A Walk Through the Garden With Ellen Petersen

In Ellen Petersen’s Stanford garden, time folds in on itself. On a warm afternoon in July, the air is quiet but vibrant with scent and motion: bees circle blossoms, grasses sway gently, and a 30-foot-wide patch of Sporobolus heterolepis (prairie dropseed) hums with subtle activity. It is here, in the hush of her 7-acre landscape, that Petersen has conjured a series of distinct yet connected worlds, each rich in botanical character and steeped in thoughtful design.

The centerpiece of one such world, one thoughtful corner of Petersen’s living landscape, is a massive Magnolia ashei, a rare species native to the American Southeast with prehistoric roots. Its leaves are as broad as dinner plates, and its seed pods — fist-sized and otherworldly — hang like relics of deep time. “Other than ginkgo, this is the oldest living plant,” Petersen said. “It really does look like it’s from the dinosaur era.” The tree’s presence, towering and quiet, conjures not just shade but awe. If you look long enough, you find yourself transported to a mystic realm, free from the relentless forward march of time.

Petersen moved to Stanford with her late husband in 1981 and began with almost nothing: “There was a really old, gnarly apple tree, one peony, two Clematis, some Iris, and a Lupinus that died instantly,” she recalled. “The oak tree was planted for my husband’s 40th birthday.” The house, like the garden, grew organically over the decades. “My mother said we should have torn it down and started all over again — it’s a very eccentric, strange house, but it suits us.”

Self-taught at first, Petersen expanded her knowledge after relocating to Westchester, Pennsylvania. “We lived there for eight years and I took every single course offered at Longwood Gardens,” she said, referring to the renowned public horticulture institution near Kennett Square. “That was how I educated myself for all this.” Today, she serves on the boards of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Innisfree Garden in Millbrook.

Fragrance plays a guiding role in her planting philosophy. “People don’t realize how much scent is part of gardening,” she said. “You can’t always smell it up close, but it’s there in the air.” Her favorites include Hamamelis (witch hazel), Lindera benzoin (spicebush), and Calycanthus × raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine’, a deep red hybrid with a scent reminiscent of its name.

“My son once said, ‘Mom, what is that smell?’,” Petersen recalled. “It was February. We were outside and I said, ‘That’s witch hazel.’ He stuck his nose in and said, ‘No way.’ But it was. The scent was just in the air.”

Among the most striking features of the garden is the prairie dropseed field, planted in a single day with nearly 3,000 plugs. “I saw this plant in a garden in Illinois, just a 10-by-10 square of it, and I thought it was so graceful,” Petersen said. She later found a larger installation elsewhere and was inspired to replicate the effect. “It turns a sort of taffy color later on in the year, and the smell is a little bit like cilantro soap,” she said. “Some people love it. I do.” The planting has been maintained through controlled burns — weather permitting — and, more recently, by hand.

Throughout the property, sculptures by contemporary artists emerge like visual punctuation. An angular bench by Vivian Beer, a graceful steel arch by Carla Edwards, and a towering aluminum archway by Canadian sculptor Robert Murray are all carefully placed to interact with the surrounding plantings. “I chose the placements,” she said. “It’s all part of the composition.”

Petersen’s approach blends formal structure with ecological spontaneity. She embraces native species, encourages self-seeding, and leaves Asclepias (milkweed) for monarch butterflies. “Some of the best things just happen,” she said. “I don’t mind a plant that someone else might call a weed.” Her Eutrochium purpureum (Joe-Pye weed) stands more than seven feet tall. “It was supposed to be four feet, but a seedling showed up and just grew,” she said.

Different parts of the property feel like different ecosystems. One area might be anchored by banana plants overwintered indoors, another by Franklinia alatamaha, a flowering tree named for Benjamin Franklin now extinct in the wild. “Every one you see today came from a collection of seed by John and William Bartram,” she explained.

Despite the abundance, she gardens slowly. “I like to watch things develop,” Petersen said. “I was a nursery school teacher. It’s a similar thing. You don’t push them along.”

After more than 40 years of work, the garden remains in motion. There are plans to expand a bed using newspaper and compost to smother grass. “I work in little bits,” she said. “It’s not all garden, but about seven acres. I have help, but I still do something out here nearly every day.”

A patch of Clematis trailed over a trellis, a native rose ripened toward seed, and poppies bloomed plenty in a tucked away compost heap. “They’re just from the pile,” she said. “I didn’t even plant them.”

In her garden, planned but ever changing, Petersen’s joy remains rooted not in control, but in surprise.

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This article is part of our ongoing series, “A Walk Through the Garden,” which highlights the private gardens of residents across Pine Plains, Ancram, Gallatin, Milan, and Stanford. To share your garden or nominate a neighbor’s, email editor@newpineplainsherald.org.