Posts Tagged ‘abandoned spaces’
garden escapes: starting a project
This summer, one of my main occupations will be to work on a collection of poems about garden escapes. Specifically, this means abandoned gardens, plants left behind when homes or communities are abandoned. This work is being supported by a Creations Grant from artsnb.
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I have a short mantra to refer to these abandoned plants: “die, thrive or escape.” In a way, the project theme can be used as a metaphor for any abandonment. For example, when someone abandons a relationship, the one left behind can languish, or pick up and start over, or just leave, find a place to start over. I will be watching for these metaphors throughout my project.
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For today, I have to arrange my materials and get started with a plan for my project.
- To start I have my grant application (outlines what I intend to do), a bit of reconnaissance work I did in 2018 to develop some ideas for the project, six blog posts from that time and eight older poems that fit the theme.
orange day-lilies, found in many of new Brunswick’s ditches, are escapes from older gardens
- To identify abandoned communities, I can refer to information sources and databases developed by others: the Facebook pages Abandoned New Brunswick and New Brunswick Upon Days Faded where interested people post photos and short anecdotes about abandoned houses and buildings; the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick website called Place Names of New Brunswick: Where is Home? New Brunswick Communities Past and Present https://archives.gnb.ca/Exhibits/Communities/Home.aspx?culture=en-CA; additional information on communities will be available in Census Records at https://www.ancestry.ca/; various maps including the New Brunswick Atlas (Second Edition); Google Earth and the associated Street View; maps posted in the Facebook page New Brunswick Upon Days Faded; the Walling Map of 1862 which I have used in other projects, F. Walling, Topographical Map of the Counties of St. John and Kings New Brunswick: From Actual Surveys under the direction of H. F. Walling (Publishers W.E. and A.A. Baker, New York, 1862); and, the Monograph about place-names in New Brunswick, Ganong, William F. A Monograph of the Place-Nomenclature of the Province of New Brunswick. Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada: Second Series 1896-97, Volume II, Section II. 1896.
a sample of the Walling Map for an area in Kings County, New Brunswick. The map shows individual buildings and houses from 1862.
- For anecdotal stories about the gardeners and their gardens, I plan to use the resources of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick since often diaries and other documents contain amazing bits of information about New Brunswick history. Obtaining anecdotal information about abandoned gardens is tricky during the time of COVID-19 since social distancing means ordinary interviewing is not easy. I will use the websites above to obtain some information and, where possible, talk to people I encounter. I will create a Facebook Page called Abandoned New Brunswick Gardens to obtain some of these stories.
- For plant identification, I have my own skills as a botanist and my trusty guides: Harold R. Hinds, Flora of New Brunswick, Second Edition: A Manual for Identification of the Vascular Plants of New Brunswick, University of New Brunswick, 2000; A. E. Roland and E. C. Smith, The Flora of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Museum, 1969; Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny, A Field Guide to Flowers of Northeastern and North-central North America, 1968; and the website The Plant List: A Working List of all Plant Species (this is to verify plants names since I use older plant guides). http://www.theplantlist.org/
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My methodology is simple:
- identify possible abandoned homes and communities and create an efficient plan to visit these places
- drive to these locations and look for plant species that may be garden remnants
- photograph the sites and plants
- make notes about the sites, the plants encountered and various sensations encountered (sight, smell, taste, touch and sound)
- do pencil drawings of some plants and locations
- obtain any anecdotal or archived information about the former communities, their gardens and their gardeners
- write the poems using all the information collected
I am going to write mostly free verse but I will also use some poetic forms, for example the ghazal and the pantoum.
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Sounds like fun!
Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) is an introduced plant in New Brunswick. These are plants found on the New Ireland Road in Albert County, New Brunswick. In 1866, there were 68 families in the community (Source: NB Archives); today all the houses are gone.
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I will keep you up to date on my adventures and show you some of the plants I find. If you know of any abandoned gardens in New Brunswick, or abandoned communities, please let me know! I will acknowledge you in my book!
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This work is supported by a Creation Grant from artsnb (the New Brunswick Arts Board)!
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All my best,
stay safe,
Jane
garden escapes: abandoned gardens and what becomes of them
I am so happy! I have just won a Creations Grant from artsnb (the New Brunswick Arts Board). The project is to write a book-length poetry manuscript on the subject of garden escapes from abandoned New Brunswick houses and communities.
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The landscape of New Brunswick is changing. As demographics shift towards populated areas, communities are abandoned. When gardens are left behind, some species die out, some thrive and some migrate, finding favorable conditions in adjacent properties.
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For example, in Fredericksburg, an abandoned community near Stanley, foxglove crowds the ditches; and near Carroll’s Ridge south of Canterbury, no homes remain, but forget-me-nots turn the woods blue. Although local people are aware of these escapes, the stories of the gardens and gardeners are mostly lost.
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The subject of abandoned flower garden escapes is the matter of poetry. The names of abandoned communities and of plants, common and scientific, provide a lexicon of poetic words. Abandoned and escaped gardens involve all of the senses: sight (pink of the foxglove flowers), sound (calls of birds who find new habitat), smell (scent of flowers), taste (sour stem of an abandoned rhubarb plant) and touch (the thorniness of escaped raspberry).
