The Garden at Wyck

A portion of the information taken from the article Three centuries of Earthly Delights, a History of the Wyck Garden by Sandra Mackenzie Loyde which appears in Germantown Green; A Living Legacy of Gardens, Orchards and Pleasure Grounds, published in 1982, by The Wyck Association, The Germantown Historical Society and Maxwell Mansion.

1689-1760
We have no written documentation of the garden under the first owner, Hans Milan, a Swiss Quaker, who purchased the land in 1689. We do know that his daughter, Margaret and her husband, Dirk Janson, lived on the property full time and we can expect that they had gardens for their own use. Judging by contemporary home gardens they probably grew vegetables and fruit trees, herbs for cooking and medicinal use and even a few flowers.

1760 - 1794
Reuben Haines began improvements to turn the family property into a “country seat.” While no extensive records that survive, it is known that Haines planted the first trees on the property to hold strictly ornamental value, a stand of Catalpa trees, the last of which was removed in 1824.

1794 - 1814
Casper Wistar Haines (1762-1801), great, great-grandson of Hans Milan, moved his wife, Hannah Marshal Haines, (1765-1828), and their family to Germantown. His mother, Margaret Wistar Haines, had died in Philadelphia of Yellow Fever during the epidemic the year before and he wished to move his family to a healthier climate. He made quite a few improvements to the property including building a brew house and barn, and updating the house with stucco.

The first reference to the garden at Wyck is in letters written by the fifth owner, Hannah, to her son, Reuben. Over a period of four months, beginning in January 1797, she describes a "productive garden filled with vegetables and fruit trees." This was likely located to the north, or rear, of the house and probably was organized in a typical early Colonial parterre design, perhaps with a fish pond in the center. Her letters also document Casper's purchase of 100 fruit trees, using cold frames for seedlings and laying tan bark on the garden paths.

The trellises for which Wyck is so well known that cover the south (front) façade of the house were added sometime during this era, probably in the first decade of the 1800s. The climbing roses which today’s visitor is so accustomed to seeing against the house had not yet been developed, and the trellises were initially covered with honeysuckle, bignonia, and virgin’s bower clematis for nearly a century.

1814 - 1843, Reuben Haines III and Jane Bowne Haines

After Casper's death in 1801, his son Reuben dedicated himself to " ...self education particularly in the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Franklin Institute, The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture; to public service, notably in the implementation of school reform; to the financial sponsorship of struggling artists and philosophers including Rembrandt Peale and Bronson Alcott; and to the creation of a healthy, happy and stimulating home for his family."

Reuben Haines married Jane Bowne (1790-1843) and they began summering at Wyck in 1814. Once again we have letters as documentation. Jane describes the vegetable gardens and fruit trees and the shady yard where her daughter could play but laments the lack of an ornamental garden. “I find our situation here much pleasanter than I anticipated [but] we have not however many beautiful views or a fine garden to show our visitors.”

In 1820 Reuben and Jane made Wyck their primary year round residence. At the time a small village whose growth was built upon trade between points west and the city of Philadelphia, Germantown  was considered largely as a summer community by wealthy Philadelphians. The move was instigated by Reuben, who longed to take up the life of a gentleman farmer and engage in the most progressive methods of agriculture and animal husbandry. Initially less enthusiastic about the relocation, Jane soon set her energies to creating a garden. A simple sketch c. 1821 (see photo above) shows a plan of four parterres surrounding a central round bed. Executed according to this design, her garden has remained thus intact ever since.

While flowers, ornamental shrubs, and vines are mentioned in Jane’s garden book, it is the rose that seemed to have captivated her to the greatest degree. A list from the early 1820s lists over 25 roses growing in the garden, some ancient European varieties and others exciting new hybrids  resulting from the recently discovered China rose. Many of these roses still grow today, some certainly descendents of the original plants.

Reuben seems to have extended his primary interest in agriculture to ornamental plants as well. His “Catalogue of Plants at Wyck 6 May 1825” lists a number of horticultural specimens, including native species valued for their usefulness by Native Americans, Mid-Atlantic specimens promoted by his contemporary Quaker plantsman John Bartram, and several exotic plants that were discovered by the many Quaker botanists in the 18th and 19th centuries.

After Reuben’s sudden death in 1832 Jane spent less and less time at Wyck, spending long stretches of time visiting her maternal relatives in Flushing, New York. Although kept apprised of the progress and appearance of her garden, her interest in it never revived. Her death in 1843 proved to be the closing bracket of a well documented and robust era of the garden at Wyck.

Five of Jane and Reuben Haines III’s children lived into adulthood, and several among them were involved in horticulture. Son Robert founded his own commercial nursery in Cheltenham, PA. Named Cheltenham Nurseries it remained in business until 1935. Son John S. Haines lived at and created extensive gardens at “Awbury”, currently a public arboretum in Germantown. During this era the daughters of Jane and Reuben observed a common tradition of the time: upon marriage taking rose cuttings from their mother’s garden to their new homes. 

