Daily Archives: May 21, 2016

Saturdays, June 4 & June 11, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm – Awash in Birds and Blossoms: Nature Drawing & Painting

by

In this two-part workshop (June 4 & June 11) join professional nature artist Barry Van Dusen at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston, as he explores the techniques and approaches artists use to depict natural subjects, both outdoors and in the studio. The focus will be on two particular themes: BIRDS and FLOWERS, and will start with drawing methods and techniques. The workshop will include time learning the basics of watercolor painting including manipulating brushes, color mixing and more. Fee is $150 for THBG members, $180 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

Saturday, June 11, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Truro Open Day

by

The Garden Conservancy, in conjunction with its Provincetown Open Day on June 11, also has gardens in the neighboring town of Truro on display that Saturday, from 10 – 4.

Flyte Cottage, The Garden of Kurt D. Gress and Samuel Parkinson, is located at 9 Ryder Beach Road in Truro and is pictured below. This Cape Cod garden has been in the making for about twelve years and is an ever-changing and expanding place set on a tranquil hill with distant views of Cape Cod Bay. It has the advantage of temperate Truro seasons brought about by the ocean’s proximity, and being set back from the shore, it is partly protected from punishing winter winds. The garden is made up of several different areas that are tightly planted with a mixture of shrubs, trees, roses, herbs, and perennials set within stone paths, walls, picket fences, and garden structures. The garden’s color palette is primarily blue, white, and yellow except within the Pink Garden (which is, as you guessed, mostly shades of pink). The garden also includes a number of collected garden pieces and ornaments made of stone and metal to add companionship to the plants. While neither formal nor wild, the garden is overall rather exuberant in fullness as it sits peacefully within the Cape Cod landscape.

Directions: From Boston/Mid-Cape, take Route 6 East to Pamet Road/Truro Center exit and bear right toward South Pamet Road/Truro. You will very shortly reach a “T” intersection; there, turn right and follow the sign toward Truro Center. At the next “T” intersection, turn left onto Truro Center Road, and then take an immediate right onto Depot Road. After 0.5 mile, bear left at the fork onto Old County Road. Continue on Old County Road for approximately 1.7 miles, then turn right onto Ryder Beach Road. The property is approximately 0.1 miles on the right. (Follow parking instructions for 9 Ryder Beach Road).

From Provincetown, take Route 6 West and turn right onto Truro Center Road (about 9 miles from Provincetown). Continue on Truro Center Road for 0.8 mile, then take slight right onto Depot Road. In 0.5 mile, bear left at the fork onto Old County Road. At 1.7 miles, turn right onto Ryder Beach Road. The property is about 0.1 mile on right. (Follow parking instructions for 9 Ryder Beach Road).

Visitors are asked to park along Ryder Beach Road on the side of the street opposite from the driveway. Very limited parking is available near the house for those who are handicapped or physically challenged.

David Kirchner and Scott Warner garden at 6 Twine Field Road in North Truro. Their garden surrounds two vine-covered, late-nineteenth-century cottages atop a challenging windswept site overlooking Cape Cod Bay. Slightly less than an acre in size, the garden is dominated by romantic cottage-style plantings of perennials, flowering shrubs, and self-seeding annuals and biennials in a cool color palette. The garden also includes a “hot” border that comes to life in summer in shades of orange, red, and violet; a large collection of succulents displayed on decks and along walkways; a “Mediterranean” planting in front of a south-facing dry-stack wall sheltering plants generally not hardy in this Zone 7A location; and a wooded glade filled with newly planted native shrubs and other shade lovers. A highlight of the garden is a collection of more than eighty different kinds of roses—climbers, ramblers, and shrubs—most of which are heirloom and old garden varieties. They have designed the garden so that planted areas merge seamlessly with the native grasses, beach plums, bayberries, wild roses, and red cedars that occur naturally on the site.

