From Judy Hallberg:
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| Winthrop Students enjoy the meadow. |
Sally’s
Pond, a part of the Ipswich Museum property on South Main Street adjacent to
the Whipple House, was created in 1975 as a memorial to Sally Lunt Weatherall, chairwoman
of the conservation commission of the town of Ipswich, who was instrumental in
the acquisition and planning for the Ipswich Riverwalk. Everyday, walkers, strollers,
pond-viewers or photographers visit this quiet pond in the meadow.
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| Walkers visit in December. |
A meadow
in a small urban setting is a rare thing. It benefits all by cleansing the air
and providing a refuge for small wildlife and a great variety of native
wildflowers. It is essential that the meadow be mowed once every year, in late
October or November, to prevent trees like Norway maple and sumac from taking
over. This annual mowing also prevents some invasive plants from overwhelming
everything else. For many years, the meadow was also mowed in July, cutting
down all the wildflowers that host and feed butterflies, dragonflies, and bees.
Following a summer when the July mowing was impossible due to heavy rains and
flooding, as the resident of the Whipple House and the Museum’s gardener, I
noted an obvious maturing of the wildflowers and an obvious increase in both
dragonflies and butterflies. I decided the following year to do only a late
fall one-time-per-year flat mowing of the entire meadow and see what that did
for the flora and desirable insect population. Again the result was an even greater
apparent increase in butterflies, notably monarchs because the milkweed, where
they cocoon, was left to mature. There are now clouds of beautiful
multi-colored dragonflies and, finally--bees, the good kind.
It is
accessible to walkers via paths maintained by the Ipswich Museum, which owns the
meadow, the pond, the woods on the south side and the trail along the river to
South Cemetery. There is a narrow but well-trodden trail into the northwest
corner of the meadow from the sidewalk at S. Main St. and a wide mowed path
around the pond is maintained by the Museum. Many people enter at that corner and
either continue along the riverside trail to the South Cemetery or, once they
reach the pond, take the meadow path east to the Whipple House back lawn and
then through the Whipple House gardens to South Village Green. In a winter with
sufficient natural ice, the pond is a favorite place for ice skating.
The
walking traffic has increased every year since I began having the wide meadow path
mowed in 2003. Groups of school children visit the meadow in the spring and in
September to see the butterflies and dragonflies and the wild plants. The wide
and comfortable mowed paths, safe from ticks and poison ivy, make this
possible. When the Knight House is finished, a mowed path into the meadow at
the Three-Sisters garden by the Whipple House driveway will be relocated to begin
at the sidewalk between that driveway and the Knight House.
All the
Ipswich Museum Gardens, most of which surround the Whipple House, are open to
the public at all times. The fenced 17th Century Housewife’s Garden
created by author Anne Leighton is viewed most often and a large area of the
Old Rose Garden, named for Margaret Austin, was restored and re-planted 4 years
ago. A new shade garden borders an access path into the rose garden from South
Village Green at the south east corner of the property. The Three-Sisters
garden is planted according to Wampanoag tradition with companion plantings of
corn, beans and squash and is in the meadow next to the Whipple House driveway.
An early 19th Century style Formal Garden is on the west side of the
Heard House, it’s entry sometimes obscured by a vigorous chestnut tree with low
hanging branches of large dense leaves.
I don't
know the names of most of the plants that grow in the meadow garden, but, as an
almost full-time gardener during the summer, it's a pleasure to wander along
those meadow paths and simply enjoy the flowers instead of trying to manage
them. I regularly trim around the bench to insure it is a comfortable spot to
sit and watch the wild life and I’ve added signs and frequently point visitors
to the paths. Soon, I hope, more people will be aware of the access paths to
Sally's Pond and will use them to discover this wilderness in miniature, here
in downtown Ipswich, just a 3-minute walk across a bridge from Zumi's. Is there
a better way to enjoy a latte than sitting on a purple bench beside a pond
blooming with water lilies, waiting for a visiting egret to float in on his
great white wings and settle silently in the reeds?
Judy Hallberg
Chairperson, Ipswich Museum Gardens Committee
Alicia
Moore follows up the delightful IGC's fieldtrip to Brave Boat Harbor Farm by
providing us with a charming article from the Piscataqua Papers entitled "Espaliered Fruit . Those of you
who were on the trip will remember the apples and pears that are espaliered on the house and along the walls of the formal front garden. Below is Alicia's email to Cynthia Hosmer which gives some background to this reading. Thank you Alicia for adding this to the memories of a wonderful day trip and to
Peter for scanning the article for our blog. 
