The Quarterly Journal of the Mary May Binney Wakefield Arboretum ___________________________________

Volume Four, Issue 2 - Winter 2022

As a young woman, Polly found her true calling in protecting special places. Like others before her, Polly’s passion for and understanding of “sense of place” helped protect and restore many wonderful places that we enjoy every day. Polly’s involvement with the Noanett Garden Club was only the beginning of her associations with important conservation organizations and efforts, including the Blue Star Highway Committee, The Friends of the Public Garden, and the effort to stop the construction of the Southwest Expressway through the Fowl Meadow.

Started in 1923 and headed for the first decade by her relative Louisa Frothingham, this very special club brought Polly into a fertile incubator with women who would influence her throughout her lifetime including Mrs. Walter Hunnewell of Wellesley's renowned Pinatum and Amelia Peabody, accomplished philanthropist and sculptor from Dover, who would create several of the animal sculptures Polly displayed in her garden. Like other early garden clubs, the members' initial activities focused on gardening and expeditions to outstanding gardens and notable natural areas such as the Harvard Forest and Rhododendron Swamp in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. The Noanett Club joined the Garden Club of America (GCA) in 1926 at a time when its primary focus was conservation and this became an important focus for Noanett.

A publication entitled A History of Conservation and National Affairs & Legislation The Garden Club of America outlines the premise that led to its creation: "The founding of GCA in 1913 (three years before the creation of the National Park system in 1916) was not a random occurrence. The founders of GCA, as gardeners, were in a unique position to reflect on the natural world and man’s influence, for good or bad, on it. As women of intellect and education, they decided to band together, pool their knowledge and resources, and act. It should be remembered that conservation as a founding idea was a novel concept and it is a credit to the imagination and sensibilities of the founding members of GCA that preservation of the natural world should be a goal.”

Within the context of Noanett, Polly would be witness to GCA's significance and potential influence. Polly would also devote her efforts to another national garden organization to which Noanett was a member: the National Council of State Garden Clubs (NCSGC and later known as the National Garden Clubs), an organization "dedicated to preserving our earth’s natural resources through community civic beautification and environmental conservation."

And the founding statement for the GCA organization mirrors what would become a description of Polly's life work: “To stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening among amateurs, to share the advantages of association through conference and correspondence, in this country and abroad; to aid in the protection of native plants and birds, and to encourage civic planting,”¹ and the NGCs "conservation pledge" seems like it could have been her mantra: "I pledge to protect and conserve the natural resources of the planet earth and promise to promote education so we may become caretakers of our air, water, forest, land, and wildlife."²

With the world focused on WWII at the time she joined Noanett, Polly, like many women, was already hard at work at the Milton property doing work in the landscape that would normally have been completed by men. In 1944, the New Jersey State Council of Garden Clubs created "a living memorial to the men and women of the Armed Forces" of the state, beautifying a 5½-mile stretch of U.S. 22 by planting over 8,000 dogwood trees. Cornus florida, or white flowering dogwoods, were chosen because it was considered the state's most beautiful native tree.  "The ‘Blue Star,’ taken from the blue star in the service flag, was chosen to symbolize the memorial because it was used during World War II on flags and homes of families that had a son or daughter in the service." In January of 1945, this stretch of highway was designated "Blue Star Drive."

The New Jersey State Highway Commissioner, Spencer Miller, Jr. called upon garden clubs in other states to follow their lead, asking the National Council of the GCA to not only participate in this memorialization by designation of the highway but to carry it further pursuing a general beautification program through memorial plantings of native trees and shrubs, special features such as roadside rest areas, bird sanctuaries, playgrounds and through the elimination of blighted areas. The National Council echoed his ideas stating, "We urge strong protective measures also, through planning, zoning, and voluntary cooperation in improving roadside standards. The Blue Star Memorial Highway should serve as a demonstration area for ALL approved practices in Conservation, Horticulture, Safety and other fields of Garden Club interest," and quoted Miller’s statement, "But if we fail of full realization, we can at least go forward with the knowledge that we are helping to redeem our times and to build a civilization which is fit for free men, for we shall be helping to build America the beautiful."³

