Each Sunday morning in June the experts at Old Sturbridge Village will conduct a meeting on the grounds of this treasured site. On June 14, meet in the Herb Garden to hear about The Dangers of Herbs. On June 21, Fashion in Flowers will be discussed at the garden near the Towne House. June 28 brings Garden Pests and Problems at the Freeman Farmhouse kitchen garden. These programs are free with admission to Old Sturbridge Village. Old Sturbridge Village is a “must-see†destination to experience early New England life from 1790-1840. One of the country’s largest living history museums, OSV has a large staff of historians in costume, 59 historic buildings on 200 acres, three authentic water-powered mills and two covered bridges. Visitors can ride in a stagecoach, view antiques, heirloom gardens, meet the farm animals, and take part in hands-on crafts year-round. For more information and directions, log on to www.osv.org. Also, attention heirloom gardeners: head to the Museum Gift Shop to browse flats of perennial flowers and heirloom tomatoes — museum admission not required!
Month: June 2009
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Thursday, June 25, 7:30 a.m. – 6:45 p.m. – Coast of Maine and Seacoast of New Hampshire Day Trip
The Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture has organized a fabulous day trip on Thursday, June 25. Meet in the Gray Parking Lot to carpool at 7:30 a.m. Expected return time is 6:45. The first garden stop is Braveboat Harbor Farm in York, Maine, the home of Cynthia and Calvin Hosmer. These gardens were hay fields which rise from the rockbound coast. Visit the formal front garden, a vegetable garden, an orchard, a woodland garden, and collections of hostas, lilacs and magnolias. This bit of paradise was featured in last summer’s issue of “La Vie Claire” and has been a participant in the Garden Conservancy’s Open Gardens Day for the past eight years.
The lovely home of Vance and Anne Mitchell Morgan on Gemish Island in Kittery Point will be the setting for lunch. The garden, largely designed and created by them, overlooks a tidal inlet and features a rock garden, perennial beds, a fountain garden and a wonderful shady woodland garden. Colorful containers on the deck show off choice plants. The Morgans moved to Maine when Anne retired from the Wellesley College Alumnae Association.
Fuller Gardens in North Hampton, New Hampshire, is a turn-of-the-century estate garden established by then-Governor of Massachusetts Alvan T. Fuller to please his wife, Viola, who loved flowers and especially roses. Today Fuller Gardens is known primarily for its extensive collection of roses, and Garden Director Jamie Colen will give a short talk about the roses and other features of the Gardens. A stop at the nearby home of Anne Sinnott Moore for refreshments preceeds heading back to Wellesley. Members $48, Non-Members $60, includes lunch, snacks, and gardens. To sign up, log on to http://www.wellesley.edu/WCFH/Courses/OnTheRoadJune09.pdf, or mail a check to Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481-8203.
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Saturday, June 20, 9 – 5 – Annual White Flower Farm Open House
For the past 56 years, White Flower Farm has been pleased to welcome old friends and new for iced tea and cucumber sandwiches on the lawn by their house. This informal tea party provides an opportunity for some garden chat, a leisurely view of the white border, and a cameo appearance by the pair of Shire horses used to mow grass. The date of the annual Open House this year is Saturday, June 20. The hosts for this gathering will include some or all of the owner’s children, and they are looking forward to meeting you. Service begins about 2:30, weather permitting, and continues until the grub runs out. The hat contest is in its second year. Last year some two-dozen ladies appeared in stylish sunbonnets and the winner, Ms. Donna Ferri, created a design that won our $100 gift certificate hands down.
The annual Open House coincides with a spring Tent Sale that will be held Friday and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the store. Bring a friend and enjoy bargains on plants and garden accessories, as well as a stroll around the display gardens to see what we’ve been up to. New this year, you’ll find products from the Gardener’s Supply Company in Burlington, Vermont. For directions, log on to www.whiteflowerfarm.com.
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Wednesday, June 24, 6-8 pm – Build a Backyard Butterfly Haven
By adding a progression and variety of easy-to-grow, nectar-rich flowers to your home garden, you can ensure a season-long treat in the form of visiting butterflies. Suzanne Mahler, one of the Garden Club of the Back Bay’s former speakers, is an expert in the subject and she’ll show you how mass plantings of colorful flowers, particularly those tinted pink and lavender, are irresistible to butterflies passing overhead. Butterflies are fragile creatures, and Suzanne will talk about how to ensure your garden is a haven for them. $5 for members of Massachusetts Horticultural Society, $10 general admission. To register, and for directions, log on to www.masshort.org.
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Saturday, June 20, 10 – 4 – Newport Area Open Day
The Garden Conservancy will sponsor an Open Day in Newport, Rhode Island on Saturday, June 20, from 10 – 4. Visit Green Animals Topiary Garden at 380 Cory’s Lane, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum at 101 Ferry Road and Route 114, for more information.
The Purviance Garden, 47 Kane Avenue, Middletown, Rhode Island
For more than thirty years the owners have lovingly tended their gardens. The house is sheltered by two venerable lindens of astonishing form and framed by a billowing boxwood hedge, shaped by an artist. The border by the terrace holds flowering shrubs, a whimsical collection of potted plants, a garden pool, roses, perennials, and evergreens. A tiny playhouse is tucked under a copper beech. Other small gardens are constantly changing, rearranged by the owners who cannot resist tinkering.
