In honor of National Gardening Day I honor Florence Griswold: her garden, museum & home located in Old Lyme, CT. It is one of my favorite places on earth. It is a “road trip” I make several times during the summer months. It’s a place I go to recharge my batteries, where I take my Dad for a picnic; where I would bring my Mom for her birthday or Mother’s Day; it’s a place I take newcomers or visitors to my beautiful home state, Connecticut. The Florence Griswold Museum and Gardens fills all of the senses; the visible, invisible, and the ethereal, are palpable at every turn: PEACE. BEAUTY. HISTORY. GARDENS. LOVE. ART. LANDSCAPES. SCULPTURE. NATURE. EDUCATION. KNOWLEDGE. TRUTH.
ABOUT FLORENCE GRISWOLD
One of four children of a ship captain, Miss Florence was born on Christmas Day, 1850 and raised in the finest house on the main street of a thriving Connecticut town. Old Lyme, a center of shipbuilding and commerce, was established in the early 1600s and counted the Griswolds among the town’s oldest families. Their Late Georgian-style mansion, built in 1817 on a twelve-acre estate, was purchased by Captain Robert Griswold for his bride Helen Powers in 1841. The family’s and the town’s fortunes reversed, however, as a result of the Civil War and the invention of steam-powered vessels. To survive financially the Griswolds turned their home into a school and eventually a boarding house. By the late 1890s only Miss Florence was left to maintain the family homestead. Soon she, and the town, would transform and survive in unexpected ways (from the About Florence Griswold section on the FGM website).
A QUOTE ABOUT GARDENS
“A weed is but an unloved flower.” ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox
MY WISH FOR YOU TODAY
I wish you the foresight and wisdom to cultivate what you’ve got in this moment.