Boston Flora

Category: Cape Cod & Islands

  • Thursday, June 23, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Nantucket Open Day

    The Garden Conservancy announces  a Nantucket Open Day on Thursday, June 23 from 10 – 4 in Nantucket.

    16 Cathcart Garden on 16 Cathcart Road will be on view. Traveling down the dirt road to this property one finds a house tucked among all native Nantucket woodland plants and beautiful specimen trees. Rounding the corner to the back is an unexpected treat—a riot of color framing an exquisite view of the harbor! Lush perennials, overflowing pots, stone walls, a blue stone terrace, an outdoor room, and a split-rail fence in the distance all add to the enjoyment of this garden. It’s amazing that this garden is only one year old.

    Directions: Turn around and head toward Milestone Rd. on Monomoy Rd. Bear left onto Boston Ave which turns into Brewster Avenue. then bear left onto Cathcart Road. #16 is on your left.

    At Carried Away, 6 Salt Marsh Road, you’ll see a variety of unique garden spaces with different themes. From the boxwood parterre courtyard that is adorned with planters and roses, to the cutting garden mixed with unique varieties of specialty plants, to the expansive perennial borders that deliver you to the waters edge to view Nantucket harbor and a perfect view of town. Trellises of blooming roses abound the estate creating a dreamy feel as you wander this garden peninsula in Monomoy.

    Directions: From the rotary take Milestone Rd. Bear left at Monomoy Road, Salt Marsh road is the first road on your left. Please park on Monomoy Rd. and walk down Salt Marsh to the last house straight ahead. (please note this garden is open only from 10 – 3)

    Unicorn’s Delight is located at 60 Monomoy Road. Step through the privet archway into a jewel-box garden reminiscent of Monet’s paintings of Giverny. Designed for summer enjoyment, this garden combines the sensibilities of self-sufficient plantings with playful expressions of calming colors, textures, and movement.

    Directions: Continue on Monomy Rd. following the road as it makes a right turn. 60 Monomoy is on the left. Please park along the road. Parking on garden’s side of the street only. Do not block neighbor’s mailboxes.

    You won’t want to miss Patsy’s Garden at 46 Shimmo Pond Road. Mrs. Walsh, a Philadelphia native, was greatly influenced by gardens she experienced living abroad with her family while her husband was with an international organization. Her first request  was to create a garden of wildflowers on the harbor side of her home without disrupting the deep roots and fragile balance that keep coastal bluffs intact. Some years later it was time to open the garden at the front of the house to embrace the wonderful space and sky. Down came the tall fence and its confines, new garden layers created, a hedge more like a European hedgerow instead of the solid wall of invasive privet, bluestone paths to enhance a country feeling, and a double blooming white cherry overhead. Directed by her love of the charming gardens kept by the Swiss train station masters near her chateau in Switzerland, including a pocket for favorite edibles – herbs always, tomatoes, rhubarb, the occasional small watermelon for its beautiful leaf – this garden was created as an exuberant country garden, mixed with wildflowers, favorite hollyhocks, wild sweet peas, cabbages, roses, hydrangea, Cape Cod rambling roses, and a ‘grounding’ of boxwood – a collector’s garden from a world traveler and gardener wanting to enjoy her summer season on Nantucket.

    A year later she removed ninety percent of the new garden in order to install an enormous new septic system so a small exercise pool could be added. As all available space was taken, Mrs. Walsh was inspired to simply fill in the only other place available – the slope of the hill. A large retaining wall was built, filled, faced with native stone, the exercise pool installed, and the garden recreated while moving several of the large cherry trees outside the hedgerow to the slope. Ongoing is the challenge of living on an active harbor. A grandfathered seawall has been maintained. The terrible storms of 2012 – Hurricane Sandy and the Nor’easter the following week delivered severe damage to the bluff on the harbor side. Innovative restoration work on this bluff is proving successful in preventing further damage from erosion and seeing rapid establishment of critical coastal scrub plantings to hopefully withstand the next hurricane season.

    Directions: Parking for this garden is at the Shimmo Association parking lot. Handicapped/disabled drop-off is available in the upper driveway.

    Finally, visit Low Shimmo at 42 Shimmo Pond Road. A family house for 3 generations, Low Shimmo, was originally the Shimmo Yacht Club when it was built in the late 1920’s. A naturalist’s garden, Low Shimmo was designed for avid birders, attracting all types of feathered friends. The garden sits nestled into the dune at the bottom of Shimmo Pond Road and features sweeping views of the harbor accented by classic Nantucket Hydrangeas on the waterside. On the entry side of the house are two garden rooms. One is the entry garden highlighting a traditional perennial border. The other is an enclosed terrace garden featuring a steep grade planted with naturalizing perennials, annuals and grasses. The Stewartia in this area is noteworthy and thriving. This is the quintessential seaside house and garden.

