The Garden Conservancy turns its sights on Milton, Massachusetts, on Sunday, June 5 from 10 – 4.
Open Days coincides with the Wakefield Estate’s own Dogwood Days, timed to give the public a rare opportunity to enjoy our collection of hundreds of Chinese Dogwoods (Cornus kousa) at their spectacular peak bloom. Polly Wakefield grew most of these trees from seed or cuttings collected from the Arnold Arboretum. The dogwoods are planted throughout Polly’s Formal Garden and Terrace Rooms along with other rare trees and shrubs, as well as lining either side of the Fountain Path Allee, that spans the entire length of the property. It is truly a magnificent sight to behold. Gardens and nurseries surround a farmhouse circa 1730 and a Georgian mansion circa 1794. The Wakefield-Davenport Estate takes its name and purpose from Mary “Polly” Wakefield, who lived most of her life at the estate. The estate is managed by the Mary M. B. Wakefield Charitable Trust which is committed to promoting life-long participatory learning using the land and resources of the Wakefield estate. Through collaborative partnerships with schools and community organizations, the Wakefield Trust carries out this mission through providing educational opportunities, tours, presentations, workshops, hands-on training, internships and other programs covering a variety of subjects, including local history, ecology, horticulture, agriculture, archival work and historic preservation.
Directions: Exit 2B on 128, take 138 north for one mile. Bear right on Canton Avenue. Immediately get in the left lane to turn left and proceed straight across the intersection onto Brush Hill Road. Entrance is 100 yards from the intersection on the left, across from Fuller Village entrance. Address: 1465 Brush Hill Road in Milton.
The Garden of Christine Paxhia is at 1027 Brush Hill Road.Christine Paxhia created her garden of sensory splendor from nothing. She says, “when we first moved in, there was not one desirable plant.” After clearing out the overgrown invasives beneath the white pines and Norway spruces that surround the property, Paxhia began to assess her options, and design her garden based on what would grow well in the different pockets and zones her garden, with an emphasis on sensory experience sparked by an abundance of color, textures, and aromatic plants and flowers. Now her garden offers months of delight with a wide array of unusual perennials, viburnums, lilacs, and peonies. A blend of sun and shady areas of the garden offered an opportunity for Paxhia to play with groupings and fragrant compositions such as with her pairing of an unusual carpet dianthus (with a smell of cinnamon) and a white lilac ‘hyacinthiflora’ making for a heady mix for passersby. Her collection of peonies includes not only the standard single and double varieties but also tree and intersectional plants chosen for their fragrance or unusual attributes. Her “shade wonderland” incorporates a broad spectrum of native and woodland plants with an emphasis on textures and colors. Paxhia considers her garden a “teaching garden” enabling her to play the role of Brush Hill Garden Guru that became the name of her business, but she is quick to add that it is not a cookie cutter garden nor is it perfectly manicured, preferring a more natural look, and while she’s committed to including as many native plants as she can (especially to support her beehive), but confesses she can’t do without select ornamentals like the peonies, striving rather for a “happy mix.”
Finally, visit the Shapiro/Bloomberg Garden, pictured below, the former “Mrs. Holden McGinley Garden” designed by Ellen Biddle Shipman, at 582 Blue Hill Avenue. The highlight of this year’s Open Day is the Shapiro/Bloomberg Garden, an intact garden designed for Mrs. Holden McGinley by Ellen Biddle Shipman in 1925, at the peak of her illustrious career as one of America’s premiere landscape architects. A stunning example of Shipman’s garden design philosophy closely integrating house and garden, one axis lures the visitor out from the house’s garden room across the lawn into the walled garden. There, another axis transitions through a series of three long, narrow descending garden rooms, each on a successively lower level and each with its own distinctive character. Most of the original detail is intact including an original bluestone rill which traverses the uppermost panel. This garden shows how Shipman often skillfully combined formal and wild gardens in a compressed suburban setting. Shipman was known for her walled gardens stating, “planting, however beautiful, is not a garden. A garden must be enclosed … or otherwise it would merely be a cultivated area.” Using this prototypal layout here, the garden is enclosed and surrounded by high whitewashed brick walls which match the mansion. Recently acquired by Ellen Shapiro and her husband Michael Bloomberg, this important garden now receives the protection and care it so richly deserves. Open Day visitors are fortunate to have this rare opportunity to glimpse an intact masterwork by the “Dean of American Women Landscape Architects.”
Expert in the Garden! with Judith Tankard, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Garden Club of the Back Bay member Judith B. Tankard will be at the Shapiro-Bloomberg Garden to talk about the importance of this historic garden and its famous designer, Ellen Shipman. Designed in the 1920s as a series of stunning outdoor rooms, it was embellished with Shipman’s signature water features, garden ornament, and flower borders. The Massachusetts Horticultural Society commended it for its “great charm and restraint.” Judith is a landscape historian and author of books on Shipman and other landscape architects. She is a Garden Conservancy Fellow and an Open Days host on Martha’s Vineyard.
Directions: From Rt. I-93: Take exit 2B in Canton for Route 138 North. Travel 3.2 miles, continuing on Route 138/Blue Hill Avenue (bearing left when Canton Avenue forks to the right). #582 is on the right.
From the Wakefield Estate, turn right onto Brush Hill Road, then turn left onto Route 138/Blue Hill Avenue. Travel approximately 2 miles north to #582 on the right.
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.
