An Island Garden

Cedar Lodge, pictured at left, was built in 1902 for F.A. Seiberling, the founder of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The lodge, along with two boathouses, stands on Long Island, in Lake Huron, near larger Marquette Island. In the early years of Cedar Lodge, the landscape architect Warren Manning was invited to spend some time on the island. Manning had started out working for Frederick Law Olmsted before setting up shop on his own, and it was Manning who landscaped the extensive gardens of the Seiberling mansion, Stan Hywet, in Akron, Ohio. Manning spent his time on the island botanizing. He compiled a list of dozens of species found on the island, many of which are still found there today: twin flowers and gentians, lobelia kalmii and zygadenus, pearly everlasting and enchanter’s nightshade. He wrote to the Seiberlings about their island retreat: “Avoid the landscape man as you would a pest, who would have you make the wild give way to the rigid lines, the stone and wood forms and the high colors of a suburban gardenesque place.”

The island is still a remarkably rich place for botanizing. Among the wildflowers I found blooming on the island this summer were: harebells, forget-me-nots, twinflowers (Linnea borealis), ox-eye daisies, milkweed, waxflowers (pyrola asarifolia), Indian paintbrush, low calamint, marsh bluebells, wild roses, beach pea, St. John's wort, and rattlesnake orchid (Goodyera spp.). Below is a gallery of some of the wildflowers I managed to photograph this summer.

Twinflower (Linnea borealis)

Waxflower (Pyrola asarifolia)

Wild rose

Milkweed (with monarch caterpillar)

Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja)

Daisies