    Directions: Access these gardens from the rotary take Milestone Road bear left onto Polpis Rd. Make a left onto Shimmo Pond Road before Moors End Farm, follow the dirt road staying to the left at every opportunity. You will reach 42 on the left; drive by the driveway and park in the Shimmo Association parking lot between 42 and 46 Shimmo Pond Road. Parking for this garden is at the Shimmo Association parking lot.

    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.  Visit www.gardenconservancy.com.

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  • Friday, June 24, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Chatham Garden Tour

    Four gardens will be open for viewing in Chatham on Friday, June 24 from 10 – 4 as part of the Hydrangea Festival. The proceeds from the garden tours will benefit Chatham Garden Club. Admission is $5 per garden tour. RAIN or SHINE.

    Garden#1 Horticulturist’s Hydrangeas
    Explore this naturalistic garden designed by the owner, a former art teacher, horticulturist and landscape designer. Register at the front table near Trident and Paper Bark Maple trees and you will receive a map of the garden highlighting unusual trees, shrubs and a variety of hydrangeas. Enter the garden through an arch made from fastigiate apple trees to view a rare Pekin lilac tree, stewartia pseudocamellia and other plants of interest. Varieties of our native Hydrangea quercifolia and many other paniculata and macrophylla hydrangeas are planted throughout the garden.

    Garden#2  Grandmother’s Perennials
    “My garden has been planted and maintained by me with an emphasis on pink, white, blue and green colors. My grandmother’s peonies have been transplanted 3 times with loving care. The hydrangeas in the back perimeter are volunteer clippings I have nurtured which flow into my neighbor’s property naturally. Behind our house, the path leads toward Ridgevale Beach lined with my perennials which bloom from late spring through early December. Most of my plants have been divided and replanted several times resulting in what you see today.”

    Garden#3  Water Spout
    “In 1995, faced with  a choice of filling my yard with $7000 worth of sand or making a pond, I created this decorative water spout surrounded by hydrangeas and roses. A gazebo, as requested by my wife, is on the north and a walking path on the east border of the property. In the back is a beautiful perennial garden sloping toward the house with seasoned trees and shrubs around the yard.”

    Garden#4  Not Just Cape Cod Art
    Nikko Blue, Mophead Mathilda Gutges, Endless Summer hydrangeas along with lavender and various perennials grace the front gardens. Knockout roses and perennials lead to a white arbor covered with Zephirine Drouhinand roses and Clematis. Stop and relax by the fish pond shaded by a Japanese Maple surrounded by peonies, Strawberries & Cream, and Climbing hydrangeas with a secret room hidden from view by Fairy Roses. The owner will be painting pictures of hydrangeas in her garden during the tour.

    For complete information visit www.chathamgardenclub.org.

  • Saturday, June 25, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Garden Artistry Garden Tour

    Six lovely Orleans gardens will be on display Saturday, June 25 from 10 – 4, at a garden tour sponsored by the Orleans Improvement Association. Representatives from the Master Gardener Association of Cape Cod will be on site to answer your questions. Talented local musicians will be present at selected gardens, including Tim Sweeney with Randy Patterson, Gregg Sullivan and the Kingsbury String Quartet.

    After tour receptions will be held at local galleries from 4 pm to 6 pm where you may sip wine and meet the artists.

    Addison Art Gallery – Artists: Susan Overstreet, David Burns and Steve Kennedy

    Left Bank Gallery – Artist: Kate Nelson

    Alice Mongeau Gallery – Artist: Alice Mongeau

    Gallery 31 – Artists: Jennifer McCalmont, Sissi Sneve Schultz, Barbara Stone and Mary Wojciechowski

    Tickets ($25 in advance at outlets, $27 in advance online, and $30 day of tour) may be purchased at the Nauset Regional Middle School, 70 Rt. 28 in Orleans, or at www.orleansimprovement.org

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

    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

    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

  • Wednesday, May 25, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm – Pulses with Gail Blakely

    Beans, peas, lentils, and chickpeas are gaining new respect. The United Nations has declared 2016 International Year of Pulses, so come to Highfield Hall and Gardens, 55 Highfield Drive in Falmouth, on Wednesday, May 25 at 11 a.m. and build your awareness of these dry seed crops that have a stellar nutritional profile, as well as positive impact on the environment.

    Register on-line at www.highfieldhallandgardens.com or call  508-495-1878, ext. 2. $39 for Highfield Hall members, $49 for nonmembers.

  • The FARM Institute on Martha’s Vineyard Joins The Trustees of Reservations

    The Trustees of Reservations has announced that The FARM Institute, a beloved and established Martha’s Vineyard based nonprofit, has become its newest reservation. The Trustees is Massachusetts’ largest conservation and preservation nonprofit and the world’s first land preservation nonprofit celebrating its 125th Milestone Anniversary this May. The Trustees currently owns and operates six other properties located on the island, including Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge, Wasque, Long Point Wildlife Refuge, Menemsha Hills, Mytoi Gardens and The Brickyard. It also manages and operates Norton Point Beach for Dukes County.

