see it, the threats to the Garden come from the outside: Future development in and around Wirth Park; an explosion of the deer population due to continued climate change; a general degradation of habitat outside our 15-acre fenced oasis; and the pernicious onslaught of exotic plants - - especially garlic mustard. While the Garden is not in peril, future personnel will have to maintain vigilant and industrious attention to these problems.

As I clean out my desk on these last days, I find pictures of long-ago naturalists and volunteers, project plans yet to complete, keys of unknown origin, a thank you note from a woman who buried her beloved cat in the Garden, an obituary notice for Ken Avery, birthday and Father’s Day cards from my loving wife and children, a letter from an old pal-- all reminders of the poetry of an ordinary man’s life who was fortunate enough to have a job no one deserves, yet everyone should have. Soon I will take my last bittersweet walk in the Garden. As I close the Garden Gate, I will thank Eloise and all the gentle souls who have make me realize the beauty of simple things" (Ref 5.)

Retirement Celebration:

On the evening of Tuesday, June 29, 2004 members of the Friends and Garden Park Staff met at the Martha Crone Shelter for a farewell-retirement celebration for Cary George. To remind him of his gardening career he was presented with an inscribed “golden” shovel and trowel. All who could be there gave profound thanks for the care of the Garden that had been entrusted to him over the years and wished he and wife Janet great and happy days in their retirement.

Photos left: Cary receiving "gardener" retirement gifts.

References:
#1. The Fringed Gentian™, Vol. 51 No. 4
#2. The Fringed Gentian™, Vol. 37 No. 3
#3. The Fringed Gentian™, Vol. 48 No. 2
#4. The Fringed Gentian™, Vol. 49 No. 3
#5. The Fringed Gentian™, Vol. 51 No. 4
#6. The Fringed Gentian™, Vol. 48 No. 4

The Fringed Gentian™, newsletter of The Friends of the Wild Flower Garden, Inc. PDF copies are found in the newsletter archive.

Minutes of Meetings of The Board of Directors of The Friends of the Wild Flower Garden, Inc. and other Friends documents.

Historical Records of Eloise Butler and Martha Crone, Minnesota Historical Society.

All Photos are the property of The Friends of the Wild Flower Garden unless otherwise credited.