Susan Dowell's garden is a time machine filled with the sights and scents of bygone eras. Old-fashioned peonies, lilacs and lilies of the valley surround her Monkton home. One whiff of those fragrant antiques sends her spinning back through time, says Mrs. Dowell, who used to caress the blossoms of those flowers as a child in her grandmother's garden.
Tim Fortney gets a rush every time he digs in the cool, dark loam around his "new" home, a 17th-century manor house near Crownsville. Each spade of soil unearths more buried treasure -- rare varieties of phlox, crape myrtle and sturdy old asters that have survived years of neglect. Mr. Fortney hopes some day to restore the entire garden to its original form.
On warm summer days when her heritage roses are in bloom, Olivia Rodgers likes to putter outside "and get drunk on their fragrance." Mrs. Rodgers, 84, of Catonsville, calls the heirloom plants "a throwback to my childhood. I may not live in a 19th-century house, but at least I've got flowers that are that old."
Welcome to the '90s, where low-tech landscapes are gaining favor. Tired of growing high-strung hybrids and odorless ornamentals that succumb unannounced come winter, many homeowners are turning back the clock to find simpler, stronger plants for their gardens.
Folks are examining their roots to find better ways to spruce up their yards, says Jim McWilliams, owner of Maxalea Nurseries in Baltimore County's Stoneleigh community. "People want the standbys, the plants that seem warm to them, that they can smell and enjoy," he says. "They're asking for hollyhocks, primroses, bleeding hearts and foxglove. They'll look at our lavender and say, 'I remember my mother picking this, and I'd like to have a memory of it in my garden as well.' "
Raising heirloom plants "gives me a sense of family continuity," says Mrs. Dowell, who rescued some of her oldest perennials from her grandmother's home in Massachusetts. "I feel a linkage to plants that have been treasured for many, many years."
Most antique flowers are hardy, pest-free and easy to grow. Many old beds continue to bloom beside abandoned and crumbling homes. Gardeners ask: How much care can such plants need?
"Grandma's garden is on the comeback" all across America, says Alan Summers, president of Carroll Gardens, an upscale nursery in Westminster, Carroll County. "It's partly a nostalgia thing. But people also want more fragrance and lower maintenance in their gardens -- and where they're looking is in older plants."
