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Sigourney Cheek Literary Garden

In celebration of Cheekwood’s 60th anniversary as a public institution, we’re highlighting one of our 12 distinct gardens each month to showcase our wide variety of garden offerings. With 55 acres of rolling hills and 12 intricate, unique gardens, there’s something for everyone to experience and love at Cheekwood.

The literary garden pays tribute to the late Sigourney Cheek, a lifelong learner, inspirational spirit, author, and avid gardener. Designer, Ben Page, drew inspiration from Sigourney’s personal garden at her Nashville home, Honeywood. This garden, which opened on May 17, 2012, serves as a place to seek solace and become inspired by embracing poetry, book readings, writing, and reflective thought at literary events.

Sigourney loved Nashville deeply and supported many local not-for-profit institutions. In 1989 she co-founded Nashville’s Antique and Garden Show, and soon after served as Chairman of the Board of Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art. Her own garden was a testament to her love of gardening and is listed as “an important American Garden” at The Smithsonian Institution.

The use of iconic antique imagery was meaningful to Sigourney Cheek. In the literary garden, visitors will find a fifteenth-century French tub, which features a nineteenth-century beer tap. An owl, carved from solid stone by Charlie Hunt of Hunt Memorials of Nashville, was moved from Sigourney’s home garden. Two patinaed, repurposed nineteenth-century planters were originally the capitals on columns at an old courthouse in Mississippi.

Cheekwood continues to evolve the horticulture of this site to respond to the warm microclimate generated by the western exposure of the limestone retaining wall. Espalier plants and vines will flourish here, softening the limestone perimeter. Hardy dry land plants, subtly evocative of a Mediterranean climate, will thrive within this nook set above the surrounding terrain and reach back to Sigourney Cheek’s love for the country of Spain.

From the elevated perspective of the Sigourney Cheek Literary Garden, visitors can view the serene topography and enjoy the best vantage of the setting sun on the estate. Providing dappled shade during the summer and a sunny oasis in the winter, the space is designed to promote mindfulness and encourage visitors to sit down and linger with nature.

Click here to read about our other distinct gardens. For a look at what’s currently blooming in the gardens, check out our Gardeners’ Top Picks here.

A Simple Breakdown of Compost: How to Turn Your Rubbish into Garden Gold

Banana peels, eggshells, coffee grounds, leaves. These are a few of my favorite things…to throw into my compost pile. Integrating compost into your garden’s soil is the least expensive, most helpful thing you can do to improve the overall health of your garden. Learn how to start and nourish a simple compost pile, making good use of materials you would otherwise throw away.

The Location

First, build your rubbish pile directly on the ground, and you can contain it by using chicken wire, a staple gun, and some 2 x 4s. This allows easy access for all the tiny insects, worms, and fungi that will eventually break down the material. A compost pile will do fine in either sun or shade but selecting a site in full sun will accelerate the cooking process due to the higher temperature.

The Rubbish

With the proper ingredients, anyone can execute and maintain a compost pile to be proud of. If you eat fruits and vegetables, mow the grass, make coffee and tea at home, or rake the leaves in the fall, you have the right materials to start a compost. It is a satisfying and beautiful thing to create life from waste!

Some suitable items for compost piles include:

• • Animal manure-Herbivores only!
• • Brown paper bags
• • Cardboard
• • Clean paper – not glossy or coated
• • Paper towels
• • Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint
• • Crushed eggshells
• • Fireplace ashes
• • Hair and fur
• • Nut shells
• • Paper towel and toilet paper rolls
• • Wood chips

Refrain from adding meat and milk products. These will attract unwanted wildlife like rats, racoons, and even coyotes and bears. Treated wood, coated paper, and those pesky produce stickers all contain toxic chemicals that do not belong in your future garden soil. Avoid feeding your compost citrus peels and onions. Both contain natural chemicals and high acidity that can kill worms and other microorganisms, slowing down the decomposition in your pile.

Much like meat and dairy products, cooked vegetables emit unpleasant odors. Too much of these substances can attract flies and rodents. If you have plenty of leaves (carbon) to offset the high nitrogen content of cooked vegetables, then adding a little bit here and there will be fine.

The optimal ratio for a compost should be roughly 70% carbon (leaves, pine straw, wood chips, nut shells) and 30% nitrogen (vegetable scraps, garden weeds, coffee grounds, manures, hay.)

