*Warning: long post ahead*
The late 1800’s was a period in American history known as the Gilded Age, when ‘robber barons’ made huge fortunes off industrialization, natural resource exploitation, and corrupt politics.
Art as an American profession was also coming into its own during this period, as the wealthy commissioned elaborate works for their homes and cities.
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire, preserves the historic home of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), one of America’s greatest sculptors of the Gilded Age, and founder of the Cornish Arts Colony. Saint-Gaudens came from relatively little wealth, but was a prolific and talented sculptor, winning large commissions early in his career. He established his home in Cornish and built studios and pleasure grounds for himself, his family, and the scores of people who worked for him, also drawing other artists to the beautiful countryside.
Diana, by Saint-Gaudens, at the Met
Saint-Gaudens was raised in New York City but studied sculpture in Europe. His style, though heavily influenced by European artists, was distinctly American, commemorating important events and figures from American history. He would often design and create plaster-molds in his American studio, but have the actual sculptures cast in Europe.
When Saint-Gaudens and his family first moved into their new home, they immediately set to work transforming the house, and hired the talented landscape designer, Ellen Shipman, to help design the grounds. Saint-Gaudens would spend the rest of his life continuously updating the landscape and gardens, relying heavily on European design features with an American twist.
One of Saint-Gaudens’ goals was for the grounds to be an extension of the house and studios, employing a hedge system to create a network of outdoor ‘rooms’.
The Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial honors the lives of black soldiers in the Civil War. It took Saint-Gaudens 14 years to complete and is enclosed by hedges.
Each room was designed to showcase one of his sculptures, which were large and often complex masterpieces. At the end of his life, the estate was a beautiful mix of formal gardens, studios, specimen trees, and sculptures.
The house, studios, and grounds were given to the National Park Service in 1965 and have been open to the public since. The Olmsted Center has done several projects with the site, helping to research and preserve the cultural resources of this unique landscape.
I was lucky enough to head up to Vermont and New Hampshire last week for site visits, and spent the day at Saint-Gaudens with some of the dedicated, passionate, and warm-hearted NPS staff that work there.
State Champion Thornless Honey Locust
What struck me consistently throughout my time at Saint-Gaudens — other than a magnificent State Champion thornless Honey Locust tree with a mindblowing diameter of almost 7 feet — were the unique hedges.
They extend for nearly 3,000 linear feet and consist of upwards of 1,500 plants, some of which are nearly 130 years old.*
Boring boxwood hedge
Although hedges are “both dynamic natural vegetation and static architectural features,” the ubiquitous, plain boxwood hedges (an exotic species) we see everywhere have never appealed to me before.
The hedges at Saint-Gaudens are different. They are composed of two species: Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) and Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), two conifers that are extremely common to the Northeast, and grow in a wide range of conditions. Yet it is a rare occurrence, especially in the landscapes of monied estates, for native and common species to play such a prominent role. Much more frequently, ornamental varieties of plants were imported from Europe to mimic the iconic landscapes of European gentry, while American plants were regarded as common and lower-class.
Not only are Saint-Gaudens’ formal hedges made up of common American trees, but they use species that are deeply linked with American land use history. The use of these common species in this elegant estate reflects a shift in the collective consciousness, whereby Americans came to understand that the landscape is affected by our human actions and that we are connected to the natural spaces around us.
Eastern Hemlock and White Pine Hedges at Saint-Gaudens NHS
The 19th century saw a rapid and comprehensive deforestation of much of New England, with Vermont and New Hampshire leading the charge in the early- to mid-1800’s. Pine, hemlock, and hardwoods were clear-cut across the countryside for a hungry timber industry, while sheep pastures and farms took their place. The soils in the region are skeletal – thin and rocky – and after a generation or two of cultivation, many crop fields and pastures were ultimately abandoned in favor of better agricultural land in the Midwest, newly opened to colonial settlers by the expansion of railroads and canals. As these barren New England hillsides were abandoned, the forests started to slowly come back. White pine, also known as Old-field pine, thrives in this kind of full-sun, exposed setting, and often was the first species to sprout. When Saint-Gaudens purchased his estate, it is likely that the dense forests that we know and love around the property were merely stands of young saplings.
In light of this land use history, it’s clear to see why white pine was used in the hedges at Saint-Gaudens. One can imagine that the gardeners simply walked into the hills and collected seedlings by the bushel, as white pine seedlings often grow in dense groups. The white pine seedlings, once transplanted in hedge formation, were hardy, thrived in the harsh New Hampshire winters, and responded well to heavy pruning; and with proper training, they grew happily into a well-defined hedge during those early years.
