Memorial garden blooms again

BY MARGE HOLS

Columnist

Sometimes a garden that looks wonderful on paper just doesn't work. That's what happened to the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial garden on the State Capitol mall in St. Paul.

The concept of 32 beds of native plants against a steel trellis displaying names of 25 Minnesota women's suffrage leaders was so appealing it won a design competition. But once the garden was planted, reality set in.

The clay soil specified by the architect to emulate a prairie couldn't drain quickly enough to handle the automatic sprinkler system, so plants grew very slowly and many flopped. Because perennials were planted randomly rather than in drifts, the maintenance crew couldn't tell desirable plants from weeds, and the weeds won. The beds were close together, making it hard to mow lawn between them. Besides all that, the public didn't think a prairie belonged among the formal plantings at the Capitol.

Only three years after it was planted in 1999, the garden was declared unworkable. It took another year and a half to raise funds to renovate it. That job was completed this spring. The new garden is up and growing at the corner of Cedar Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard.

"In the nine years I've been working on this project, every time I became discouraged I would say to myself, 'Don't be a wimp. Remember, it took 72 years for women to win the vote,' " says Barbara Stuhler. A retired University of Minnesota administrator who has been the prime mover behind the project, Stuhler wrote "Gentle Warriors: Clara Ueland and the Minnesota Struggle for Woman Suffrage" (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1995, $15.95).

"It's the first memorial of any significance to women in the Capitol," Stuhler says. "Aside from a couple of plaques, there was no recognition of the contribution women have made over the years to Minnesota and its well-being. The memorial serves that purpose."

The new garden was designed and installed by Roger Grothe of Aloha Landscaping in Mendota Heights. I served as a volunteer design consultant and helped with fund raising.

The 150- by 200-foot garden has fewer beds to make maintenance easier, much-improved soil and sturdy shrubs and perennials that can survive on a windy site in full sun. Plants are arranged in large drifts of a single variety to give the garden more visual impact. Shrubs, which will provide year-round structure, are 'Burgundy Carousel' barberry, 'Grey Owl' juniper and 'McKay's White' potentilla.

As in the original garden, flowers sport colors of the suffrage movement — yellow, white and purple. The spring show will feature blue wild indigo, 'Blue Wonder' catmint, yellow cushion spurge, pasqueflower and 'May Night' salvia along with 'Karl Foerster' feather reed grass. It's anybody's guess how many of 4000 mini daffodils from the original garden will pop up.

Summer will bring drifts of black-eyed Susan, purple coneflower and 'Becky' shasta daisy along with 'Happy Returns' daylily, 'Kobold' gay feather and 'Moonshine' yarrow. Toward fall, 'Little Spire' Russian sage, little bluestem and prairie dropseed will come into their own.

Besides Stuhler, key players in raising $31,500 to renovate the garden were Ruby Hunt, Sally Ross and other members of the Ross Group, a loosely organized group that's interested in downtown beautification. Substantial donations were made by many individuals, the St. Paul Garden Club, Katherine B. Andersen Foundation, F. R. Bigelow Foundation and Grothe, who donated some landscaping services. Sally Sawyer represented the League of Women Voters of Minnesota Education Fund, which served as the fiscal agent. Through it all, we had remarkable cooperation from Nancy Stark and Paul Mandell of the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board and Linda Kane at the State Architect's Office.

Next time you're near the Capitol, take a few minutes to walk through the garden and along the trellis showing the leaders and timeline of the Minnesota women's suffrage movement. Pick up a brochure about the memorial at the information desk in the Capitol.