Willa's school was closed yesterday - so I plotted out a girl's day in Lynchburg. Absolute first on the list - Anne Spencer's House and Gardens on Pierce Street. It was a hot day, but Anne's gardens were shaded, with cool places to sit and I could have stayed there all afternoon.
There is so much more I want to learn about Anne Spencer. She was a poet and would spend time in her writing cottage, Edankraal (last photo above). Her home and gardens hosted fascinating guests that included George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, W. E. B. DuBois and Thurgood Marshall. I couldn't help but conjure up images in my mind's eye of the garden - full of guests and activity.
This visit, though, it was very quiet, as we had the garden to ourselves. With boxwoods set off by vertical evergreens, daylilies and yarrow blooming in her perennial garden, serene paths winding their way around and turquoise trellis work that set everything off beautifully.
Once the world was young
For I was twenty and very old
And you and I knew all the answers
What the day was, how the hours would turn
One dial was there to see
Now the world is old and I am still young
For the young know nothing, nothing.
-Anne Spencer
2 comments:
I will have to add this to my growing list of things-to-do-in-central-VA! What a gorgeous and inspirational space- I love the turquois set against the serene tiles and brambling paths. Sounds like you had a lovely visit.
I have wanted to see this garden and home for sometime now. It reminds that once upon a time Virginia was one state divided into two different worlds, and while we have many restored examples of one world, there are few glimpses of the other.
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