Thursday, June 25, 10 – 4 – Nantucket Open Day
The Garden Conservancy is pleased to announce that, as part of the Nantucket Open Day on Thursday, June 25, the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum/1820 Garden at 49 Union Street, Open Days visitors will be admitted free. For more information on obtaining tickets, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.
11 Mill Street
Old fashioned and whimsical describes this piece of Nantucket garden history perfectly. The rustic pergola at the rear of the garden provides a resting place for the eye. The perennial borders flowing out from either side of the pergola divide the space in a colorful and informal way. The garden is punctuated with important structural plants such as fruit trees (apple and plum), magnolias, and hedges of yew and rose of Sharon. The American pillar roses on the fence are spectacular specimens.
44 Orange Street
This is a work in progress and will not be fully designed until the house itself is renovated. There will be some exterior reconfiguring of the house and the gardens. As they are now, the gardens are for the pleasure of passers-by and the homeowners. The prior owner had a rose garden that she dearly loved and we have been maintaining it. We invite you back in future years when the gardens are fully developed. Until then, please enjoy the glorious views and work in progress.
Hoffman Gampetro, 102 Orange Street
The plantings of this garden move through the year as if set to music—for it is truly a four-season show of color, texture, and form. Ten years of collaborating with the gardener Marcus has packed every corner of the yard with individual interest, while maintaining a grand theme. The wild landscape is kept in check with selective weeding, artful pruning, and an approach that strays from the typical Nantucket look.
Tristram Bunker House
The Tristram Bunker House is nearly 300 years old and was originally located in Nantucket’s early harbor town of Sherburne. It was moved to its present location in 1756. At that time the site was outside of the town gates; now it is virtually lost in the midst of edge-of-town commercial Nantucket. Moving from six acres on Eel Point Road in 2006, the owner has made a new garden that has almost nothing to do with either the spirit of time or of place. Every blade of grass on what had been a totally grassed-over plot, was removed and graveled over. Taking advantage of a generous change in grade, two distinct areas were created. The upper level, partly terraced for table and chairs, and shaded by an enormous pear tree, is an escape from the sun, and is calm and green with a pretty Acer palmatum ‘Seiryu’, boxwoods, sarcococca, many hostas, and a profusion of spring bulbs and autumn colchicum amongst edgings of euphorbia, epimedium, and lady’s mantle. The lower level, long and narrow, is divided through its length by a copper-lined rill spilling out of an old stone basin at the edge of the stone wall that retains the upper level. On either side of the rill are beds of mostly high- and late-summer perennials, particularly helenium, echinacea, heuchera, more euphorbia, grasses, and many different hardy geranium cultivars. There are poppies for earlier summer. A short, sort of semi-woodland walk across the back of the house is full of tree peonies, hydrangeas, hostas, spring bulbs, enkianthus, boxwood, and yew, along with even more geraniums and other choice plants that will eventually form a groundcover amidst the gravel.
Whitney Garden at Moors End, 19 Pleasant Street
This Federal-style brick house and garden were built in 1829 by Jared Coffin. The current owner has been restoring the intricate patterns of boxwood that outline beds of old roses. Within the walled garden is an ornamental iron gazebo surrounded by hostas, lilies, rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus, and white oak-leaf hydrangea.
