The Garden Conservancy announces its Monadnock/Greater Manchester Region Open Day, featuring gardens of Peterborough and Francestown, on Saturday, August 23 from 10 – 4. Admission to each garden is $5.
This Open Day will feature a plant sale by Broken Arrow Nursery at The Gardens at Juniper Hill Farm in Francestown. And don’t miss a lecture and book signing by garden writer Tovah Martin on this date at 7 p.m. at Bass Hall at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture, 19 Grove Street, Peterborough – Trowels & Tomorrow: Garden Stewardship. Admission: $5.
A special invitation is also extended to Open Days visitors to enjoy a prix fixe menu at the Waterhouse Restaurant, 18 Depot Street, Peterborough. Available on August 23rd only. Thank you to the regional media sponsor, New Hampshire Home magazine!
Featured gardens are detailed below. For complete directions, visit https://www.gardenconservancy.org/opendays/open-days-schedule/openday/923-monadnock-greater-manchester-region-open-day.
The Gardens of Maude and John Odgers, 130 Four Winds Farm Road, Peterborough. More than thirty years ago, John and Maude cleared their land and began building their home. The gardens quickly emerged, drawing inspiration from English border gardens and Maude’s work as an artist who is intrigued with texture, color, and design. A soft palette and flowing shapes are used to create tranquility. Stone walls and granite pieces complement the New England countryside. John built the house, a small post-and-beam barn (that now serves as a garden shed), the curved wooden arbors, an artistic wooden fence with moon gate, a unique bluestone patio, and a small pond. Woodland and vegetable gardens have been recently added. There are many places for quiet reflection: chairs placed around the gardens, the curved patio that emulates the garden shapes, attached garden room, a retreat in the woods, or by the pond, complete with frog song.
Fry Garden, 69 Pine Street, Peterborough. The garden consists of more than forty garden areas connected by staircases and pebbled or grass walkways, and spread over a twelve-acre site. They include level spaces and terraced areas designed to accommodate the significant elevation changes on the property. Styles range from formal near the house to less structured closer to wooded areas, a number of water features including numerous pools and two ponds, and a large perennial garden. Some striking features are a 300-foot sycamore allée, a series of semi-circular terraces bordered by standard Korean lilacs, an arboretum, an allée of 110 crabapples that border an acre garden, and an orchard of twenty fastigiate hornbeams underplanted with European ginger. Designers Gordon Hayward and Doug Hoerr have contributed to the design.
The Gardens of Terry Reeves and David Baum, 53 Old Jaffrey Road, Peterborough. Gardening is as much about revealing what already exists as it is about the creation of the new. Our garden was inspired by towering pines, 200-year-old maples, a seven-foot old barn foundation, and stone walls surrounding our 230-year-old colonial house. By working with the existing trees and walls, we have created a garden that extends the eye from our perennial beds across a thirty-acre field to a far-away ridge line. A mixture of spiritual elements (a large stone Ganesha, a prayer circle) gives the visitor a feeling of quiet and focus in a setting enhanced by its significant vertical and horizontal perspectives. One of the interesting features of this garden is the ability to view it from above and look directly down into one of the larger borders. A woodland allée with a sculptured surprise completes the journey. Our desire is to create a garden that is both deeply personal and historically integrated and leaves the visitor feeling peaceful and uplifted.
The Gardens of Michael and Betsy Gordon, 14 High Street, Peterborough. This small garden in the village was designed by a plantsman to be an extension of the house. The house and garden are situated on a hill and the garden is terraced on three levels. The upper level was designed to be enjoyed from the street. The middle level is laid out formally using yew hedges and a century-old granite wall foundation. The lowest level is an informal woodland garden and is a work in progress. The garden was planted with a mixture of unusual trees, shrubs, perennials, grasses, annuals, and bulbs. Plants were selected primarily for interesting foliage and textures.
The Gardens at Juniper Hill Farm, 151 Reid Road, Francestown. The Gardens at Juniper Hill Farm surround an eighteenth-century saltbox house and farmstead that remain much as they were 200 years ago. The approximately two acres of gardens surrounding the farm might best be described as “country formal.†There is a courtyard garden, a formal lilac garden leading to a frog pool, a whimsical stumpery, a tranquil Mediterranean-inspired “clipped green†garden, a formal potager, and a pool house modeled after the garden pavilion at Hidcote. Scattered throughout the garden are many planted containers and more than 150 boxwoods representing eleven different varieties. Because winter interest was an important consideration in the original layout of the garden, strong architectural lines have become an important design element. The house and garden have been featured several times in both regional and national magazines. For photos and more info on Juniper Hill go to www.juniperhillfarmnh.com or Notes From Juniper Hill on Facebook.
The Gardens of Laura and Jamie Trowbridge, 29 Cornish Road, Peterborough (pictured below.) The owners say: “We purchased this property thirteen years ago after falling in love with the 1763 cape surrounded by big maples, wandering myrtle, and lichen-covered stone walls. We set about creating a long, curving perennial border along the stone wall facing west with a view of the rolling hills beyond as a backdrop. Over the years, the character of the border has evolved from traditional perennials to a mixture of perennials, shrubs, bulbs, ornamental annuals, and specialty trees. Tried-and-true heirloom plantings with newer and more unusual plants have been used to create an eclectic, yet harmonized, landscape. We’ve added numerous shade gardens and a kitchen patio that serves as an ideal location for containers of unusual annuals and succulents. The property also includes an organic vegetable garden, pumpkin and berry patches, plus bees, and chickens.”
