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A Chunk of Heaven Gardening with the late, great Elsa Bakalar. By Maggie Meehan chunk of heaven. This was one gardener’s description of the late Elsa Bakalar’s teaching garden in the Northern Berkshires of Massachusetts. For the 12 students who had come to learn, the title was apt. We ranged in age from 30 to 60. Some of us were professional landscape architects who had found their education in “plant material” sadly lacking; some were beginner gardeners; some were skilled and just thirsting for more. All were thrilled to be there. Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum had promised that the weekend workshop would provide an in-depth understanding of perennials. It was 1991, and as a novice, I was all-in on that prospect. The two-hour journey for me seemed trivial compared to that of others Compost and who had traveled from Maine and Rhode Island. But any journey was worthwhile for organic matter hands-on learning from a woman the Arnold first, flowers Arboretum described as “the doyenne of second: “You perennial gardeners.” want a $10 hole In the years to come, Elsa Bakalar became not only my mentor, but my friend. I took my for a $2 plant.” “Gardening Fools” pal Marge to meet her when Bakalar’s long-awaited book, A Garden of One’s Own, was published in 1994. Another year, I introduced my mother to Elsa when she came to visit from England. Sadly, Elsa Bakalar died in 2010 at the age of 91. Her dear husband, Mike, had preceded her, and I know she was lost without her companion. (She once told me the story about the time she received a bareroot plant she’d ordered from a mail-order nursery and Mike remarked, “Someone 60
