An empty patch of dirt surrounds a young American elm tree between Sabin-Reed Hall and Lyman Plant House. Its slight canopy barely shades the earth below, where a sign advertises a new collection of flowering plants for “teaching and learning.” The roots of the American elm have been uncovered; they are pale and unaccustomed to sun. A year from now, this bed will be unrecognizable: a burst of yellow, purple and white blooms.
Lily Carone, the Landscape Curator at Smith College, met me by Lanning Fountain at 10:31 a.m. She is overseeing efforts to plant an aster garden around the American elm in June. From mid-August to late October, the flowers will bloom, returning each fall.
Carone has worked at Smith for five years, first as a horticulturalist in the botanic garden, and now as the Landscape Curator for the past year and a half.
Colin Hoag, a professor who teaches a Botanophilia course at Smith, helped to design this new aster collection. Each plant will be grown from seed and is native to the United States, spanning from the Midwest to the Northeast. The species selection, chosen randomly based on availability, will showcase the distinct evolutionary adaptations of the plant family Asteraceae, which includes sunflowers, dandelions and dahlias. The plant family is so vast that scientists have organized it into 13 subfamilies, dividing them further into tribes.
“We’re developing a collection that aims to teach about taxonomy in general by displaying the breadth of those groups with Asteraceae species native to the region—broadly speaking, extending to places with similar climates west of here—and belonging to an array of tribes,” said Carone.
The new garden will contain aster from six of the 13 tribes, with 10 species planted in total.
Three of these species will be varieties of goldenrod, members of the Solidago and Euthamia genera, a classification of closely related organisms. Goldenrod has been celebrated for its genetic diversity that supports the lives of native birds, bees and butterflies, as well as its medicinal attributes, first harnessed by Indigenous Americans generations before European settlers arrived.
The Lakota, native to the Great Plains, named goldenrod waȟčáziblu or pežíhuta zí, meaning yellow medicine. The Ojibwe, native to the northeast along the Atlantic Coast, named them giizisomashkiki, or sun medicine. It was not until 1753 that Linnaeus, the Swedish biologist who developed the system of binomial nomenclature in his Species Plantarum, gave them the name Solidago, which comes from the Latin words solidus (“whole”) and ago (“to do”), which together mean “to heal” or “to make whole.”
The leaves of goldenrod are rich in antioxidants. They can be dried and brewed into a tea that treats urinary tract infections, inflammation, sore throats, and digestive disorders. The leaves contain tannins, which have a tightening effect and can be used to staunch bleeding. The goldenrod’s medicinal abilities include antiviral, antimicrobial, antiseptic, and anti-fungal properties.
Long before Carone worked at Smith, a beech tree grew where the aster garden will be planted.
Its full canopy provided the perfect environment for ferns and other low-light plants to grow in the garden below. When the tree got sick 20 years ago, it was removed and replaced with the elm that stands there now. Since then, there have been few landscaping efforts to fill in the soil below, and weeds have surrounded the base of the elm since it was planted.
Last month, the weeds were cleared from beneath the tree, and the root invigoration process began. This process repairs damaged soil and promotes healthy growth in young trees. The largest roots were unearthed and exposed to air, charcoal and compost, all necessary to keep the tree happy and the soil prepared to support a new garden.
The seeds that will be planted here in the summer are currently being kept in coolers inside the greenhouse. Although they could be planted in the ground now–because they need to experience the cold, wet conditions of winter in order to flower next fall–keeping them in the greenhouse allows for more control and data collection.
As Landscape Curator, it’s Carone’s job to balance ecological and environmental response with aesthetic value expected in gardening and landscape architecture.
“People are crazy; we’re all mixed up in this work of changing our environment…it’s just insane what we’re doing anyway,” said Carone.
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