“Too much should not be explained about a garden.” So begins Bunny Mellon’s 1965 Vogue horticulture ode, “Green Flowers and Herb Trees.” Easter, and with it the arrival of spring blooms, seemed a perfect moment to revisit Mellon’s passionate defense of green plants: “Green flowers are enchanted flowers, magic flowers, the witches of the garden.” The wife of philanthropist Paul Mellon, Bunny (née Rachel Lambert) is closely associated with her glamorous social circle—she was a confidante to Jackie O., travel companion of Hubert de Givenchy, and host to Queen Elizabeth II shortly after her coronation. But it was Bunny’s unerring taste in garden and interior design that continues to leave an impression. She designed the now-beloved White House Rose Garden for the Kennedys, as well as the burial site at Arlington National Cemetery for President Kennedy.
Her sprawling Oak Spring farm in Upperville, Virginia was Bunny’s experimentation ground and it is there where she claims to have invented the herb tree. Described in the below article and accompanied by photographs at the farm by Horst P. Horst, Bunny says she spent years tinkering with shaping herb plants such as rosemary, thyme, and santolina into mini topiarys ranging from 10 inches to three feet tall. “She brings to gardening a strong grain of discipline…and a rare sympathy with growing things,” reads the caption of Horst’s photo of Bunny leaning out of her arched shutters. “She seems to be, simply, in cahoots with them.”
She would then gift them to friends, and for those who cooked “the trimming of the tree [became] the flavor of the stew.” Since the rediscovery of this article I have purchased my own rosemary tree and put Bunny’s advice to the test: “A pinched leaf of rosemary, thyme, or santolina will bring the scent of a country garden into any room.” This Easter weekend, let us all take time to enjoy bunnies of all varieties. |
