In 1932, Ben Hartman stated, “Flowers have a fascination for me and I regard them as friends. They are worth all of the trouble that one gives to them.” Flowers were Ben’s first means of creativity. Long before he mixed his first batch of concrete, he was creating vivid displays of mostly old-fashioned flowers. Which flower is your favorite?

Canna

Ben Hartman started growing red cannas in the north lawn shortly after the completion of the family residence in 1925. He used them as tall center pieces in the large circular flower beds. This variety, named “The President”, grows to a height of four feet.

Petunia

Mary Hartman loved petunias ‒ pink, lavender, or white ‒ and grew them throughout her garden. They were the traditional planting for the outermost ring of her large circular beds. The Hartmans also sold petunias out of their greenhouse for many decades.

Eastern Prickly Pear

After tiring of the painful process of transplanting more exotic cacti (ouch!), Ben and Mary began planting prickly pear in the late 1930s. This variety is native to Ohio, so it can tolerate cold winters. Each summer, this cactus develops beautiful yellow flowers.

Snapdragons

When squeezed from the sides, snapdragons resemble the face of a dragon opening and closing its mouth – a snapping dragon! These were one of Mary’s Hartman’s favorite flowers. She often planted them around Ben’s Maxwell House Cup and Saucer.

Daisy

Ben’s concrete picket fence, constructed around 1936, provided an opportunity for a new flower bed along the garden’s north edge. Mary traditionally filled this bed with perennial flowers like the white Shasta Daisy, which was first cultivated by Luther Burbank in 1901.

Salvia

Salvia had a very specific purpose at Hartman, occupying the third ring around the Tree of Life, and thus covering snow-on-the-mountain’s less than attractive stems. In 1932, local nursery Good & Reese called salvia, “The most attractive of all bedding plants.”

Zinnia

Ben and Mary sold potted zinnia plants out of their greenhouse starting in the late 1930s. Unlike the other flowers on this tour, Zinnias never had a permenant home at Hartman. Instead, Ben and Mary would use them on occasion in small groupings.

Snow-on-the-Mountain

In 1932, the George Washington Bicentennial Commission included snow-on-the-mountain on their list of flowers “familiar in Colonial days, which will be particularly adaptable to this kind of celebration.” Ben planted this native species around the Tree of Life.

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