The Rockport Garden Club presents Seaside Gardens, a tour of fifteen private Rockport seaside gardens, on Friday and Saturday, July 10 and 11, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Ten stops provide access, and each garden offers unique plantings and styles. Most of the gardens are on the waterfront along Rockport’s spectacular coastline, while others feature ocean views. Perennials, refreshments, and original art will be offered for sale at designated tour sites. All proceeds will be used to maintain Rockport’s town gardens and to fund civic projects and scholarships. This is a rain or shine event. Admission is $25 in advance (call 978-546-2250 or 978-546-7871). Tickets may be purchased at Toadhall Bookstore, 51 Main Street, Rockport. For further information, you may email Elaine Hassler at e.hassler@comcast.net, or log on to www.rockportgardenclub.org.
Tag: garden tour
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Friday, June 19 – Sunday, June 21 -Cape Ann Garden Festival
Friday, June 19, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Â Â Beauport Reception and Talk $20/$15 members
Enjoy an evening reception with wine, beer, and appetizers in the garden overlooking Gloucester Harbor and hear about the newly uncovered garden staircase that is part of the stunning new garden renovation at Beauport, The Sleeper-McCann House, a property of Historic New England.Saturday, June 20, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Â Â Garden Tour $35
Tour glorious gardens with magnificent plantings and stunning vistas. This year new stops on the tour feature sculpture gardens, water views, private quarries and fabulous perennial and herb gardens. In addition several of the homes will be open for visitors’ viewing.Sunday, June 21,    Workshops, Lecture and Exhibition Tour
10 a.m.-11 a.m. Planning a Garden for People and Pollinators, Kim Smith $15
Author of Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! and an inspired designer and illustrator, Kim will talk about the ways to make a garden both beautiful for people and attractive to birds and butterflies. Join us for a lecture and booksigning.
11:30 a.m. -1:00 p.m. The Herb Garden in 18th Century New England, Judy Hallberg $20
Herbs provide interesting foliage and are also the basis for lotions and salves with healing properties. Learn about herbs and the ways in which they were gardened and used in the 1700s. Judy Hallberg works with the 17th and 18th century gardens of the Ipswich Historical Society and recently completed restoration of the society’s 17th century Housewife’s Herb Garden.
1:30 p.m. -2:30 p.m. Cape Ann Museum, Docent-led tour of the exhibit “A View from the Terrace†Free
Free to Garden Festival ticket holders. The Museum is located at 27 Pleasant St., Gloucester. Call Jeanette Smith at 978-283-0455, extension 11 for reservations.
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Growing and Propagating Antique Roses, Peggy J. Flanagan $20, materials incl.
Old Garden Roses are rewarding and easy to grow using organic methods. You’ll learn how to plant, prune and care for these beautiful roses. Each person will take home a potted rose cutting. Bring gloves and a pair of pruners. Peggy J. Flanagan is a landscape designer and an adjunct instructor in the landscape design program at North Shore Community College. She specializes in the history of New England gardening.
For more information, and to purchase tickets on-line, log on to www.sargenthouse.org. Tickets are also available at the Weathervane, 153 Main Street, Gloucester, and at the Sargent House Museum, 49 Middle Street, Gloucester, Massachusetts.
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Sunday, June 28, 10 – 4 – City Spaces/Country Places
Tower Hill’s annual tour of exceptional private gardens this year will feature the gardens of Northborough, Massachusetts. Discover the gardeners’ unique perspectives, and return to your own garden with fresh ideas and inspiration. This special event features lush, meticulously tended gardens in the Northborough area.
As always, a ticket to “City Spaces/Country Places” includes FREE admission all day to Tower Hill Botanic Garden. As a bonus this year, the Rose Society will present a Rose Show at Tower Hill on the same day as the Garden Tour!