By 1946, another national garden organization, the National Council of State Garden Clubs (NCSGC and later known as the National Garden Clubs), was also making a call to action, suggesting that the project provided the opportunity for the State Garden Clubs to utilize the roadsides for some type of a living memorial of native material designed and developed in such a way as "to recognize the genius and contribution of each state or Garden Club." The goal went beyond placing markers. The broader objective encompassed not just memorialization, but also beautifying roadsides, improving vehicular safety, while also providing sanctuary for native plants and animals. In a 1948 address, Mrs. Vance Hood of Boonton, New Jersey, the first Chairman of the Blue Star Memorial Highway program articulated that "The project was organized as a demonstration of roadside beautification, to show what could be accomplished through united strength, as a protest against billboards, to educate the public to higher standards of roadside development."⁴ As these clubs began to take on a more affirmative and demonstrative posture, the project was viewed as affording an opportunity for the members of NCSGCs to demonstrate what can be done in the area of citizen-government cooperation.  Mrs. Hood acknowledged, "Today the citizen too frequently feels a sense of frustration in his or her inability to do anything constructive about many of the perplexing problems of our time except send letters of protest to Congressmen or Legislators or exercise the primary right of petition." Responding to this call, the NCSGCs began to sponsor a nationwide effort to create the Blue Star Memorial Highway program to pay tribute to the Armed Forces that had defended the United States.⁴

From Polly's own pamphlet entitled, "Plantings on the Blue Star Memorial Highway in Massachusetts 1949-74," we learn a great deal about the challenges, successes, disappointments, and impact of the Blue Star Highway initiative. As is the case with other writing by Polly, this text belies a broader understanding of horticulture and landscape architecture than probably intended as she shares this anecdote: "People who come to Massachusetts for the first time are often surprised by the severity of the climate, the extremes of below-freezing temperatures that may last for weeks (sometimes without a protective covering of snow) and the long periods of drought with often occur during the hot summers, added to its proverbially stony soil, make survival difficult enough for plants without the addition of the searing winds that sweep down highway corridors at all seasons. Plants that grow along the Blue Star Memorial Highway have all these elements to contend with. Those which are added after the highway is constructed, are chosen not only for their aesthetic value and their hardiness but for their practical value as well. Plantings are made to prevent soil erosion, to provide ground covering that does not need mowing, to form shelterbelts and buffer strips to hide unattractive sights; to frame views; to lessen the noise of the traffic; to cut down the glare of oncoming headlights or to accent intersections and the edges of curves. In short, when well planned and executed, good highway planting can add immeasurably to the interest, variety, and beauty of the highway as well as to its safety and economy of maintenance."

The pamphlet also elaborates on the massive scale of Polly's Blue Star initiative in Massachusetts over the course of those three decades. The plantings, which included masses of ground cover, thousands of bulbs, and hundreds of flowering trees to create "an effective drift" of color, also served the purpose of cutting down the glare from oncoming headlights to make night driving safer, and stabilize slopes to prevent erosion. By 1954, the plantings included sassafras, shad, sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum), native dogwoods and hawthorns, flowering crabapples, red and white pines, maples, ashes, oaks, willows, serviceberry, inkberry, laurel, chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia and melanocarpa), Genista tinctoria, hypericums, bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), and masses of lowbush blueberry sods. As gifts of plants for the new highway came from the Arnold Arboretum and garden clubs in the 60s, the plant palette expanded further to include over 150 trees and shrubs selected for their ornamental value and hardiness including rare varieties such as Prunus maackii, unusual varieties of cherries, ash, mountain ash, lilacs, ninebarks, and viburnums. The planting of the roadsides in Hopkinton was the most stunning accomplishment. Faced with the more difficult task of planting in "low wet areas, hills, and dramatic outcroppings of rock through which the highway" had been cut, Polly conferred with members of the Roadside Development section of the DPW about the soil and climate variations unique to the site and consulted with Edmund Mezitt of Weston Nurseries located nearby. In addition to advice, he contributed $50,000 of plant material chosen to blend with native vegetation and adapt well to the site including paper birch, swamp, and pinkshell azaleas, fothergillas, and varieties of Rhododendron carolinianum and maximum. The vestiges of plantings along I-495 are still visible today and represent wonderful examples of the Blue Star Memorial project, and are "a true example of citizen-government cooperation."⁵

By the 1950s, the GCA Conservation Committee already had a long list of accomplishments to its credit and began focusing on new areas of concern, stating it now had to facilitate translation of "the principles of conservation into personal action, and thus encourage others to recognize our responsibility for our natural resources.” GCA leadership was testifying on Capitol Hill in the late fifties about “Problems Encountered by the Massive Broadcasting of Highly Toxic Pesticides.” Spurred on by the extraordinary success of Rachel Carson’s landmark book Silent Spring, this was an issue that was resonating with garden clubs nationwide and was of great concern to Polly Wakefield. The GCA's position was that “The majority of insecticides often used as massive sprays from planes, kill birds, fish, animals, and insects of all kinds – good as well as bad. We should make our voices heard in Washington.” Clubs began to study this issue and individual members including Polly organized voluminous mail campaigns to legislators raising concern about damage to wildlife resulting from the use of highly toxic chemicals in spray programs as well as the need for state billboard legislation. The GCA advocated this strategy: first, rouse the public, then educate, and finally, take adequate action.  As one member reported, “This we must do, or our grandchildren will spend their lives regretting our apathy.”⁶

