  | Lucinda Brockway '80 offers advice on recreating and preserving historic gardens. | ||||||||
Gardening Through Time By Christine Graunas A garden is a living thing, and like all living things it changes from day to day, from season to season. An old garden will have changed many times over its life. What does it mean, then, to "preserve" an old garden? This is one of the questions Lucinda Brockway has to answer as she pursues her profession. As the owner of Past Designs, a firm that offers advice and expertise on recreating and preserving all manner of historic landscapes, Brockway travels throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic states from her home in Kennebunk, Maine. On one day she will advise a private owner of a historic home on plantings appropriate to the period. On the next she might help assess whether or not an old farm has sufficient historic significance to qualify for the National Register of Historic Places. On the following day she could work with a municipal government in developing a master plan for use of a historic outdoor area. Brockway has received a number of awards for her work, including nomination as an "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Victoria magazine, which featured her in its August 2000 issue. Recently, she was also nominated for the Working Woman Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards 2001 for Working Woman Magazine. Brockway graduated from URI in 1980 with a degree in ornamental horticulture and design. At that point, the idea of preserving or restoring historic landscapes barely existed. Houses, yes; gardens, no. Although she wasn't sure what direction she wanted to take, Brockway was sure of some things: she didn't want to be trapped in an office, and she wanted to do work she loved. Her loves include old homes and their gardens, so she designed her degree at URI with these in mind. "My degree in ornamental horticulture from URI provided the foundation I needed to succeed," she says. "The faculty worked with me on independent study projects, encouraged my work in traditional classes, and helped me develop the confidence I needed to pursue this unusual career." After gaining her horticultural knowledge at URI, Brockway then completed a Master's in Historic Preservation at Boston University. Her first job after BU was restoring the gardens of Strawbery Banke, a 10-acre outdoor museum in Portsmouth, Maine. "They told me they couldn't even guarantee my salary," she comments, noting with amusement that it didn't seem to matter too much at the time because she was so delighted to have found a full time job in a field no one had heard of. Eventually the salary came, as did an award for the work done there, but Brockway says that one of the things she tells young people who want to do what she does is that "you have to be willing to work for little or no money to build your expertise." The others are that you must "work hard, never stop learning, and have the courage of your convictions." After a few years, Brockway left Strawbery Banke to seek new challenges. She spent a short period with a landscape architecture firm, but when the economy slowed down and her salary became uncertain, she struck out on her own. "I needed something I could depend on more, and thought I could depend on myself," she explains. Sometimes restoring a garden will mean starting nearly from scratch. The grounds at Strawbery Banke, for instance, included areas where bulldozed houses had been backfilled with everything from old car parts to building remains. In such cases, Brockway uses old plans, photos, documents, and whatever else is available, including archaeological remains. Although we have now generally come to expect historic buildings to have appropriate plantings, when Brockway began her studies "you could look out the window of a historic home and no one would tell you what was out there." As a result of the work of Brockway and other pioneers, this has changed. Her influence on historic landscape preservation has earned her a Professional Development Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, several other research, planning and development grants from private and public foundations, and professional recognition from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Garden Club of America. Brockway thoroughly enjoys the variety and challenge of her work. Each garden is different. She has no favorite period or garden, "I love them all!" she states. One ongoing project on which she has worked for the past two years is the garden at Blithewold, the former home of the prominent Van Wickle family in Bristol, R.I. Now open to the public and run by the largely volunteer organization Save Blithewold, Inc., the problems at Blithewold involve limited funding and careful planning for multiple purposes. The plans must allow for new species and flexibility in the design to maintain the scientific and educational character of the gardens while also restoring the property's former splendor. And the grounds must be suitable for their occasional use for hire, such as weddings. Dealing with such an apparent paradox requires compromise and creative solutions by Brockway, other professional committee volunteers, and the Blithewold staff, which so far seem to be successful, if the beauty of the gardens is any measure. A further challenge for Brockway is combining a full work schedule with family life. She and her husband, Wayne '79, an accountant for the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, and Wells Water District, have three children, ages 8, 12, and 16. Brockway calls family life "a balancing act. If one thing gets out of balance, it begins to fall apart." One sacrifice is her own garden; in mentioning it Brockway refers to the "cobbler's children," although she says her garden is a family project that everyone enjoys. "I believe strongly in cultivating an appreciation for beautiful landscapes and historic places in children," she remarks. "I even brought my Girl Scout troop to help plant a restored garden border at the Jardin du Roi at Fort Ticonderoga." To complete an already full picture, Brockway has served as an adjunct professor at Boston University advising grad-uate students in landscape history and preservation. She also conducts workshops and lectures, sits on several boards, and contributes articles to professional journals. Perhaps Lucinda Brockway maintains her balance because her work prepares her to take the long view. With trees, she points out, "you think in terms of centuries instead of days." While evaluating how to structure a garden in terms of its past and its changing needs, Brockway also considers its future, because ultimately to re-create and preserve a garden is to carry its beauty forward in time. |
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