McLaughlin ’ s property also includes
large perennial beds with black-eyed Susans , daisies
, salvia (“ a big attractor for hummingbirds ,”
he says ), blue lobelia , butterfly bush , calendula
, turtlehead , obedient plant , mums and others
.
Below , “ Taboo .”
“ It doesn ’ t bring joy to rattle off those details . The factual information , most times , is not as beneficial as the experiential .”
He leans over to examine a cluster of dahlias in the southern zone of his garden .
“ No ,” he objects , “ this is a pretty flower ; it ’ s red and white . And that one , it ’ s red and white , but there ’ s yellow in it , too . And the color that first comes out of the plant isn ’ t necessarily the color of the flower later in the summer . It ’ s sort of like Monet in the cathedral in Rouen . You paint it in the morning , and you paint in afternoon .”
The second-oldest of nine children , McLaughlin was raised on thirty acres of land in Marshfield , Massachusetts . His parents cultivated an acre with help from the children , but his mother was more joyful about it , he says . And she loved dahlias .
McLaughlin followed her lead in 1975 when he was working as a naval intelligence analyst in Naples , Italy . While there , he spotted dahlias in a market and decided to grow some of his own . He returned to Newport for work in 1983 and bought his house in Top of the Hill in 1984 . The next year , as his first crop of dahlias bloomed , his mother died .
54 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l APRIL 2021