Sarah Lahm
A statue reads "Count only the sunny days" in the Lyndale Rose Garden in Minneapolis.
Spring is in full bloom in Minneapolis, where I live. Pink and white crabapple blossoms hang heavy in the air, drooping down to meet me as I walk past, on my way to the rose garden near my home.
As of May 18, Minnesota has mostly reopened for business, with our governor, Tim Walz, relaxing the stay-at-home order he put in place two months ago. This comes amid a continued rise in the number of coronavirus cases throughout the state, pushing Minnesota to the top of the heap among other Midwestern states in this unwelcome category.
I am fortunate to live just blocks from Lyndale Rose Garden, one of the nation’s only publicly owned and maintained rose gardens. In the morning it is often quiet, absent the throngs of teens with hammocks—present even during the COVID-19 shutdown—and families with young kids, desperate for some fresh air and open space.
Right now, the garden consists of fenced-in beds of roses waiting to bloom. Each carefully plotted mound of dirt holds one type of rose bush, and their distinctive names—Hot Cocoa, or All American Peace, for example—are prominently displayed at the end of each bed so visitors can do more than just admire their beauty.
That’s what Theodore Wirth, the architect of the Lyndale Rose Garden, envisioned more than a hundred years ago when he became head of the Minneapolis park system. He wanted public spaces that were beautiful but also approachable and educational, and he intended the Lyndale Rose Garden to be a teaching garden so visitors could learn which roses to plant at home.
Wirth trained as a gardener and horticulturist in his home country of Switzerland before taking landscape architect jobs in New York City and, eventually, Hartford, Connecticut. There, he established the nation’s first public rose garden and was reluctantly wooed to a similar job in Minneapolis, as director of the city’s fledgling park system.
Wirth had been happy in Hartford, and was raising his children in a house provided for him by city officials.
To lure Wirth to Minneapolis, park board members surreptitiously agreed to build him a house as well. This was a controversial move in the eyes of public watchdogs but ended with Wirth taking up residence in a new home close to where the Lyndale Rose Garden now sits.
There, he crafted his vision for a public park system that would truly serve the people who used it. One notable aspect of this was Wirth’s insistence that every resident of Minneapolis, no matter what corner of the city they inhabit, live no more than six blocks from a public park.
Wirth was in fact a progressive visionary who valued children and their need to play outdoors. Tossing aside Victorian-era beliefs that parks should be pristine jewels left untouched by the masses, Wirth “swiftly removed ‘keep off the grass’ signs” upon his arrival in Minneapolis to encourage active engagement between people and nature, according to one account of his work here.
The park system he laid out for Minneapolis consistently ranks at or near the top among the nation’s cities. That’s a great legacy, but I don’t think about it too often.
To be honest, I usually rush through the rose garden on my way to and from a walk around the lake it borders. These days, I am busy managing suddenly homebound kids, a work schedule, and other daily obligations, and thus a morning walk is often a hurried event.
Sarah Lahm
Tulips lining the Lyndale Rose Garden in Minneapolis
Today, though, I slowed down when I came upon the garden, my eyes caught by the hundreds of red, orange-gold, and yellow tulips that glow in abundance just outside the fenced-in rose bushes. All around me, lilac and crabapple blossoms filled the air with perfume and vibrant early spring shades of lavender, white, and deep ruby-pink.
I snapped photos of the tulips and about-to-pop peonies and felt grateful that a space like this exists, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. My own kids have found solace in the open arms of Wirth’s parkland, spending time among the trees, flowers, and bushes while the rest of their lives have largely been shut down.
But there’s a contrast with which I struggle.
As of May 18, Minnesota has mostly reopened for business, with our governor, Tim Walz, relaxing the stay-at-home order he put in place two months ago. This comes amid a continued rise in the number of coronavirus cases throughout the state, pushing Minnesota to the top of the heap among other Midwestern states in this unwelcome category.
It’s not difficult, writer Judith Levine recently argued, to raise the “leave-me-alone” libertarian hackles of Americans.
Nurses are in fact planning a May 20 rally at the Minnesota state capitol to protest what they say is a lack of preparedness and appropriate equipment for dealing with an expected surge in COVID-19 patients.
It stands to reason that our most vulnerable residents and front-line workers won’t benefit from the reopening that Walz, a Democrat, has agreed to. That hasn’t stopped some Minnesotans from demanding that he do even more to get the state back to work.
Kris Schiffler, a restaurant and bar owner in outstate Minnesota, even held a rally on May 18, insisting that he be allowed to host diners once again rather than just offer takeout meals.
Never mind that the central Minnesota county he lives and works in has the second highest number of COVID-19 cases in the state. Many people here have been actively encouraged, by political opportunists, it seems, to defy the science behind COVID-19 and act as if their rights are being threatened.
It’s not difficult, writer Judith Levine recently argued, to raise the “leave-me-alone” libertarian hackles of Americans.
Wirth’s populist vision was the opposite of this. He pushed for policies that were expressly designed to benefit the common good, and to promote the health and wellbeing of everyone in the community. For now, I will take comfort in this, even as Minnesota’s doors reopen, perhaps somewhat recklessly.