Most people are familiar with Alexander Graham Bell’s pioneering research on the telephone and flight but few know the accomplishments of his wife, Mabel Hubbard Bell. This changed in 2022, the 100th anniversary of Alexander’s death and the 99th anniversary of Mabel’s passing, with a project at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, N.S.
The Bells’ association with the village of Baddeck goes back to when, looking for a respite from the summer heat of Washington, they visited the village and fell in love. They bought a point of land jutting out into Baddeck Bay in Bras d’Or Lake which they named Beinn Bhreagh, Gaelic for Beautiful Mountain, and built a home which remains in the Bell family today.
While Beinn Bhreagh is well known as their home, and the site of Alexander Graham Bell’s experiments, it was also where Mabel Bell carried out pioneering plant research. There she created flower and vegetable gardens, all while maintaining detailed drawings and notes on her efforts. Her gardens flourished and supplied fresh produce to feed family and workers while making money selling excess produce.
The current project is re-creating the gardens that Mabel Bell planted more than 100 years ago, this time on the grounds of the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. Alana Pindar, a professor and research scientist at Cape Breton University, is leading the work, collaborating with the Alexander Graham Bell Foundation, Parks Canada, the Weston Foundation, and the Bell family on the project. Using Mabel Bell’s original designs and journals, the project aims to re-create her gardens and educate people on growing, and harvesting, their own food, as well as the role plant conservation can play in mitigating climate change.
My introduction to the project came in early June of 2022 when I joined a group at the museum for a presentation by Pindar on native pollinators, as well as the ground breaking for two plots of land on the museum grounds. The first plot is a pollinator garden incorporating plants native to Nova Scotia and the second is for vegetables. A few days after the event, I met with Pindar and Mary Tulle from the Alexander Graham Bell Foundation.
“The re-creation of Mabel Bell’s Garden began when the trustees of trustees of Beinn Bhreagh Hall gave us the opportunity to have a number of historical documents scanned,” Tulle says. “The garden project really stood out and we felt her ground breaking research in food safety and sustainability was particularly relevant today. We approached Parks Canada with the idea for a project to highlight science and food security while also celebrating biodiversity.”
Pindar is a professor in ecosystem health and food security at Cape Breton University. Her research focuses on pollinators, specifically bees, how the diversity of pollinators has changed over the years, and how we can begin to incorporate ecosystem diversity back into our own gardens and backyard.
“One in three bites of our food comes from pollinators,” she says. “There are 290 species of bees found in Nova Scotia but the majority are unknown by most people.” Mabel Bell’s legacy impresses Pindar. “She planted wildflowers next to her tomatoes, which insinuates she knew you needed nature and agriculture together,” she says. “It mirrors what we are telling farmers today, that they have to introduce nature back to their crops … Mabel kept very detailed notes and plans which are enabling us to re-create her gardens. She realized, 150 years ago, that nature and agriculture needed to work together.”
While the June event launched the project, work began back in the spring when the museum announced it would be part of the No Mow May movement to protect natural pollinators.
Mabel’s legacy isn’t limited to her agricultural work. “She introduced the first Montessori school in North America at Beinn Breagh for her grandchildren and the children of staff ,” says Tulle, “and she also formed a home and school association in Baddeck, the first in Canada.”
And Mabel Bell had an ally in her horticultural efforts. “Mabel’s daughter Marian married David Fairchild in 1905,” Tulle says. “As a plant explorer for the United States department of agriculture, he was responsible for introducing more than 200,000 plant species to his department for research, and helped develop the Florida citrus industry.”
Parks Canada workers are aiding the project. “In my 33-year career with Parks Canada, Mabel Bell’s garden re-creation is one of the top projects in terms of its relevancy and legacy,” says Blair Pardy, field unit supervisor responsible for Cape Breton and Canso. “It honours Mabel’s legacy in teaching the importance of natural systems and food security and I believe its impact will be seen as immeasurable over time … (The next phase) will enlarge the size of the garden plots and also increase the plantings.”
In August 2022, I was back at the museum for the public opening of Mabel Bell’s Garden. The new gardens were off to a good start, with fencing to keep whitetail deer at bay. During the presentation, Pindar reviewed the history and development of the project, noting there are no straight lines in the garden plots. “Nothing in nature is straight and we are attempting to follow nature’s examples in these gardens,” she says.
The commitment to remain true to Mabel Bell’s gardens extends to the pergola at the entrance. At Beinn Bhreagh, Mabel commissioned an impressive structure of white birch poles, and local craftsmen, descendants of the original builders, have constructed the pergola to Mabel’s design.
Pindar keenly feels the presence of Mabel Bell as she works to re-create her work from more than 100 years ago.
“Her journal entries and designs are so detailed, it is as if she wanted them replicated,” she says. “Mabel knew a century ago, in a world advancing, that natural resilience was hard to conserve, and she deeply respected nature’s processes. Re-creating her garden and celebrating her passion for ecology has taught me the more resilience we put back in is indisputably healing the world, ecologically and otherwise.”
Sidebar: Protecting our pollinators
Many important Canadian crops — including canola, blueberries, apples and other tree fruits, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, and peppers — depend on pollinating creatures for fertilization and crop set. The same goes for our home gardens.
Most people think of honeybees as the primary pollinators, but they aren’t the only ones, nor the most eff ective and important. Nor are they native to Canada: European settlers introduced them generations ago. There are more than a thousand species of native pollinating creatures, including butterflies, native bees such as our bumbles, leaf-cutter and sweat bees, some types of beetles, bee-mimic flies, hummingbirds, moths, and even wasps.
How can we help native pollinators in our gardens? First, don’t use pesticides, some of which (including so-called organic remedies) are especially lethal to bees. Include some native plants in your gardens, as pollinators tend to seek out plants they know. Plant a range of fl owers with different bloom periods; from willows and heaths and bulbs in early spring, to the glorious sunflowers and fall asters of the later season.
Create a dedicated pollinator-friendly area, sheltered from the worst winds, with flat rocks for butterflies to warm themselves, lots of sunlight, and plenty of blossoms such as coneflowers, milkweeds, asters, bee balm, ironweed, blanket fl ower, lavender and other herbs, and speedwells. Don’t forget flowering shrubs and trees, including lilacs, roses, heaths and heathers, viburnum, and hydrangeas.
— Jodi DeLong