We don’t know when hemlock was introduced into the Saint-Gaudens hedges, but we know it was early, possibly during Saint-Gaudens’ lifetime. Hemlock is adaptable to a range of light conditions, but is one of the few large native trees that thrives in full shade, often maintaining a full canopy and maintaining its lower limbs. Hemlock was used widely during the 18th and 19th century for its tannins to supply a booming leather industry in New England, and was thus heavily cut. Hemlock was introduced to the hedges because some of the white pines were failing, potentially from self-shading or from shading from nearby structures. The white pine shades itself as it grows, causing the lower limbs to die and drop off. This makes it an excellent timber species, but complicates its use as a hedge plant. As hemlocks were planted to replace the white pines, a truly unique tapestry developed, of hemlocks and white pines intermingled in the dense hedge. White pine roots are thick and relatively deep, while hemlock roots are shallow and thinner, making these two species a happy couple when grown tightly together. Gradually, the white pine came to dominate the sunny “overstory” of the hedge, while hemlock occupied the shady “understory.” A match made in hedge-en, one might say.
And now for a short tangent that I promise will bring us back around again to white pine and eastern hemlock…
Forest dynamics in the natural landscape change over time. The miles of hillsides that
New Hampshire hillside with timber (1902, plymouth.edu)
were once a complex, shifting mosaic of old-growth pines, hemlocks, and hardwoods were cut extensively when settler Americans didn’t recognize the value of maintaining our natural ecosystems. Let’s take a little detour over to Vermont for a moment: Just across the border from Cornish, George Perkins Marsh saw the forest devastation and wrote the iconic Man and Nature in 1864, one of the first Western treatises on how humans can destroy the environment through their actions. This revolutionary tome influenced many early Western conservationists, such as Frederick Billings (1823-1890), who grew up near the Marsh estate in Vermont. Billings moved to California as part of the legal team for the Northern Pacific railroad, where he became involved in one of the earliest conservation efforts to preserve Yosemite after the expulsion of its native peoples. He later returned home to Vermont and bought the Marsh estate, transforming it into an applied research center for sustainable forestry. After his death in 1890, his wife and daughters took up the mantle, continuing the charge in progressive forestry and agriculture (the Billings Farm won top prize for having the “Champion Heifer of the World” at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the same fair where our namesake Frederick Law Olmsted devoted the last years of his working life… it was a much smaller world back then).
I don’t know for sure if Augustus Saint Gaudens interacted with the Billings family at their estate (now the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park), only 20 miles away, where I also had the pleasure of visiting; but I can only imagine that the two families knew of each other. The Billings family were early conservationists, and avid appreciators of the Hudson Valley School of Art,
Niagara Falls c 1830. By Thomas Cole
which memorialized the disappearing natural grandeurs of the country. Saint-Gaudens hobnobbed with those same painters through his leadership of the Cornish Arts Colony. I can only guess that the conservation ideals of the Billingses would have at least been known to Saint-Gaudens. Following from one conjecture to another, could not Saint-Gaudens have been influenced by early conservation ideals in choosing his hedge species? Might not the white pine and eastern hemlock saplings reflect an appreciation of and support for the disappearing natural grandeurs of the region?
Tying together the various threads presented here, the Saint-Gaudens hedges reflect the dynamic history of our American forests — from old-growth forest, to clear-cutting, to sustainable forestry. The hedges also reflect the changing ways that American culture has viewed our connection to the environment throughout history. They remind us of the early disappearance of our majestic forests due to overconsumption and the need to conquer the wilderness; they point to a slowly emerging conservationist attitude from some early thinkers; and finally, they continue to reflect shifting dynamics as climate change and globalization bring about new challenges. The hemlock woolly adelgid, an exotic pest, has ravaged the hemlock stands of the Appalachian south, and is slowly moving its way northwards. It is likely that hemlocks will all but disappear from the landscape within the next several decades. These historic hedges, still untouched by the pest, will undoubtedly reflect the shift in the coming years, and I’ll be curious to see how park managers will respond. Will we return to planting exotic species (Chinese hemlock is immune to the pest), hearkening back to our days of exotic plants, but with a newfound recognition of what we’ve lost? Will white pines come to dominate the hedge once more, or will they succumb to the also-exotic white pine blister rust?
Historically, wealthy families (such as the Billingses and Marshes) dominated in the conservation movement, and popular art was never far away, as the two subtly mirrored one another and struggled to understand how to best appreciate the natural gifts of our country in a uniquely American way. Perhaps the ever-shifting mosaic of this special hedge can continue to point us in the direction of a more inclusive, less static, and more nuanced understanding of our environment and how to care for it.
*All quotes and statistics herein, and many of the thoughts and ideas, came from John Auwaerter’s Hedge Management Plan for Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, 2008.
Designing the Parks 
“A match made in hedge-en”….too good.