martinhouseclr

44 DARWIN D. MARTIN HOUSE // CULTURAL LANDSCAPE REPORT A blueprint copy of planting plan for the grounds of the Martin House finally arrives on or around February 24, 1905, along with the mention of a forthcoming list for the plan which required additional revisions by Griffin. 105 [Fig. 28] Thus begins the seemingly arduous process and affairs surrounding the legibility of the plan and the eventual installation of the plant material, which may have condemned the original hemi- cycle from the beginning and contributed to its eventual replacement with the Floricycle. Just days after receiving the blueprint of the planting plan dated February 15, 1905, entitled “Plan of Plantings”, Martin expresses his concern over the legibility of the plan: Will you please, without fail, send me the original planting plan with the shrubbery list which you promised me this week. The second blue print of the planting plan has been received, but it is quite impossible for the gardener to follow it in planting. We would have to take it into the quietness of a drafting room and copy onto white paper in legible form, reading with the aid of a reading glass. Now you have the original planting plan which is legible. There is no reason why we should not have it to work with. Please send it. I hope the list will come forward this week, because now is the accepted time to Wright, Architect,” the plan is drawn by Walter Burley Griffin. Both the graphic style and the lettering are clearly Griffin’s, not to mention the horticultural expertise. 105 WBG-DDM, 24 February 1905. Trans. Jack Quinan 2003, WMP-UB. negotiate the purchase of shrubbery. 106 It is unclear what Martin is referring to regarding the plan being the “second blue print,” except the possibility that the print sent the week prior by Griffin was actually the second print sent to Martin and the first print was also illegible. Griffin’s own letter of 24 February does state the plan “is legible” but makes no indication that it was the second copy sent or why a second copy was sent. As mentioned, the seemingly trivial matter of the plan’s legibility will become a focus of the discrepancy between the blueprint copies, the original plans, and perhaps what was planted in the ground during the coming spring. Notably, whichever blueprint copy of the original Plan of Plantings that Darwin Martin is referring to concerning the legibility, he was quite accurate in description. The print, which is held at the University Archives, State University of New York at Buffalo, is barely legible in terms of identifying plant names, which does not appear to be from age or decay. The plant names are quite blurry and written in such a small lettering that it is not surprising that they did not copy well into blueprint. Compounding the legibility issues is the fact that the print was made from an early version of the original Plan of Plantings wherein all the plant symbols and names are drawn in pencil. 107 Walter Burley Griffin replies to Martin 106 DDM-WGB, 28 February 1905, Trans. Jack Quinan 2003, WMP-UB. 107 The original Plan of Plantings drawing includes both an underlay of pencil and an overlay of ink. Some of the plant Fig. 26, top Barton House rear yard, showing Barton clothes poles, October 1904. Fig. 27, bottom Detail of Green House Bench Plan (growing benches), Pierson Sefton Co., Dec 1904.