Boston Flora

Tag: Bill Noble

  • Saturday, August 15 – Windy Hill Open Day

    The Garden Conservancy will sponsor three separate sessions of an Open Day at Windy Hill in Hancock, New Hampshire on August 15. Registration for each session (10 – 12, 12 – 2, and 2 – 4) is separate. Please check the website when signing up to be sure you have chosen the correct time.

    This landscape garden sits on a rocky, windy ridge with expansive views of New Hampshire mountains continuing south to Massachusetts. It is the work of the owners and Bill Noble, teaming with Lindsay Johnson, Kyle McCabe and Barrett Proctor.

    The garden is dictated by the harsh and imposing landscape. Boulders provide structure and echo the mountains. The garden is also a sanctuary for many species of fireflies, amphibians and other insects and wildlife. The garden includes an entry drive through restored native woodland, pollinator beds, a meadow lawn, a Tree Garden (oaks pruned to frame the hills) and a Rockery planted with native shrubs and ground covers.

    To the south, an approximately mile-long stroll garden passes through the colorful, insect-filled energy of a wild flower meadow, to the tranquil light and shadow of deep forest, over a board walk through a stumpery (a garden of stumps, snags and fallen trees embedded in the forest), past woodland clearings and back to the house.

    Another approximately half-mile stroll garden passes through another meadow to a grove of pruned birch and around a pond. The garden is four years old and is very much a work in progress. $10 for nonmembers.

  • Saturday, June 26, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Tour of Bill Noble’s Vermont Garden

    Author and garden designer Bill Noble will lead participants on a June 26 Berkshire Botanical Garden tour of his celebrated Vermont garden, which surrounds an 1830s Vermont farmhouse and barn, with stone walls, fields and views of neighboring farms and distant mountains. The garden reflects Bill’s horticultural path from market gardener to garden designer. The garden features a bountiful perennial garden, vegetable garden and orchard, rock gardens and shrub borders, surrounded by fields and meadows. The focal point is a mixed border of shrubs and hardy perennials, while remnants of barn foundations offer a setting for alpines, ferns, ornamental grasses and shrubs. Foliage and texture predominate. The garden is an ongoing experiment with plants and ideas gathered from other gardens and gardeners. It is the subject of Noble’s book, Spirit of Place: The Making of a New England Garden, published in June, 2020 by Timber Press. Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase. Refreshments will be provided on-site. Participants are responsible for their own transportation and will receive the address upon registration. BBG members $65, nonmembers $70. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/tour-bill-noble%E2%80%99s-vermont-garden

  • Thursday, June 25, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Spirit of Place: The Making of a New England Garden

    Join author Bill Noble for this online presentation on June 25 at 6:30 pm as he talks about the making of his Vermont garden, including its evolution, sources of design inspiration, and the principles that guided its making. Noble draws connections between his own garden and the gardens that inspired it, including those of the Cornish Artists’ Colony, and the contemporary and historic gardens he encountered throughout his work with the Garden Conservancy. In this richly illustrated talk, Noble shows how he uses a variety of trees, shrubs and hardy perennials to create planting compositions of foliage and flowering interest that deepen the sense of being rooted in place. This program is presented by Tower Hill Botanic Garden in partnership with the Berkshire Botanical Garden.

    A Zoom link will be sent to participants in the confirmation e-mail that will be sent after registration. Sponsor members $10, nonmembers $15. Register at www.towerhillbg.org

  • Wednesday, July 10, 11:30 am – 2:00 pm – Great American Gardens: Historic, Personal, & Visionary from the 19th to the 21st Century

    As director of preservation for the Garden Conservancy, Bill Noble is fortunate to work with garden owners and community activists who are working to save great American gardens. He will draw examples from the estate gardens of the early twentieth century, such as Shelburne Farms, as well as more recent gardens that give voice to regional and cultural expressions of a time and place, such as Ruth Bancroft’s Garden in Walnut Creek, CA; George Schoellkopf’s Hollister House Garden in Washington, CT; Pearl Fryar’s Topiary Garden in Bishopville, SC and the Gardens of Alcatraz. Bill will tell the stories of the individual creators of these extraordinary gardens. He will also show how some of the garden ideas (and plants) he has picked up through his work with gardens across the country have shown up in his own Vermont garden. This July 10 program will take place at The Inn at Shelburne Farms, in the Marble Dining Room, and the $75 fee includes lunch, program, and a $50 donation to the Formal Gardens Restoration Project at Shelburne Farms. To register, and for complete information, visit www.shelburnefarms.org.

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