The Not-so-Creepy Crawlers

Now that you have the location and ingredients right, the magic can happen with the help of some good friends. Earthworms, snails, and fungi are looking for a vitamin-rich compost pile to inhabit. These creatures of various sizes eat the decaying material and excrete organic compounds that enrich the compost. As the small critters travel throughout the pile in a tunneling fashion, the compost is aerated, which supports bacterial growth by providing a healthy oxygen supply. As these compost dwellers excrete and die, additional food becomes available for the rest of the decomposers.

Maintaining Your Compost

Physically churn the compost pile every few weeks to regulate the temperature, aerate the contents, and to keep the aroma from offending the neighbors. A healthy compost pile has an earthy smell with a slightly sweet undertone. Remember to turn the newly added rubbish toward the middle where the most microbial action is happening. Water the pile after you church it to ensure there is consistent moisture throughout.

Collect all the leaves, pine straw, and other brown materials you possibly can. You can never have enough carbon-especially in the summer when grass clippings are abundant.

Last but not least, have fun! Starting a compost pile is simple and can be easily enjoyable. Maintaining it is neither time-consuming nor too physically taxing and it is a project that the whole family can get involved with. Composting helps keep waste at a minimum and is an excellent way to steward the environment. And in the end, you are left with healthy, nutrient-dense soil that will in turn provide you beautiful plants in your garden.

By Shanna Jones, Plant Collections Manager

Gardeners’ Top Picks August 2020

There is so much to see in the gardens this month! Check out our garden team’s top plant picks for August. Use this as your guide as you explore the grounds.

Rosinweed (Silphium asteriscus)

Bloom Time: July – October

Sun Requirement: Full sun

Water Requirement: Medium

Wildlife: Butterflies, bees, & songbirds

Tolerates: Drought & Deer

Native to North America: Yes

Other: Indigenous people used the sap of rosinweed to make a chewing gum.

Zones: 4 – 8

Location: Bracken Foundation Children’s Garden

Purple Top Verbena (Verbena bonariensis)

Bloom Time: June – Frost

Sun Requirement: Full sun – part shade

Water Requirement: Medium

Wildlife: Butterflies & goldfinch

Tolerates: Poor soils

Native to North America: No

Other: Will self seed and naturalize in warmer climates.

Zones: 7 – 11

Location: Wills Perennial Garden / Front Lawn at Sapphire Star

Mexican Oak (Quercus greggii ‘La Siberia’)

Sun Requirement: Full sun

Water Requirement: Medium

Wildlife: Deer resistant

Tolerates: Clay & drought

Native to North America: Yes

Other: New leaves are fuzzy and crinkly. ‘La Siberia’ is a town located near the High Mexican Valley.

Zones: 7 – 11

Location: Sigourney Cheek Literary Garden

Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ )

Sun Requirement: Part shade

Water Requirement: Medium

Wildlife: Deer resistant

Tolerates: Shade

Native to North America: No

Other: ‘Aureola’ is a gold-striped variety.

Zones: 5 – 9

Location: Burr Terrace Garden

Smokebush (Cotinus coggyria ‘Purple Smoke’)

Bloom Time: May – July

Sun Requirement: Full sun

Water Requirement: Medium

Wildlife: Deer resistant

Tolerates: Drought

Native to North America: No

Other: Foliage color is various shades of purple throughout growing season / Excellent fall color as well

Zones: 5 – 8

Location: Bradford Robertson Color Garden: Arches

Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale ‘Mariachi Salsa’ )

Bloom Time: July – October

Sun Requirement: Full sun

Water Requirement: Medium – wet

Wildlife: Butterflies

Tolerates: Rabbits & deer

Native to North America: Yes

Other: Use as a front border for aesthetic reasons and to deter rabbits.

Zones: 3 – 8

Location: Howe Garden

Stoke’s Aster (Stokesia laevis ‘Peachie’s Pick’)

Bloom Time: June – September

Sun Requirement: Full sun

Water Requirement: Medium

Wildlife: Butterflies & bees

Tolerates: Drought & heat

Native to North America: Yes

Other: If deadheaded consistently, this plant will rebloom in the fall.

Zones: 5 – 9

Location: Bracken Foundation Children’s Garden

Red Yucca (Hesperole parviflora)

Bloom Time: July – August

Sun Requirement: Full sun

Water Requirement: Dry

Wildlife: Hummingbirds & butterflies

Tolerates: Drought

Native to North America: Yes

Other: Excellent rock garden plant and a favorite of hummingbirds!

Zones: 5 – 10

Location: Sigourney Cheek Literary Garden