In Massachusetts, Polly's committee was also grappling with the confusing re-numbering of the highways to create an elaborate interconnected system of highways or interstates with even-numbered roads traveling east to west and odd-numbered roads traveling north to south. By 1967, it was clear that no part of Route 1, which had been the site of Massachusetts' first Blue Star plantings "would ever permit the full realization of the objectives of the Memorial in Massachusetts." Some of the extensive plantings Polly had organized were inadvertently or intentionally clear-cut, and commercial development had been allowed. The significance of the Blue Star Highway began to fade. Polly shared her disappointment: ”Much of the celebrated plantings have been displaced by highway "improvements"(safety fencing, incursions on the center strip and general reconstruction.)" Nonetheless unsinkable, Polly's committee devised an important off-shoot that would sustain the program: "Blue Star By-ways." The plantings of this initiative, mostly located at Massachusetts' signature rotaries or parkways, enabled the model to persist and gain even greater and sustained notoriety. In many cases, these Blue Star By-way plantings are done by prominent garden clubs who also commit to their maintenance (e.g. Chestnut Hill Garden Club maintains the stunning Blue Star plantings near Putterham Circle). Because they are located in neighborhoods, and sometimes even sited in settings of natural beauty and public engagement, they can be enjoyed during a pause or at least at a lower speed while driving.

The Fowl Meadow is a beautiful expanse of wildlife habitat, home to dozens of species of birds, mammals, amphibians, and fish - from great blue herons to river otters - including numerous threatened or endangered species, including the Blue Spotted Salamander and Least Bittern.  The area is rich in historical and archeological resources that date back 10,000 years to the Paleo Indian Period. The Neponset River flows through the meadow which stretches nearly 8 miles through Milton, Canton, Westwood, Norwood, Dedham, Sharon and Hyde Park. 

In addition to providing wildlife with critical habitat areas, the wetlands of the Fowl Meadow serve as an important flood control barrier along the Neponset River. After heavy rains, the wetlands soak up excess water and then release it slowly over the course of several weeks. This sponge effect helps to reduce the peak river levels during floods, helps recharge underground aquifers, and prevents water from rushing downstream – potentially causing property damage downstream in Hyde Park and Dorchester.  The wetlands of the Fowl Meadow are a key part of the Neponset River watershed that recharge numerous wells that provide drinking water for tens of thousands of people who live in Canton, Dedham, and Westwood. (NepRWA). https://www.neponset.org/ 

Despite their advocacy and pleas to save the Fowl Meadow, the project appeared fait accompli. 

In a letter Polly wrote to Harvard Law School Professor Charles Harr in January, 1966 she warned: “The threat to the Reservation is no longer a potential one, it is an actual one…The Southwest Expressway has been recommended to proceed throughout the entire length of this portion of the Fowl Meadow along its easterly bank. This callous disregard for the beauty of this extensive natural open-space watershed area is only exceeded by the complete disregard for human safety.” 

Fearing the Fowl Meadow might be next, Polly intensified her advocacy as well, contacting people in the Johnson administration. In a 1966 letter to First Lady Ladybird Johnson, she emphasized the social benefit and value of the Fowl Meadow’s open space for generations to come. Her letter to the First Lady quotes Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas’ Wilderness Bill of Rights: “Wilderness areas are, or should be, teaching areas. Every county in the land should have at least one and cities too, where it is too late to save a nearby swamp, a meadow, a stand of woods. An outdoor teaching area is...priceless.”⁷

She continued, describing to the First Lady the meadow’s multiple benefits, including open space and recreation, habitat for wildlife, and flood control for thousands of homes in adjacent communities. Despite the highways impacts on these and other attributes of the meadow, she was most concerned about the loss of wilderness and natural beauty: “In my comments to you I shall confine my comments to the contamination, defamation and desecration of one of the most beautiful and extensive wildlife areas in eastern Massachusetts.” 

According to the Rev. Thomas Corrigan, who became chairman of the Greater Boston Coalition on the Transportation Crisis, “the highway builders made a decision that provided the final element for the protest movement. Until that time, it was still largely an urban movement. Unless the suburbs were drawn in, the highways would continue to move toward the city.” Looking back at the effort, Rev. Corrigan reflected on what cemented the urban-suburban alliance that became such a powerful social movement: “Then the DPW moved ahead with plans to build a segment of the highway through a wildlife sanctuary in the suburbs.  In one stroke they brought to our organization the conservationists and the environmentalists — the middle- and upper-class suburbanites who had in existence a powerful lobby at the State Capitol.” ⁸

Recently, Ellen Anderson, a Boston resident who was friends with the Milton group, recalled a story from that time: “Here is an interesting story told to me by Elizabeth Houghton: She says that she and her group in Milton, of which Polly was a member, were very close to Jesse Sargent, Frank's wife. He was waffling about what to do and she was firmly against the whole Southwest Expressway. Elizabeth says Jesse was the one who finally prevailed with him. All of those women worked to keep Fowl Meadow and the Neponset River protected until they died.”  