Bellevue House Gardens, Newport, Rhode Island
This walled three-and-one-half-acre property serves as the private park of an estate designed by Ogden Codman Jr. for his cousin Martha. The gardens have recently been restored, embellished, and re-imagined. They pay homage to the garden designers of the American Renaissance period (1885-1930), and include a series of follies, exedras, and tea houses which form axes and vistas inviting diversions beyond the contemplation of the magnificent specimen trees set in sweeping lawns. The most recent additions include the American Renaissance Water Garden on the east side of the house. A carved granite statue of the goddess Pomona as a metaphorical deity passes energy to the current family over time. The waters gush forward from the her fruit-laden cornucopia, then rise up to a Villa Lante-like table, spill out the father’s lips, under a bridge, and down a long rill to a children’s fountain. A pergola nearby pays homage to Rosemary Verey’s laburnums and wisteria and frames the new tea house, replicating the work of Salem architect Samuel McIntyre (1800). At the rear of the property, stands the newest folly—the cupola of McIntyre’s 1809 Branch (now Howard Street) Church in Salem as redesigned by J. P. Couture of Providence. It is adjacent to an English water garden that reflects the cupola in its symmetrical pool. Completed in the fall of 2008, a new Oriental Vale extends the view to the south. Here a Chinese Chippendale bridge frames a cascade running from a lily-lined lagoon into the pond. A hillock blocks street views and sends a waterfall down to stepping stones that edge the lagoon, which is embraced by a shoal of large beach stones, Japanese maples, and granite lanterns. We regret that fishing for the multi-colored koi is not allowed. Nor will we in turn fish for compliments, though your comments and suggestions for this evolving work will be appreciated.
Parterre, Newport, Rhode Island
Recalling the romance of eighteenth-century France, a series of formal gardens with whimsical outbuildings surround the house, built just ten years ago amidst a park-like setting. Always a work in progress, inspiration from other gardens continue to provide precious details. The existing woodland had been reclaimed, with a fall “flame border†of Japanese maples as its accent (a la Sheffield Park, England.) From the fourteen-foot copper beech tapestry hedge to the evergreen “winter gardenâ€, the focus at Parterre is on horticultural specimens and diversity.
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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.
The Grieves Garden, 5 Mill Street
A charming perennial border with a rose-covered cottage tucked in behind an eighteenth-century house which has been meticulously restored by a well-known architect. -
Saturday, June 13, 9:30 – 12:30 – Walk for Open Space
The Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation, Allston Brighton Green Space Advocates, and Whole Foods are sponsoring a walk in support of the CDC’s open space advocacy work. Register on line or by telephone by June 12. Check in begins at 9:30 a.m., and walk begins promptly at 10. Meet at Brian J. Honan Apartments on Everett Street, just south of the bridge over the Mass. Pike. The walk is just over two hours, with several stops along the way. Finish at Christian Herter Park by the Charles River. Celebrate Allston Brighton’s green spaces and places. Please contact David at 617-787-3874, ext. 217, or email Holtzman@allstonbrightoncdc.org to register.
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Tuesday, June 16, 6-9 (Raindate Thursday, June 18)- Summer Solstice Celebration
Explore a Boston treasure! On the longest day of the year, The Forest Hills Educational Trust invites you to join Trustees and Friends of the Forest Hills Educational Trust for a festive evening of twilight tours, trolley rides, al fresco refreshments and vintage cocktails. See masterpieces of sculpture by Daniel Chester French, visit Revolutionary War hero Joseph Warren and poet e.e. Cummings, and view some of the Trust’s innovative contemporary art. Tours will be led by our expert guides Elise Ciregna, Al Maze, Dee Morris, and Trustee Anthony Sammarco; artists Fern Cunningham and Mitch Ryerson will participate in a walk to see their work at Forest Hills.
Special thanks to Samuel Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plain for donating beer to support the event, and to the expert mixologists of LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails) for creating vintage cocktails.
Tickets are $35 and must be purchased in advance. Call 617.524.3354; leave a message with your daytime phone and a representative will call you back for credit card information. Or send an email stating how many tickets and your daytime phone number to: tickets@foresthillstrust.org. Do not email your credit card information.
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Saturday, June 20, 10 – 2 – We’re Flowering in West Roxbury
The Evening Garden Club of West Roxbury presents “We’re Flowering in West Roxbury”, a self-guided garden tour of five different gardens in West Roxbury, on Saturday, June 20, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m, rain or shine. Tickets are $15 each in advance and $18 day of tour. Contact Katherine Lino at 617-327-4019 or 617-469-3368 to reserve your tickets and for information and directions. Proceeds benefit the Club’s civic beautification projects, including the West Roxbury Branch Library and Reading Garden, the Beethoven Elementary School, the Massachusetts Visibility Site, and Millennium Park, plus annual bulb plantings throughout West Roxbury. Log on to www.westroxburyevegc.com for more details. Tickets are available at Auntie B’s, 1881 Centre Street, Halls of Tara Florist, 2051 Centre Street, Stephanie’s Flowers, 1004 West Roxbury Parkway, and Village Books, 751 South Street.
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Saturday, June 13, 10 – 12 and 1 – 3 – Meet and Greet with Patti Moreno, The Garden Girl
Patti Moreno, “The Garden Girl”, contributor to Fine Gardening, Organic Gardening Magazine, and Farmers Almanac, will be at two Mahoney’s Garden Centers in Osterville and Falmouth on Saturday, June 13, to answer questions and give advice on gardening with vegetables and herbs. She will be in Osterville between 10 a.m. and noon, and in Falmouth from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. No sign up is necessary. For directions, log on to www.mahoneysgarden.com. Be sure to log on as well to Patti’s website, www.gardengirlTV.com, and put it on your “favorites” list. The website is dedicated to informing and educating the world on methods for Urban Sustainable Living, which really is the topic of The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s 2009/2010 speaker series. Patti is a resident of Roxbury, and her site will make us more aware of ways to live a healthy lifestyle by eating an organic diet, save money by growing our own produce when possible, and consume fewer natural resources.