The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. --Chinese Proverb
Even before we visited in person, this hill held sway over us. The fuzzy, pixilated images on the real estate website captured our imagination. Coming from the city, where our only exposure to nature was our tiny back yard wedged among the shadows of all the close-set homes, the image of a house set high up on a hill seemed almost biblical. Once we’d moved in, the property became like a person to us—alive, responsive, sometimes inscrutable. It exerted such a strong sense of place that naming the house and grounds seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Maybe because D and I don’t share a last name, or maybe because we spent so many weekends in Ligonier, where homes—both grand and humble—sport names instead of street addresses, the idea of naming our house felt right somehow, not silly or highfalutin or twee.
Settling on “Acorn Hill” was easy enough. The huge Chinquapin Oak that towers over the yard sends down showers of tiny acorns every other autumn. (They sprout the summer after they fall, pushing up hundreds of baby oaks that we diligently pluck out of the garden beds, for fear of turning our acre into Sherwood Forest; between the oak and the maples, we could start our own timber company, given enough time.) It wasn’t long till we started receiving acorn gifts: birdhouses fashioned into oversized acorns, acorn-shaped candles, table linens with acorns embroidered on them. We have a porcelain acorn platter from Ireland and sterling-covered acorns in a silver maple-leaf bowl. We even have an acorn garden sculpture the size of Mini Cooper. And we love them all. It is as if the name was there all along, patiently awaiting someone to speak it aloud.
Once the property was named, we began, like all other fledgling gardeners, to fill it with plants, learning their names as we went. Some were easy: we already knew the vine on the
back trellis was wisteria and the shrubs lining the drive were peonies. We learned that the beds along the north border were lined with dozens of huge old mock orange and honeysuckles, but not until after we’d spent a king’s ransom on a crop of spindly, puny mock orange plants from some fancy New England nursery’s catalog. We learned the names of the ancient trees, then fretted like old grannies over the elm at the top of the driveway—how did it manage to escape Dutch Elm disease; what would happen if it died; how would we ever live without it? Despite its robust and stately appearance, hand-wringing commenced immediately upon learning that tree’s name.
Gradually, we realized that common plant names aren’t always enough. We grew plants that didn’t do what we expected—grew too large, bloomed in unexpected colors, died without explanation—until we learned that not all viburnums are created equal. We swallowed hard, girded our loins, and jumped in to learning binomial taxonomy—the dreaded Latin botanical names. Discovering that there are hundreds of species of the genus Viburnum, each with its own characteristics, explained a lot.
But the names that have come to matter most to us don’t belong to house or plant. The most important names that the hill taught us are the names of people: kind, generous, welcoming neighbors. Learning those names helped us become part of the personality of this place, rather than just observers of it. Eventually, like our plants, we put down roots, blossomed in unexpected colors, and flourished. Not every day is a balmy June afternoon; sometimes it’s a frigid midnight in February. But no matter, it’s all part of living on the hill and experiencing our existence as part of a larger whole. Those cold and dark moments make the sunshiny ones seem all the warmer and brighter. In between learning that Viburnum nudum ‘Winterthur’ is also called witherod viburnum, Appalachian tea tree, blue haw, Shawnee haw, possum haw, and wild raisin, we began to gain some real wisdom: that knitting oneself into the fabric of a community has a name. That name is Life.
Even before we visited in person, this hill held sway over us. The fuzzy, pixilated images on the real estate website captured our imagination. Coming from the city, where our only exposure to nature was our tiny back yard wedged among the shadows of all the close-set homes, the image of a house set high up on a hill seemed almost biblical. Once we’d moved in, the property became like a person to us—alive, responsive, sometimes inscrutable. It exerted such a strong sense of place that naming the house and grounds seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Maybe because D and I don’t share a last name, or maybe because we spent so many weekends in Ligonier, where homes—both grand and humble—sport names instead of street addresses, the idea of naming our house felt right somehow, not silly or highfalutin or twee.
Settling on “Acorn Hill” was easy enough. The huge Chinquapin Oak that towers over the yard sends down showers of tiny acorns every other autumn. (They sprout the summer after they fall, pushing up hundreds of baby oaks that we diligently pluck out of the garden beds, for fear of turning our acre into Sherwood Forest; between the oak and the maples, we could start our own timber company, given enough time.) It wasn’t long till we started receiving acorn gifts: birdhouses fashioned into oversized acorns, acorn-shaped candles, table linens with acorns embroidered on them. We have a porcelain acorn platter from Ireland and sterling-covered acorns in a silver maple-leaf bowl. We even have an acorn garden sculpture the size of Mini Cooper. And we love them all. It is as if the name was there all along, patiently awaiting someone to speak it aloud.
Once the property was named, we began, like all other fledgling gardeners, to fill it with plants, learning their names as we went. Some were easy: we already knew the vine on the
back trellis was wisteria and the shrubs lining the drive were peonies. We learned that the beds along the north border were lined with dozens of huge old mock orange and honeysuckles, but not until after we’d spent a king’s ransom on a crop of spindly, puny mock orange plants from some fancy New England nursery’s catalog. We learned the names of the ancient trees, then fretted like old grannies over the elm at the top of the driveway—how did it manage to escape Dutch Elm disease; what would happen if it died; how would we ever live without it? Despite its robust and stately appearance, hand-wringing commenced immediately upon learning that tree’s name.Gradually, we realized that common plant names aren’t always enough. We grew plants that didn’t do what we expected—grew too large, bloomed in unexpected colors, died without explanation—until we learned that not all viburnums are created equal. We swallowed hard, girded our loins, and jumped in to learning binomial taxonomy—the dreaded Latin botanical names. Discovering that there are hundreds of species of the genus Viburnum, each with its own characteristics, explained a lot.
But the names that have come to matter most to us don’t belong to house or plant. The most important names that the hill taught us are the names of people: kind, generous, welcoming neighbors. Learning those names helped us become part of the personality of this place, rather than just observers of it. Eventually, like our plants, we put down roots, blossomed in unexpected colors, and flourished. Not every day is a balmy June afternoon; sometimes it’s a frigid midnight in February. But no matter, it’s all part of living on the hill and experiencing our existence as part of a larger whole. Those cold and dark moments make the sunshiny ones seem all the warmer and brighter. In between learning that Viburnum nudum ‘Winterthur’ is also called witherod viburnum, Appalachian tea tree, blue haw, Shawnee haw, possum haw, and wild raisin, we began to gain some real wisdom: that knitting oneself into the fabric of a community has a name. That name is Life.
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