Boston Flora

Tag: Berkshire garden tour

  • Sunday, July 18, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Berkshire County Open Day

    The Garden Conservancy will host an Open Day in the Berkshires, and in nearby Columbia County, NY,  on Sunday, July 18.  Admission to each participating garden is $5 per person, and admission may be paid in cash or by check. Tickets are not required to attend. For more information, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org. Image below courtesy of Rich Pomerantz, photographer and author of Great Gardens of the Berkshires. Descriptions are below:

    Thomas Gardner, 2171 State Road, Richmond, Massachusetts

    This is a rustic vegetable and flower garden set in the side yard of an eighteenth-century farmhouse in the Berkshires. The farm currently raises Cotswold sheep and mixed poultry. Rustic picket fences, grass paths, and grapevine trellises are features of the rough and tumble site. The owner raises Australian shepherds and Italian Maremma sheepdogs. An open living porch and stone terrace face the garden.

    Directions:
    From I-90/Massachusetts Turnpike, take West Stockbridge exit to Route 41 north into Richmond and to corner of Route 41 and Lenox Road.  The garden is at yellow farmhouse surrounded by gray picket fence and with red barn behind. Parking will be marked.

    Rockland Farm, 180 Stony Kill Road, Canaan, New York

    This garden comprises a variety of areas that flow one from another over about fifteen acres and continue to evolve after nearly twenty years. The 450-foot-long rock ledge is completely cleared and planted. The three-acre pond is dug and filled, and we are starting to work on the shoreline. The lawn in front of the 150-foot-long rock garden has been re-shaped to align better with the water garden. The perennial beds around our pool have been extended and redesigned. The hornbeams edging the lavender garden are starting to form a raised hedge. The vegetable and tropical container gardens are now well established, and the woodland is being expanded. Much has changed since the garden appeared in the book Great Gardens of The Berkshires.

    Directions:
    From east, take Route 295 from Route 41 in Massachusetts or from Route 22 in New York past tip of Queechy Lake (on right), and then take first dirt road on right (Stony Kill Road). After about 0.5 mile, look for a parking sign.

    The Tilden Japanese Garden, 576 State Route 20, New Lebanon, New York

    Nestled at the gateway to New Lebanon, this garden celebrates its heritage from the Shakers, Governor Samuel Tilden, and Shuji’s Restaurant. The brilliance of red bridges acts as a foil for ‘Nikko’ irises, weeping jades, ‘Casablanca’ lilies, ginkgos, and many specimen plants. Waterfalls provide sustenance to grasses and pebbled shores with koi lurking beneath water lilies. Ancient lanterns stand guard while protruding boulders provide sculpture. A smaller “courtyard garden” sits silently against a stained glass window. A Shaker ice house complements this harmony as ‘Sargent’ cherry trees, a gift from Japan, commemorate peace among nations.

    Directions:
    The Tilden Japanese Garden is at intersection of Routes 20 & 22. Through black gates of Tilden Mansion, garden is behind Victorian house. Parking is across street at a white Shaker meetinghouse on south meadow.

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  • Sunday, June 6, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Garden Conservancy Open Day in Berkshire County

    Two  fabulous gardens will be open to the public on Sunday, June 6, from 10 – 4, through The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program.

    Black Barn Farm,  937 Summit Road in Richmond:

    After being greeted by a pair of fantastical bird topiary, guests pass by the new “back door” terrace and its collection of container plantings. (Don’t miss the alligator on top of the Taxus hatfieldii!) Proceed through doors into the privet-hedged spring bulb garden, with its Fritillaria melagris, muscari, and thalia. Gazing balls are placed at face height, which allows you to see yourself in the garden. A stroll down an allée of Wyman crabapples leads you to the Tsuga chinensis-hedged pool garden and shade pavilion. Proceeding west through a fanciful taxus colonnade, enjoy the seventy odd specimen topiary in various stages of development. A pergola of Robinia pseudoacacia, draped with wisteria and under-planted with bulbs, leads you past the boxwood topiary garden and into the formal potager, with its beech hedge and rustic growing frames. Check out the new kitchen garden on the west side of the house, with its bluestone-and steel-raised beds. The garden encompasses approximately three acres.

    Apple Hill, 12 Red Rock Road in West Stockbridge:

    This magical writer’s retreat was once an apple farm, and many old apple trees still grow here. It is a place of quiet trees; a forest of silver birches flows into drifts of orchards, amid the tranquil green of white pines. There is a harmonious unity between the house and its setting. A cobblestone terrace at the back is set with drifts of ferns and blurs the division between indoors and outdoors, as does the wisteria-draped pergola. A harp-shaped grass garden along the driveway leads to the lovely curving rhododendron plantings, and these in turn connect to the long garden, which runs the length of the houses and beyond, set with golden locust trees and mixed plantings — evergreen and deciduous shrubs, roses, irises, peonies, delphiniums, and other perennials. The long garden culminates in a rock garden and a meditation bed that the children call “The Secret Garden”. A series of smaller ponds flows down the hillside to the main pond, which is set about with willows, planted with water lilies, and flanked by a borrowed landscape of blue hills. An arbor walk featuring a fish pool links the house with the writing studios. Woodland beds among the birches are planted with hosta, maidenhair and ostrich fern. Come discover the gardens that Tina Packer has described as “among the most beautiful and inviting I’ve ever seen.”

    For ticketing information, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org and click on to “Open Days.”

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