by Lauren Wade Walsh

Over in East Nashville, just north of the Lockeland Springs neighborhood, is the former site of the Howe Garden - which was an eight acre botanical utopia, privately owned and maintained but open to the public from the 1920s to the 1960s. The garden is no longer there and the land has since been divided and now has many houses, a couple schools, and an apartment complex on it. However, the original home of the owners still stands and is used as an AirBnB at 1421 Greenwood Avenue. There is a historic marker out front, shaded by old oak trees, that reads –

“This house, built from Sewanee stone, was the home of Cora Howe, who created a bucolic, English-style garden here in the early 1920s. Known as “Wildings,” her garden contained over 300 plant types, many of them native species, and a rare thatched-roof house. Mrs. Howe was wholly dedicated to the unique garden estate, and opened it to the community for nearly 40 years. After her death in 1968, the gardens were transplanted to Cheekwood.”

With the assistance of three full-time gardeners, Wildings’s acreage included dogwoods, azaleas, and wildflowers under a tall canopy of oak, beech, maple, and hickory trees. In the early 1900s, Cora and her husband, Harry Howe, moved from New England to Nashville and purchased an eight-acre parcel of land in East Nashville, selected for its century-old oak trees and rich, rock-free soil. Mrs. Howe started planting in 1922 and opened the garden to the public in 1929. Wildings drew thousands of visitors each year, until the 1960s, when both Mr. & Mrs. Howe passed away within a year of one another. They did not have any children, and so they willed the property to two women – Mr. Howe’s secretary and Mrs. Howe’s nurse/companion. However, the two women didn’t have the funds to maintain the garden. Mrs. Howe had been a founding member of The Garden Club of Nashville, and when it was clear the estate could not be maintained, the club devised a plan to transplant part of Wildings to Cheekwood. In December 1968, over a three week period, a team from The Garden Club of Nashville moved plants, soil, a stone wall, garden ornaments and the entire tool shed from East Nashville to Cheekwood.

Since bringing the spirit (and many plants) from Wildings in 1968, The Garden Club of Nashville has dedicated significant time and funding to maintaining and upgrading the Howe Garden, including reconstructing the thatched style roof that was original to the tool shed as well adding more native species of trees and shrubs over the years. For the 50th anniversary of the Howe garden, celebrated in 2019, the Garden Club hosted a special anniversary celebration with tours and activities and served Mrs. Howe’s signature snack, lemonade and ginger snaps.

Sources included:

https://cheekwood.org/howe-garden/

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=204724

https://www.nfocusmagazine.com/something-wild-this-way-comes/article_ddb6f31b-2fb4-5aee-9615-a9a9102ee90f.html