Women Who Shaped Garden History
Beatrix Farrand was the only woman among the eleven founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Over a career spanning more than fifty years, she designed gardens for universities, private estates, and public institutions, including her masterpiece at Dumbarton Oaks.
Farrand was born Beatrix Jones into a prominent New York family. Her aunt was the novelist Edith Wharton, who shared her interest in gardens. Farrand studied horticulture under Charles Sprague Sargent at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, one of the few training options available to her since landscape architecture programs did not admit women.
Farrand preferred the title “landscape gardener” to “landscape architect,” believing that plants should drive the design rather than architecture. Her work was characterized by meticulous plant selection, careful attention to site conditions, and a sensitivity to the existing character of a landscape. She designed campus landscapes for Yale, Princeton, Oberlin, and the University of Chicago, as well as private gardens throughout the Northeast.
Farrand's masterpiece is Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., designed for Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss beginning in 1921. The garden descends a steep slope through a series of terraces, each with its own character, from formal flower gardens near the house to naturalistic woodland plantings at the lower levels. The collaboration between Farrand and Mildred Bliss was close and productive, lasting nearly three decades. Dumbarton Oaks is now administered by Harvard University and is open to the public.