HIGHER PURPOSE

NEW DIGS

Anne Miller spent much of her childhood on her grandparents’ beautiful farm in Maryland. She, Tom, and their three young children were living in Harrisburg when they started looking for a property with more open space. “My mother told me that my children should grow up on a farm,” Anne recalls, “so we casually joined the hunt and found a home with some land.” The family lived there until their children finished school. (The couple’s oldest child, Leslie Anne Miller, has served on the PHS Board of Directors. She, her sister Sarah Miller Coulson, and their mother are regular exhibitors at the Flower Show.)

When Anne and Tom became empty nesters, a local real estate agent urged them to take a look at a farm that had recently come on the market. Although the house and barn were in disrepair and the property had been neglected, Anne saw potential, particularly in the 100-plus acres of rolling slopes and woodlands surrounding the buildings. “It was a paradise for people who loved nature and open space,” she says.

The couple purchased the property, and Anne got busy. “In the warm weather, I worked outside, and in the winter, I worked inside the house. It was a wreck, but I was determined!” She spent four years restoring the house prior to moving in. At one point, Tom suggested that they simply demolish the house and build a new one on a facing slope but she demurred. “I told him, ‘That hill is sacred; something special has to go there.’” Today, the entire property, including her “sacred hill,” is resplendent with a beautifully diverse array of trees, shrubs, and plants.

Growing trees wasn’t Anne’s initial goal. “I wanted rhododendrons, which I love and have always had wherever I lived,” she says. “I knew that rhodies need some shade, so I put in trees for them.” Anne added lots of rhododendrons and azaleas to the shady sections of the property, but before long her focus shifted to trees.

MAPLES AND MORE

The first season, Anne planted 50 Douglas firs, 50 concolor, or white, firs (a conifer with silvery blue-green, soft needles), and 50 spruce trees. Since that time, she’s added a wide range of evergreen and deciduous trees, large and small. As Anne takes a visitor on a tour of her personal arboretum, she shares the names and best attributes of a few of her favorite varieties. She highlights a tricolor beech, which has foliage that is purple with edges colored in rose and creamy pink. She marvels at the beauty as she points out the exfoliating bark of a native shagbark hickory and a paperbark maple and the cascading limbs of a weeping katsura. There are ginkgoes, hornbeams, yellowwoods, and towering bald cypresses and dawn redwoods. A few years ago, Anne planted a Persian ironwood that had been in an exhibit at the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show. It continues to grow in her landscape, still labeled with its proper sign.

Almost every specimen seems to have a story that Anne is eager to share. She tells how she acquired a treasured Japanese umbrella pine, which she admires for its elegant shape and long, soft needles. “Our family went to Bethany Beach in the summer, and some days I visited nurseries instead of the beach,” she says. “At one nursery, I saw these beautiful little umbrella tree starters in pots and asked what they were and if I could buy some. I left with a dozen or so. I took them home and waited for them to grow big enough to plant outside. They were so lovely I started giving them away to other people who liked them. I ended up with only five of them for myself.” (They are available at most nurseries today.)

Anne first fell in love with Japanese maples years ago while on a PHS trip. “I hadn’t given them much thought, but on that particular tour, I saw this incredible display of Japanese maples mass-planted on a large hillside of several acres,” she says. “It inspired me, and now I have maples on top of maples.” She has planted well over a hundred on the slope across from her front door, as well as on other parts of the property. “The leaves are different shades of red, yellow, orange, and green, and there are different types of leaves,” she says about the many types. “Their delicate beauty belies an underlying toughness.”

Toughness is a quality that Anne values—and embodies—as she walks and talks about the years of hard physical work she’s put into her home and landscape. Though she is petite, she nonchalantly describes digging holes and planting, swinging a mattock, moving boulders, and even driving tractors. She has been helped by many throughout the years, especially Richard “Hawk” Wagner. She is quick to acknowledge both his hard work and companionship.

All of her experience has left her with a philosophical point of view. “I don’t fuss over the trees. I give them a good start by planting them well and then fertilizing and watering them in the early years. (The property has no irrigation system!) After that, it’s up to nature,” she says. “They don’t all make it, which is why I keep planting.”

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Anne’s journey from rhododendron admirer to tree planter to arboreal enthusiast was gradual, aided by many people that she met along the way. “At first, I didn’t really know anything about trees,” she says. “But there were so many wonderful local nurseries and talented gardeners. I just began asking questions. And I had a lot of questions.”

She remembers the day she drove with a local landscaper to visit an exceptional azalea grower in Maryland, where she’d hoped to purchase a few new varieties. She toured the fields, and as the long afternoon came to an end, the grower’s wife invited Anne and her friend in for dinner. “We did not wish to impose on people,” she says. “But they insisted we stay. I still remember the meal of roast beef and mashed potatoes. It was so delicious.” She pauses and then adds, “Typical of gardeners to share!”

She’s still in contact with local nursery people as well as her wide circle of gardening friends. Yet, over time, Anne has come to trust and rely on her own observations. “I try to follow what nature does. I’ve inherited a lot of native trees here,” she says. “I have also tried to plant trees that come from other places—especially many wonderful specimens from the Pacific Northwest—but no matter the level of care they’re given,
they don’t always survive. The natives are happier.”

As Anne’s knowledge has grown, so has her appreciation—and perhaps even reverence—for the trees that she continues to plant. “I believe trees like the company of other trees,” she explains. “You might say it’s as if they need to be surrounded by family. They communicate with each other. Many books have been written about this notion, but you don’t necessarily need a book. You can see it.” (For more on this topic, check out Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, by Canadian ecologist Suzanne Simard.)

People who reach their tenth decade of life tend to reflect on what they’ve accomplished and consider their legacies. Anne Miller is not ready for that. She offers no opinion on what she’d ultimately like to have happen to her arboretum. “I won’t be here to make that decision,” she says matter-of-factly. Instead, she’s thinking about planting more trees. “I have a few at the nursery waiting for me right now!”

As our visit ends, however, Anne does offer a strong opinion about the importance of trees to our world’s outlook. “Trees are absolutely a necessity to the ecosystem, specifically in view of climate change. But we have not been good caregivers. Eighty percent of our old-growth forests are gone. The ones that remain are humanity’s best hope for a livable future. Wake up, people! Plant trees!”

An espaliered apple tree hugs the tool shed.