    As an official new reservation of The Trustees, The FARM Institute will continue offering the same, dynamic year-round and summer camp and school-based programs, as well as the robust livestock operation island residents and visitors have grown to love and support over its last 11 years of operation. As part of The Trustees it will receive the added benefits of a new endowment created by both organizations, as well as access to additional stewardship and program engagement resources to ensure the organization’s continued success, growth, and longevity for years to come. Both organizations have been working toward the steps needed to complete the integration since March of 2015. The FARM Institute was established in 2000, has a decade long success story of providing year-round, farm-based educational programming, including a dynamic camp that attracts nearly 1,000 children from all over the country each summer who are interested in learning about agriculture. Thanks to the foresight and contributions of so many island residents, concerned neighbors, community members and supporters, The FARM Institute has been integral in protecting the historic Katama plains property with its rich legacy of farming from development.

  • Sunday, April 10, 1:00 pm – Landscaping with Native Plants: Healing Our Home Turf

    Karen Bussolini is a lifelong organic gardener and lover of nature. Her Sunday, April 10 Cape Cod Museum of Natural History presentation is as much about ecological thinking and the importance of recognizing that our yards are part of an ecosystem, as it is about plants. She believes that everything we do on our home turf can heal and support that ecosystem or unknowingly cause damage.

    Karen will show a variety of attractive home landscapes based on natural systems and using native plants, especially shrubs and trees. She will also highlight specific native plants that commonly grow in the Eastern United States and make fine landscape plants, but are often overlooked or cleared to make way for exotic specimens. Readily available native plants that thrive in this region will be highlighted, including plants that are adapted to difficult conditions, such as rocky slopes, poor soil, shade and damp areas.

    Karen has a long career as a garden photographer, speaker and writer, and is a frequent contributor to The American Gardener, the magazine of The American Horticultural Society and Wildflower, published by The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. She has six books to her credit, including The Naturescaping Workbook, The Homeowner’s Complete Tree and Shrub Handbook, and Elegant Silvers, which she also co-authored. She is a NOFA Accredited Organic Land Care Professional with an eco-friendly garden coaching practice devoted to teaching homeowners to garden more sustainably. Her focus is on creating healthy yards that are resilient, full of life, diversity and delight.  Book signing and Q&A to follow the presentation, which begins at 1.  Lecture Admission is $10 per person APCC Members $5.  Tickets available online at www.ccmnh.org.

  • Sunday, April 3, 1:00 pm – How to Create a Pollinator Victory Garden

    Many pollinator species have suffered serious declines in recent years. It’s a problem that affects all of us, but most of our landscapes offer little in the way of habitat, nectar and pollen. With simple strategies, you can attract and support not just bees, but an array of pollinators. Come to the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster on Sunday, April 3 at 1 pm to learn how to win the war on pollinator decline.

    Kim Eierman is a Certified Horticulturist and founder of EcoBeneficial!, a horticulture consulting and communications company dedicated to improving our environment by promoting ecological landscaping and the use of native plants. Join Kim in this informative, educational, enlightening program and learn how you can create your own Pollinator Victory Garden and win the war on pollinator decline. Every landscape counts!

    Lecture Admission is $10 per person APCC Members $5  Tickets available online at www.ccmnh.org The Gardening for Life Speaker Series is sponsored in part by the Friends of CCMNH and APCC (The Association to Preserve Cape Cod). For more information please call: 508-896-3867, ext. 133

  • Sunday, March 20, 1:00 pm – Where the Wild Things Are: Native Plants for Pollinators

    From meadows to mountain tops, our natural areas are often touted as the best places for pollinators and wildlife but what about our gardens?  Join Dan Jaffe on Sunday, March 20 at 1 pm at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History  in Brewster for a crash course on all things alive in the garden.  Ecological gardening techniques, strategies for attracting new pollinators to your landscape, and the best native plants for each site will be discussed.

    Dan Jaffe is Propagator and Stock Bed Grower at New England Wildflower Society’s Garden in the Woods. Dan Jaffe began his career as an intern at NEWFS, and then served as Plant Sales Coordinator before assuming his current responsibilities. Prior joining the Society, he worked for four years in the nursery business where he held management positions. Dan earned a degree in Botany from the University of Maine.

    Lecture Admission is $10 per person APCC Members $5 / Tickets available online at https://www.showclix.com/event/wherethewildthingsare/listing

    The Gardening for Life Speaker Series is sponsored in part by the Friends of CCMNH and APCC (The Association to Preserve Cape Cod).  For more information please call: 508-896-3867, ext. 133.