Ambling through Allen Centennial Gardens
 Twenty-two theme gardens grace the grounds at Allen Centennial Gardens on the west side of campus. Photo by Jeff Miller.
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Let us amble through the amber sunshine in Allen Centennial Gardens, a horticultural jewel across from Steenbock Library that will brighten even this luminescent spring morning.
Spring took its Midwesternly sweet time in getting to this golden stage, didn’t it? A couple of weeks ago we would have been digging out the daffodils from six inches of frozen cloud droppings. This annual resurrection truly comes in fits and starts, like the voice of an adolescent male wavering between octaves.
Right now we’re standing on the curved drive in front of the grand Victorian Gothic building, built in 1896, that was home to the first four agricultural deans. Today it houses the offices of the Agricultural Research Stations.
When we move to the garden map by the house, we walk into an invisible sensory cloud: perfume wafting from a Korean spicewood, a shrub with clumps of creamy-pink blossoms. A scent like this can make a moment – and life – ineffably sweet.
Our noses want to linger, but there’s more to sniff and see, so we mosey past the Ground Cover Garden at the base of a gnarly larch planted in 1899. (Twenty-two theme gardens grace these grounds, including French, English and Italian gardens, as well as spots for sunny annuals and dwarf conifers and vegetables.)
We walk under the long cedar pergola, then look to our right. There we see something that would gladden the heart of any orchardist: soft-red flower buds on apple trees espaliered elegantly along a wooden trellis.
Now we turn left and sit a spell on the bench along the Hillside Garden. Our seat has a glorious backdrop of redbuds in bloom. A good dose of these brilliant shrubs can help us slough off the gray psychic residue of winter.
This seat or the one under the nearby gazebo gives us a good view of what often is seen in Allen Gardens: people in repose. On benches, chairs and grass, people are reading, painting or just dreamily succumbing to the spell of this Mediterranean day.
From here, as the breeze brings the earthy incense of sun-baked mulching bark, we spy a floral galaxy of low-growers such as purple pasqueflowers in the Burrill Rock Garden. And farther away, in the New American Garden, are resplendent explosions of daffodils. These Van Goghish daubs of color add a sunny shade – whether it’s clear or cloudy – to springtime’s palette.
Below us lies the Water Garden, which surrounds a pond filled with goldfish that seem to be a synonym for serenity, and just beyond it is… well, you take it from here. Enjoy this place on different days and confirm the wisdom Goethe used in choosing this metaphor:
To know someone here or there
with whom you can feel
there is understanding
In spite of distances or thoughts
unexpressed
can make of this earth a garden.
Details
Allen Gardens is a 2.5-acre site at the intersection of Observatory and Babcock drives, adjacent to the former Agricultural Dean’s Residence. It was developed with private funds after the house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Named for fo rmer faculty members Ethel and Oscar Allen, the gardens were designed as an outdoor laboratory for horticulture, landscape architecture and related disciplines. Open every day from sunrise to sunset, Allen Gardens is also used by K-12 students, garden clubs and the general public. For information on group tours, receptions, weddings and other uses of the gardens, call 262-8406 weekdays.