In the end, a citizen lawsuit stopped the proposal. In a remarkable press conference, Governor Sargent went on statewide television the night of February 11, 1970, to talk to the people of Massachusetts about his decision to stop the highway project. Former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Jim Alioso describes the event: “What Sargent said that night provoked gasps among many who had never heard a Governor publicly admit error. ‘Four years ago, I was the commissioner of the Department of Public Works – our road-building agency. Then, nearly everyone was sure highways were the only answer to transportation problems for years to come. We were wrong. . . Are we really meeting our transportation needs by spending most of our money building roads? The answer is no.’”

- Jim Aliosi ⁹

Boston Public Garden in fall. photo credit: flicker

It is hard to imagine that the public garden we enjoy today was originally part of an area of Boston known as Round Marsh. Round Marsh was a tidal marsh inundated with water at high tides from the Charles River. In 1821, a dam was built that separated Round Marsh from the Charles River creating a large fetid mudflat. In 1828, the City began to fill in the marsh, intending the land to be sold for house lots. Fortunately, city residents banded together to keep the land open and in 1938 a group of Bostonians headed by Horace Gray obtained a lease from the city of Boston and incorporated the “Proprietors of the Botanic Garden in Boston” charged with creating the Public Garden on the filled land west of Charles Street. The city eventually granted ownership to the group and they appointed a board of trustees. Although the marsh was not completely filled at this time, gardeners began laying out the garden adding trees, roses, herbaceous plants and a boardwalk. The proprietors also imported hundreds of tulips from Europe and the garden slowly grew in popularity. An old circus building near the Charles and Beacon Street intersection was purchased and filled with tropical plants and rare birds. There was also a collection of more than one thousand camellias, which were a great attraction for Bostonians.

Over the next 150 years the garden went through many changes. Horace Gray and his organization went bankrupt and the city took over management. In 1860, the city of Boston hosted a contest to design a plan for the park’s extension and improvement. The contest was won by a young architect named Robert Meachem and many of the design elements he included were added to the design. Although he did not design Commonwealth Avenue Mall, the Public Garden, or the Boston Common, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. either modified already existing plans or implemented new plantings and pathways during the development of a series of linked parks, the “Boston’s Emerald Necklace” in the 1870s. In 1897, the first subway station was built changing the configuration and size of the garden. Finally, the Great Depression was the beginning of a slow decline that lasted into the 1970s. Trees and other plant material began to decline significantly. A quote from Polly’s article in Arnoldia stated: “…in the 1950’s and 60’s games of frisbee were played to disastrous effect on the tulips. Trees began dying and the staff shrunk in size. The wear and tear caused by hippies and others was 24 hours a day.” 

Polly's role as the Chairman of the Garden’s Horticultural Planning Committee could not have been better suited for her- the skills she had acquired as a horticulturalist and organizer were instrumental, giving her a special ability to bring the teams together, and assign tasks for taking care of the park. In her personal papers Polly writes of different experiments with plant material: “…we are experimenting with the area by Newbury Street. Five Chinese dogwoods hated it and regressed each winter, but the nearby Japanese maple loves it! Two cornelian cherries are placed there in fresh soil. Meanwhile, the dogwoods are thriving on Charles Street near the great poplar and nearby the Robin Hill Pink Shadblow blooms against backgrounds of dark purple leaved smoke bush.”

Another personal note by Polly provided a note of humor when dealing with many issues of a well-used public space: “The garden is not always as peaceful as it appears to be on the surface. Life in the garden is always full of surprises. I promised Henry (Henry Lee, then President of the Friends) not to go into all of them now but one must have definitely been a first!! At a meeting, one of our directors mentioned how pleasantly surprised she had been to see a nice-looking young man digging a hole for a young flowering tree. Wherefrom I announced that 3 of our recently planted crabapple trees on the bank near the bridge were missing-----Silence----then the awful truth dawned! …After some weeks of sleuthing a young man was identified and queried. He admitted he had done the deed because he thought they would look better near Arlington Street! He was sorry he caused an inconvenience and the gardeners returned the trees to their position near the bridge and watered them faithfully for the rest of the season." 

The Friends hard work ultimately paid off and Polly makes a clear note of this in an undated notebook: “This is the first time I have felt that planting in the garden was nearing completion. The main lines are done and we can add touches here and there filling gaps somehow, it is a relief.  A schedule of pruning and feeding should be undertaken by skillful people. Emergency measures are not in the best interests of the trees nor is giving the job to the lowest bidders. Middle-aged trees in the garden whilst should have years of magnificence ahead of them show the results of this intermittent care.”

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