1 of 2
Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
The garden of Camille Butrus in Mountain Brook.
2 of 2
Photo courtesy of Anne Wrinkle.
Louise Wrinkle tends to flowers in her garden. Wrinkle is the author of “Listen to the Land: Creating a Southern Woodland Garden,” which is being reissued for the Open Days event celebration.
Louise Wrinkle said it wasn’t a “crisis,” but it was a “mid-life turnaround.”
“The first half of my life I was dedicated to horses, but then I sort of got into gardening in a big way,” she said.
It started when Wrinkle inherited her parents’ home on Beechwood Road in Mountain Brook more than 35 years ago, and she “had some decisions to make” about what to do with the property.
“I wanted to make it all natural, to look like it had always been there,” she said.
And now, the 92-year-old’s woodland garden is one that people from all over the metro area and beyond look to for inspiration. It will be one of four area gardens featured during the Garden Conservancy Open Days on May 4, the first time the event has been held in the city since 2009.
“My philosophy was ‘listen to the land;’ I wanted the land to speak for itself,” said Wrinkle, who is a founding member and director emerita of the Garden Conservancy. “I’ve got trees and hills and valleys and water, and I wanted to have everything as undisturbed as it could be, and pick out what was good and not have an imposed style on it, but let it be itself.”
Her daughter, Anne Wrinkle, said she’s had “great awe” for her mother’s horticulture expertise for a long time.
“She has really created a respect and an admiration and expertise for the subject, and local gardeners come to her for help as a mentor,” Anne Wrinkle said. “The Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Jemison Park — they consider her a great ally. She has really fostered a love of plants and letting nature speak for itself and decide what it wants to do.”
Camille Butrus, a Mountain Brook resident and board member for the Garden Conservancy, said Louise Wrinkle “has been a mentor to everybody in Birmingham who has gardens” — herself included.
Photo courtesy of Anne Wrinkle.
Louise Wrinkle tends to flowers in her garden. Wrinkle is the author of “Listen to the Land: Creating a Southern Woodland Garden,” which is being reissued for the Open Days event celebration.
“She has been enormously helpful to me; she made all sorts of suggestions, and they were perfect,” Butrus said.
The Butrus property, which features Italian gardens, a woodland garden, a greenhouse and citrus trees will also be featured during Open Days.
“There are a lot of different things to see,” Butrus said. “We bought the house in 1996, and I’ve been renovating the garden ever since. Every couple of years, I add something new.”
The other two gardens to be featured are called “The Dancer” and “Rooms with Views.” More information is available on the Garden Conservancy’s website.
Cliff Weathers, the director of communications for the Garden Conservancy, which is based in New York, said the restart of Open Days in the area is a “big return.”
“We understand that this is a very important garden region, and we’re happy to be back,” he said.
In addition to the four featured gardens, there are “so many other people with beautiful private gardens, so we hope this inspires something that can become a tradition again in the Birmingham area,” Weathers said.
Open Days will also include a special event the following day — the premiere of a new documentary film about Louise Wrinkle’s garden, which will be shown May 5 at 3 p.m. at Virginia Samford Theatre.
The film is the fifth in a documentary series, and it’s the first time the filmmakers have had the opportunity to interview the person who started the garden, Weathers said. “The film is Louise giving her perspective, and it creates a discussion about Southern gardens in general and what is a Southern garden,” he said.
It also includes interviews with “some of the biggest voices in gardening in the U.S.,” Weathers said.
The premiere of “A Garden in Conversation: Louise Agee Wrinkle’s Southern Woodland Sanctuary” will be followed by a panel discussion on Southern gardens, native plants and conversation.
It will also be coupled with the re-release of her book, “Listen to the Land: Creating a Southern Woodland Garden,” which sold out its first edition.
Anne Wrinkle said her mother’s book is “the story of her; part memoir and part garden documentation photographs, both her own and professional photography.”
“Her garden was featured in other publications, but this was her chance to write her own story,” she said. “It’s a guide for gardeners of all types, even beginning gardeners — it’s very user-friendly.”
The weekend will offer a chance for hundreds of people to experience some area residents’ private gardens, Weathers said. “These have not been open in any way in years, and this is an opportunity to see this physical artwork that they know about but they haven’t gotten a chance to see themselves.”
The Garden Conservancy Open Days event is set for May 4 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $5 for conservancy members and $10 for nonmembers. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit gardenconservancy.org.
For more information about Louise Wrinkle’s book and the documentary film about her gardens, visit louisewrinkle.com or order the book from Little Professor Bookshop.
