The Garden Conservancy Open Days schedule has been published, and the Worcester area is featured on Sunday, June 1 from 10 – 4. Admission to each garden is $5.
Brigham Hill Farm is located at 128 Brigham Hill Road in North Grafton. This 225-year-old colonial house and barn were purchased in 1975 by the present owners. Mature sugar maple and tulip trees encircle the house. The first thirteen years were spent in dealing with the ailments of an old house and in the rebuilding of old stone walls on the property. After all this work was finished, the gardens were planned and planted one by one. The herb garden was planted in 1996 off the south side of the kitchen wing. In 1997 a woodland water garden was started on the hillside to the west of the barn…this has become an ongoing project! In the fall of 1998, the perennial bed by the swimming pool was redesigned using most of the original granite and perennials. In 2007 and 2008, off the north side of the house, a large bluestone terrace was installed for entertaining with many large container pots for plantings. Down the broad steps from this area is a high-walled vegetable garden with a rill and granite-raised beds. Warren Leach of Massachusetts designed and planted all the above gardens. There is another large vegetable bed to the north of the barn which holds raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, cutting gardens, and various slow-growing annual vegetables. Eight chickens occupy a hen house there with a roof planted with “hens and chicks.†We just finished a new arboretum of one and one half acres. It has been planted mainly with native trees and shrubs from New England. Allow forty-five minutes to one hour for your visit.
Directions: From Route 90/Massachusetts Turnpike take Exit 11/Route 122 and turn right onto Route 122 South. Go about 2.1 miles and turn right onto Brigham Hill Road. Brigham Hill Farm is 1.4 miles on right.
Maple Grove is at 16 School Street in Boylston. Designed around a late-eighteenth-century Cape Cod-style house, Maple Grove is framed by mature sugar maples. Located within the historic district of Boylston, the garden is adjacent to an eighteenth-century cemetery, giving it charming borrowed scenery. A true collector’s garden, Maple Grove has a wide assortment of choice woody and herbaceous plants in a connected series of borders, beds, and islands, with sculpture and water features. (Photo below by Rob Zeleniak)
Directions: From I-290, take Exit 23A/Route 140 North. Go 1.8 miles to first traffic light and turn right onto Route 70. Go 1 mile to historic Boylston Center. Make sharp right, circling around old cemetery, and turn onto School Street.
From I-290 West from Boston, take Exit 24. Turn right at end of exit ramp and go to blinking traffic light. Turn left onto Route 70. Travel 0.25 mile to center of Boylston (gazebo on left). At fork in road, bear left at cemetery. Go to first house on right. Please park along street.
The Glenluce Garden is located at 18 Marlboro Road in Stow. Glenluce Garden is a small, personal, and romantic garden. Entering by the western gate, you will find yourself on a mound with green paths beckoning in seven directions. Explore these paths to discover a grove of paperbark maples, an island of tree peonies, or a border of fragrant native azaleas. A pergola covered by climbing roses leads to a frog pond shaded by heptacodium and a courtyard with raised vegetable beds. Glenluce Garden is the home of at least twenty-two magnolias, eighty-eight rhododendrons, about a hundred peonies, and more than a hundred old garden roses.
Directions: From I-495, take Exit 26 to Route 62 East. Go 4.4 miles and turn right onto Old Marlboro Road at traffic island that contains “Little Hello Garden of Rock Bottom.†Glenluce is second house on left, small honey-colored Victorian with iron picket fence. Entrance to garden is just beyond house.
From east, take Route 2 West. Turn left onto Route 62 West; go through West Concord and Maynard. After Route 62 turns left at traffic light in Stow, go 2.5 miles to left onto Old Marlboro Road at traffic island that contains “Little Hello Garden of Rock Bottom.†Proceed as directed above.
Rock Bottom Garden is designed by Rosemary Monahan and Stefan Cover. This one-acre garden has been shaped by two decades of collaboration between a woody plant zealot and a perennial gardener. From the 1840s house situated on the top of a dry knoll, one can enjoy sweeping vistas of the gardens below. These include mixed borders, a woodland garden, an herb garden, a bog garden, cactus garden, and rock garden. The gardens feature numerous unusual woody plants including many rare magnolias. On June 1, some of the big-leaf magnolias may be in bloom, with their dinner-plate sized white flowers!
Directions: At the request of the Garden Host, directions to this garden are provided through the Open Days Directory, at additional gardens open on this date, or by calling the Garden Conservancy office toll-free weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 1-888-842-2442.
The final garden on the tour is, naturally, Tower Hill Botanic Garden at 11 French Drive in Boylston. You may read all about Tower Hill at www.towerhillbg.org.