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I am looking forward to taking you on my adventures this summer as I search out abandoned houses and communities, look for remnants of the gardens left behind and capture these remnants in poems and images.
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So, I won’t be staying home as much,
but I am still going to be staying safe!
All my best!
Jane
escapes: Virginia creeper
Virginia creeper, also call woodbine, thicket creeper and, in French vinge vierge, is a climbing vine with adhesive discs. Its leaves are palmately five-fingered and turn bright red in autumn. The plant has small purple fruit, poisonous to eat. The vine is common around abandoned homesteads where it persists or escapes to local woodlands.
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Virginia creeper
Parthenocissus quinquefolia (L.) Planch.
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In woods
on Whites Mountain
woodbine
climbs the ash.
Persistent escape
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from homesteads
long-gone.
Thicket creeper
navigates itself
to better ground,
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higher trees.
Thick rhizomes,
adhesive discs.
Five-fingered leaves
spread to cover
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every inch of bark.
Maximize
exposure to sun.
Ancestral creepers
once draped
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zig-zag cedar fences
in autumn scarlet.
Caught the attention
of farmers’ wives
on community rounds.
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All my best,
Jane
abandoned spaces: remnant plants
On a drive towards the centre of the province, we found the property below to exemplify what happens to the surrounding vegetation when home sites are abandoned.
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On the property, I could see the old home, the roof fallen in, the tin roof rusted on the half that was not shingled. All around were wildflowers, most noticeable, the fireweed. There were also remnants of cultivated plants:
- lilac
- rose bushes
- hops
- orange day-lilies
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Street View, Google Earth gives a glimpse of the property back in 2009.
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remnants
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Not meant to sprawl but climb, hops
crouch between grass, fireweed.
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Recline, each five-fingered leaf
with spaces between digits.
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Remnants of pink rose bushes
and an apple tree, apples
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green but plentiful. Lilac
lifts spent and skeletal blooms.
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The two-track road still leads to
back pasture, woodlot beyond.
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Orange day-lilies echo
the rusty reds of tin roof,
the house fallen to decay.
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All my best,
Jane
abandoned railroad siding
Viceroy on rail
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abandoned railroad siding
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a viceroy butterfly, orange
leaded glass
and rows of wary eyes
naturally suspicious
settles on the slate-grey rail
flexes its wings, nonchalant
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as the black bear who
ambled the track
left a dump
of blackberry seed
undigested pulp
or the enthusiastic jumble of clovers
blooming between the ties
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rails are held between the trill
of insect and the quaver
of goldenrod, caught in the crossfire of sun
light focused through
signal lenses
and glass insulators
on unstrung
telephone poles
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turn toward horizon
rails merge and vanish
altered stride of railroad
walking made confident
by the absence of train
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railway crossing
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railway near Rooth, New Brunswick
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
technology and industry along the road 7-17
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My virtual biking has taken a turn for the better. As a reward to myself for keeping at my biking for 6 months (!), I splurged on an I-Pad. My son set up wireless in our house and now I can go to my stationary cycle and use Street View directly. I am using an app called MobiMaps (Brainflash).
Previously, I spent hours downloading images from Street View and transporting them physically on a flash drive to my small computer. Using the I-Pad is a great time saver. The I-Pad has also given me the ability to look around the countryside more, so I am biking longer (35 to 50 minutes per session compared to the 30 minutes I was doing). My goal now is to work up to the recommended 150 minutes per week of exercise.
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map showing distance travelled (map from Google Earth)
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Today’s journey was not particularly photogenic. The area between Par and Carlyon Bay is very industrial. I saw lots of evidence of abandoned industrial buildings …
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abandoned chimney with vines (image from Street View)
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One of the abandoned chimneys had a tree growing from the flue opening!
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abandoned industrial space (image from Street View)
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The road also followed the train track and I was treated to the view of a high-speed train going by …
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a passing train (image from Street View)
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Best View: an abandoned industrial building near Carlyon Bay … not very pretty, but it gave me a chance to practice a different approach to ‘sky’. The bush of Gorse did not turn out so well, but I like the vine-covered roof of the building and the vine-covered chimney …
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Aug 9, 2013 ‘abandoned industry, Carlyon Bay’ Jane Tims
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
tough to follow
In high school, in Nova Scotia, I belonged to a history club. We did an interesting project in about 1971, tracing the route of an old stagecoach trail through the woods between Lower Sackville and Fall River. We were able to follow the road since it had been raised above wet ground. We also found old culverts still intact. One of the things we made was a relief map of the area, with the hills built up in plaster and the old road marked in red. The project created, for me, a lifelong interest in old roads.
old trail obscured by a Bracken understory
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tough to follow
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the old road at the edge
of the hill is tough to follow
no clues, no footprints, no bent twigs
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eventually all familiar ways
grow over
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a layer of bracken
covers the track
like a cloth over biscuits
at the dinner table
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primo-canes of bramble
claw you back
your mother reminding you
to wear your sweater
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better to look up
follow the ribbon of sky
marked by the absence of branches
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Published as ‘tough to follow’, Canadian Stories 15 (85), June 2012
Copyright Jane Tims 2012
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