One afternoon last July,
as Juliet Ordon (at left in photo) and Rhobie Langwig were toiling over a
transplanting project in Jackson's Garden, a couple settled down on a blanket
with a fancy lunch, fine china and glasses of champagne.
“This is it,” they excitedly told the gardeners. “This is the
exact place where we got married 30 years ago.”
Just as the Hans Groots Kill bubbles its way through the secluded eight-acre
garden and woodland, so does a steady stream of humanity: the man reading a book
while his dog chews a stick, bike-riding teens taking a shortcut to Nott Street,
an elderly alumnus showing his grandchildren the rare ginko tree.
“It was really strange,” recalls Langwig, a sophomore. “We
would be weeding and planting and all of these people would be coming through to
admire the flowers and just get some peace and quiet.”
The two 1999 graduates of Schoharie High School, friends since the age of 10,
found their calling – and their serenity – in Jackson's Garden this
summer. “This was very peaceful and low stress,” the pair said of
their summer jobs. “The rabbits came out and chewed on the flowers, but we
left them alone.
Save for the occasional wail of a siren or the screech of tires, there
is little hint of the city nearby. This is a place of solace, an escape from the
bustle of the urban world, a retreat from the toils of academia, a place known
for its restorative powers.
In fact, we have indigestion to thank for Jackson's Garden. President
Eliphalet Nott in 1831 suggested to mathematics professor Isaac W. Jackson that
working the soil could remedy his problem with digestion. Jackson's therapy
lasted nearly 50 years, and successive gardeners have molded his vision into a
celebrated parcel of landscape architecture at the northwest corner of campus.
Except for a few species that prefer drier conditions,
plants in the garden thrived this year. Figwort, in the southwest corner of the
garden, towers some twelve feet with leaves the size of trashcan lids. “We
did a lot of weeding, especially this year with all the rain,” said Ordon,
a sophomore education major at the College of Saint Rose, whose mother, Bea,
worked in Campus Safety and now in the Annual Fund.
“It was nice when people stopped by and complimented the garden,”
said Langwig. “We're no gardeners. We just planted this stuff and somehow
it lived.”
“This job was totally different from what we've done in the
past,” said Ordon, referring to their previous summer jobs at Howe Caverns,
where the air is a humid 52 degrees. Langwig was lucky enough to work as a
parking lot attendant. Ordon rarely saw the sun.
“I'll never look at the garden the same way,” said Langwig.
“I'll always be looking for weeds.”