Garden Secrets of Bunny Mellon

Linda Jane Holden, Bryan Huffman, Thomas Lloyd

• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781423655411
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

A treasure trove of Bunny Mellon's garden design philosophy and advice from her personal archive.

Garden Secrets of Bunny Mellon is for anyone who has enjoyed time spent in a garden, from aspiring garden makers to those who manage large estates. This collection is comprised of extracts from Bunny's own writings and garden notes, as well as photographs and drawings from her archive.

Chapters are organized by Atmosphere (sky, horizon, shadows), Climate, Light, Space, Shape, Maintenance, and more?readers will feel as if Bunny Mellon has come alongside as a gardening guide and friend.

Bunny Mellon was of the affluent class and mingled along with her husband, Paul Mellon, in the circles of the East Coast gentry of the Kennedy and Reagan eras. But Mrs. Mellon, as she was respectfully called by those professional gardeners who worked with her most, wasn't snooty about social position or afraid to get her hands dirty in the rich soil of her family's Virginia farm. Beyond this, Bunny Mellon was known nationally and internationally as a style icon of her time, enjoying friendships with Givenchy, the Kennedys, and the like. Her personal passion was for design, and that was exhibited in her fashion and her garden.

A late acquaintance, Linda Holden learned that Bunny wanted to write a gardening book but never found the time. Searching the family's archive after Mrs. Mellon's death, the editors?whom all shared personal relationships with Bunny?discovered a trove of photographs, illustrations, and writings and have now turned it into the how-to gardening book Bunny had hoped to write.

Linda Jane Holden was a trusted friend of Bunny Mellon. She authored The Gardens of Bunny Mellon (October 2018). She lives in Chantilly, VA. Thomas Lloyd, grandson of Bunny Mellon, is president of the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation, established by Bunny Mellon to honor her father.Lloyd lives in Washington, DC. Bryan Huffman, an interior designer based in Monroe, NC, was a close friend of Mrs. Mellon for ten years. P. Allen Smith is the TV host of P. Allen Smiths Garden Home and P. Allen Smith's Garden to Table. He is a garden designer, conservationist, and lifestyle expert.

Bunny’s Garden Standards

“To become a good gardener, you have to spend time every day in the garden.”

Bunny’s garden standards are a result of her daily discipline of spending time in her gardens, pushing through the ups and downs, celebrating the successes and coping with the failures—all of which equal the sum total of any gardener’s experience, or anyone learning a new trade, for that matter. While Bunny considered all of her standards to be of the utmost importance, time spent in the garden was probably her number-one unspoken rule. If you don’t show up, then what’s the point?

One day, a friend, Babe Paley, came to her Oak Spring farm to learn about gardening and landscape design. Babe and her husband, William Paley, were in the throes of building a new estate on Long Island, and she looked to Bunny for advice. After a couple of days spent at the farm, Bunny let Babe in on this little secret: To become a good gardener, you have to spend time every day in the garden—which meant she’d have to curtail her social life. This was an incomprehensible thought, a foreign concept, to a woman who topped the New York City social register. Babe fled home to New York and sent her gardener back to Oak Spring instead.

The road that Bunny designed to pass through the flower-laden arbor between the garden and library to reach the east side of the farm.

Photo credit Bunny Mellon, © Thomas Lloyd, Gerard B. Lambert Foundation.

The pages of the garden book that Bunny drafted in her journals were probably intended for friends like Babe. “It would be short,” she said, most likely hoping it would actually be read. “A few suggestions that would encourage beginners and a few warnings not to overdo. No matter how you start, you will change your ideas with experience. If you are sincerely interested in the subject, experience will carry you along. Sometimes with disappointments, but they too sharpen and further your knowledge as you search for a replacement or another approach.”

Even after President Kennedy’s death, Bunny carried on and continued to dig in the Rose Garden, prune the trees, pull weeds, and give advice as the White House gardeners, successive presidents, and first ladies alike continued to reach out to her. And now, almost sixty years later, the garden speaks for itself. It has stood the test of time, remaining faithful to Bunny’s original plan, which was crafted on the s...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Rachel Lambert Mellon’s Story
• Bunny’s Garden Standards
• The Importance of Trees
• Flowers and Edibles
• Bunny’s Little Herb Trees
• In Summary