Youngest daughter Jane Reuben Haines lived at Wyck for her entire life, from 1833 to 1911. Written documents relevant to the garden from this time are sparse, mostly gleaned from her household account book showing small purchases of seeds and bulbs. Fortunately the advent of photography occurred during this era, and many images of the garden show that it was very thoughtfully maintained, with clipped boxwood hedges and staked rose standards creating a charming overall effect.

Somewhat of an invalid, Jane Reuben Haines never married and upon her death left Wyck to her nieces and nephew, Jane Bowne Haines II, Mary Morton Haines, and Casper Wistar Haines II, known familiarly as Cappy. Both Jane and Cappy had keen interest and extensive knowledge in the horticulture field, and had assisted their aunt with Wyck’s garden before her death.

1821-1827, Jane's notebook
During these years Jane kept a small notebook in which she recorded details of the garden including the sketch above and lists of rose plantings begun in 1818 at the latest. Several of these roses are still evident at Wyck today. Reuben added notes to the notebook and created a Catalogue of Plants at Wyck, 5 mo. 9 1825.

Their children:
•Three daughters, Elizabeth, Hannah and Margaret, married, taking slips of Wyck's roses to their new homes
•Son, Robert founded his own commercial nursery in Cheltenham, PA. Named Cheltenham Nurseries it remained in business until 1935.
•Son John S. Haines, lived at and created gardens in what is now "Awbury", a public arboretum in Philadelphia.
•Daughter, Jane Reuben Haines lived at Wyck, maintaining the gardens until her death in 1911

1875- early 1911
Jane Reuben Haines was an invalid and relied on gardeners to care for the grounds at Wyck. She made little written reference to the gardens and our information comes from photographs taken during this time. Among other things they show the change from elaborate Victorian fashion to the simpler garden style of Colonial Revival.

1911-1935

Cappy moved to Wyck in 1912 and stayed for the rest of his life, keeping a detailed diary until his death in 1935. We know that he was an avid vegetable gardener who also planted numerous fruit trees and bushes in the tradition of his predecessors. His diary refers regularly to tying up rose canes, pruning, ornamental shrubs, and planting tulip bulbs, often accompanied by his sister Jane.

Jane never lived at Wyck but did come for extended visits, often horticultural missions. The majority of her time was spent at her estate “Heidelberg” in Cheltenham, and in Ambler where she was the founder of the Pennsylvania Horticulture School for Women, now the Ambler campus of Temple University. She was also one of the founding members of the Garden Club of Philadelphia. It was she that added the roses now climbing on Wyck’s south façade, as well as several wichuriana and hybrid perpetual roses, some of which still exist at Wyck today.

Both such avid gardeners, it is interesting to note that there is no indication that either Cappy or Jane removed any of the plantings or garden features installed by their ancestors.

1935 - 1973

After the death of Casper, followed closely by that of Jane in 1937, their nephew, Robert Bowne Haines and wife, Mary, became the ninth generation to own Wyck. Robert was a professional nurseryman who had a large orchard in Berks County, and lived at Wyck only in the winter months, leaving the maintenance to various gardeners. As a result the gardens declined several decades running.

1973 - today

When Rosarian Leonie Bell first visited Wyck in 1970 she wrote, “the formal garden was a shambles, hardly to be walked through. We had to force our way through the overgrown Box, much of which had split apart or died back, the weeds and wineberries, and, into every remnant of path, the suckering roses. Few of them bloomed well because they were too crowded, far beyond the care of the old gardener who much preferred those wineberries…” At this point Mary Haines was weighing the options for the future of Wyck, as she was a widow of advanced age with no children.

By 1973 Wyck had opened as a historic house museum and garden. The first horticulturist was Ann Newlin Thompson, a tenth generation descendant of the Wyck families. She began a program to reclaim the gardens, pruning boxwood and removing invasive plants that had colonized the garden. At this point in time very few of the roses at Wyck were known by their original names. For several years in the early 1970s Leonie Bell and Douglas Seidel undertook the painstaking process of attaching correct nomenclature to roses that had become so rare several were considered extinct. Only one rose’s identity continued to elude them throughout time, and this rose they rechristened ‘Elegant Gallica’, the name by which it is available in the trade today.

Stable for more than thirty years, today’s efforts in the garden focus on conservation and propagation of historic plants. There is growing consensus that the rose collection held at Wyck is one of the most important in America, and that the garden itself is peerless among other historic gardens, being an intact 19th century garden and not a modern restoration. Used as a tool to educate and delight both serious gardeners as well as casual visitors about horticulture and history, the garden at Wyck continues to thrive today as it has for over two hundred years.