The Herb Garden
Excerpt from the Bedford Times Register, 1972
Since the Club’s founding growing herbs has always been of interest to the group. One of the original members, Helen Civiletto, owned an herb farm on Richmond Road. This farm was the first licensed herb nursery in Ohio. It is not surprising that this interest provided the groundwork for what was to come.
The Herb Garden, dearest to the hearts of this generation’s members, took seed as an idea in 1960. However, it was not until 1972 that the dream became a reality. The Bedford Historical Society asked the Garden Club to plant a garden befitting an historical building, something for the public to enjoy on the grounds of the Historical Museum. The Club chose to do an Herb Garden. Chairwoman, Mrs. Helen Telzrow went to the drawing board and came up with the design. David Telzrow and Wilbur Bright staked the area. Mr. Roseman’s Boy Scout Troop trimmed and cleaned up the debris. With the cooperation of City Manager William Schuchart and City Landscaper, Mike Bucur, railroad ties were laid and beds filled with the proper soil mixture During this time another committee worked on the surrounding area to make it presentable. Carr Brothers donated gravel; Koltcz Concrete Block Company, sand and edging blocks; Frank Washko, old bricks and a large flint millstone; Barbara McDaniel, a small millstone; and Ruth Miller, a sundial in memory of her sister, Catherine Chaffee. The sundial, vandalized in 1996, was later found along the railroad track.
Excerpt from the Bedford Times Register, 1972 with its bronze marker missing. (The dial, en-graved “in memory of Catherine Chaffee,” is stored in the Bedford Historical Museum, awaiting return to the garden.) Miss Chaffee was an herb fancier who studied and raised herbs for many years as a hobby. Mrs. Catherine Burlage offered her greenhouse to germinate seeds for a variety of herbs.
The traditional design layout included four sections: a gold, culinary, fragrant, and white garden, much like an herb garden of old when drugstores did not frequent every corner. It was planned to incorporate colors, scents, cooking and medicinal herbs, all aesthetically pleasing. One could enter the garden where the eye would be greeted with rose and white mallow, blue Russian sage and rue, purple lavender, yellow yarrow, pink fairy roses, magenta monarda, chartreuse lady’s mantle, white feverfew, silver-gray lambs-ears and artemisia. Visitors could experience scents of soft lavender, spicy scented-leaf geraniums, pungent oregano or delicate pineapple sage permeating the air with their fragrances. Rosemary, tarragon, lemon or caraway thyme, fennel, clary sage (eye-bright), comfrey and lovage added visual, as well as aromatic textures. In total, sixty five different types of herbs and four special shrubs filled the garden design. Herbs for the Club’s Fall sale were harvested from this area. Thyme for the savory herb mustard, chive blossoms and tarragon to flavor the vinegars, sage and lovage dried for cuisine, and crafts from natural foliage were chosen for favored items.