*Please note this garden is located and number 6 and number 8 Twine Field Road. From U.S. Route 6 West, take the Highland Road/North Truro exit (approximately 6 miles from Provincetown). Turn right following sign marked North Truro/Pond Village. At the blinking traffic light/four-corner intersection, (The Salty Market is on your right), cross Route 6A and continue straight onto Pond Road. Pond Road dead ends into the Cold Storage Beach parking lot. Please park in the Cold Storage Beach parking lot at the end of Pond Road, above Cape Cod Bay. As you enter the beach parking lot, to your far right you will see a tall cedar fence with an open gate that leads into the garden. Visitors should enter from this gate.

Admission to this garden is $7. Don’t forget to buy discounted admission tickets in advance. They never expire and can be used at most Open Days to make garden visiting easier.

Saturday, June 11, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Provincetown Open Day

by

The Garden Conservancy has arranged for an Open Day in Provincetown on Saturday, June 11.

The Garden of Alix Ritchie and Marty Davis may be found at 8 Commercial Street. This large garden, completely hidden from the road, is full of surprises. It features a wide variety of creative plantings that take advantage of the many microclimates found on the site. The garden includes cottage-style borders with color schemes that evolve through the seasons, changing from sparkling silvers and whites in June (spires of white foxgloves, drifts of oxeye daisies, and statuesque Scotch thistles) to rich and vibrant hot colors later in summer and into fall, when crocosmias, salvias, and agapanthus provide bold interest. Visitors will encounter a succession of garden vignettes—a potager, box hedging, charming groupings of pots, azaleas, clematis in variety, historic outbuildings, and a tranquil shade garden with ferns, epimediums, hostas, rodgersias, and spring ephemerals— culminating in a hillside covered by a grove of native tupelos.

Kenn Freed’s Garden (below) is at 70A Commercial Street. Visitors to this small town garden surrounding an historic nineteenth-century house are greeted by cloud-pruned boxwood in the front garden and a gravel area filled with a riot of self-seeding lupines, corn poppies, larkspur, oxeye daisies, foxgloves, and California poppies. Other features include a spectacular display of coleus of all shapes and colors in an array of pots; a mixed planting of hardy and tender perennials (including thalictrum, euphorbia, veronicastrum, salvias in variety); and a rock wall with a hot and dry western exposure covered with a mosaic of sedums accented by sempervivums massed in a well-curated collection of unique containers.

Directions: The West End Parking Lot is the closest public parking to the garden of Alix Ritchie and Marty Davis (8 Commercial Street) and the garden of Kenn Freed (70A Commercial Street). This lot is located on Commercial Street, roughly across from 50 Commercial Street. (Commercial Street is a one-way street heading west.) There is also limited metered parking on Commercial Street itself further down from the parking lot.

The Garden of John Derian is nearby at 396 Commercial Street. The small town garden of designer John Derian surrounds an historic and unique eighteenth-century house as well as the Provincetown outpost of John Derian Company’s New York City-based shop. A remarkable feature of the garden is a ten-foot-high hornbeam enclosure that shelters a large raised bed—filled with a constantly changing seasonal “menu” of vegetables, herbs, and cut flowers—surrounded by a thick straw mulch that brings a bit of the country to this garden in the center of town. The house’s elegant front façade is complemented by a loose planting of native bayberry rising above a well-manicured privet hedge. A mixed herbaceous and shrub border provides color and screening for an area reserved for outdoor entertaining.

Finally, at 546 Commercial Street sits the Garden of Barbara Cantor. A striking feature of this town garden is its long brick walkway flanked with beds of billowing catmint punctuated by bearded iris, larkspur, and California poppies. The garden also features perfectly framed views out to Provincetown Harbor and charming borders filled with climbing roses, peonies, lupine, geraniums, thalictrum, crambe, and other cottage garden plants. Elements of structure are provided by classic white picket fencing and neatly trimmed privet hedges. Along Commercial Street, a spreading zelkova tree shelters a mixed planting of lady’s mantle, foxglove, columbine, and other plants that flourish in the dappled shade beneath.

Directions: The MacMillan Pier Lot, in Provincetown Center (at Lopes Square, near the intersection of Commercial and Standish Streets) is convenient to the gardens of John Derian (396 Commercial Street) and Barbara Cantor (546 Commercial Street).

Admission to each garden is $7. Don’t forget to buy discounted admission tickets in advance. They never expire and can be used at most Open Days to make garden visiting easier.

Kenn Freed Provincetown