“City Spaces/Country Places” is an important fund-raiser for the Worcester County Horticultural Society and helps to support the educational programs and the ongoing care and stewardship of the gardens at Tower Hill. You can show your support for the Garden Tour by purchasing a sponsor ticket at $125 or a patron ticket at $75. These tickets help Tower Hill meet its mission and must be purchased in advance. Order tickets in advance: Members $20, Non-Members $25. Day of tour Members $25, Non-Members $30. Call 508-869-6111 x 136 to order your tickets, or log on to www.towerhillbg.org and purchase securely on-line.
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Saturday, June 20, 10 – 4 – Newport Area Open Day
The Garden Conservancy will sponsor an Open Day in Newport, Rhode Island on Saturday, June 20, from 10 – 4. Visit Green Animals Topiary Garden at 380 Cory’s Lane, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum at 101 Ferry Road and Route 114, for more information.
The Purviance Garden, 47 Kane Avenue, Middletown, Rhode Island
For more than thirty years the owners have lovingly tended their gardens. The house is sheltered by two venerable lindens of astonishing form and framed by a billowing boxwood hedge, shaped by an artist. The border by the terrace holds flowering shrubs, a whimsical collection of potted plants, a garden pool, roses, perennials, and evergreens. A tiny playhouse is tucked under a copper beech. Other small gardens are constantly changing, rearranged by the owners who cannot resist tinkering.
Bellevue House Gardens, Newport, Rhode Island
This walled three-and-one-half-acre property serves as the private park of an estate designed by Ogden Codman Jr. for his cousin Martha. The gardens have recently been restored, embellished, and re-imagined. They pay homage to the garden designers of the American Renaissance period (1885-1930), and include a series of follies, exedras, and tea houses which form axes and vistas inviting diversions beyond the contemplation of the magnificent specimen trees set in sweeping lawns. The most recent additions include the American Renaissance Water Garden on the east side of the house. A carved granite statue of the goddess Pomona as a metaphorical deity passes energy to the current family over time. The waters gush forward from the her fruit-laden cornucopia, then rise up to a Villa Lante-like table, spill out the father’s lips, under a bridge, and down a long rill to a children’s fountain. A pergola nearby pays homage to Rosemary Verey’s laburnums and wisteria and frames the new tea house, replicating the work of Salem architect Samuel McIntyre (1800). At the rear of the property, stands the newest folly—the cupola of McIntyre’s 1809 Branch (now Howard Street) Church in Salem as redesigned by J. P. Couture of Providence. It is adjacent to an English water garden that reflects the cupola in its symmetrical pool. Completed in the fall of 2008, a new Oriental Vale extends the view to the south. Here a Chinese Chippendale bridge frames a cascade running from a lily-lined lagoon into the pond. A hillock blocks street views and sends a waterfall down to stepping stones that edge the lagoon, which is embraced by a shoal of large beach stones, Japanese maples, and granite lanterns. We regret that fishing for the multi-colored koi is not allowed. Nor will we in turn fish for compliments, though your comments and suggestions for this evolving work will be appreciated.
Parterre, Newport, Rhode Island
Recalling the romance of eighteenth-century France, a series of formal gardens with whimsical outbuildings surround the house, built just ten years ago amidst a park-like setting. Always a work in progress, inspiration from other gardens continue to provide precious details. The existing woodland had been reclaimed, with a fall “flame border†of Japanese maples as its accent (a la Sheffield Park, England.) From the fourteen-foot copper beech tapestry hedge to the evergreen “winter gardenâ€, the focus at Parterre is on horticultural specimens and diversity.
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Saturday, June 13, 10 – 12 noon – Tour of Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate
Come enjoy this twentieth century estate in nearby Canton, Massachusetts, featuring a country home, farm buildings, manicured lawns, and a walled garden. Once a farm known as Cherry Hill, the property evolved when Dr. Arthur Tracey Cabot hired architect Charles Platt to design a complex of buildings, gardens, and open fields. The property is now managed by the Trustees of Reservation, and the tour is free to members of the Trustees, and $5 for non-members. Space is limited. Please pre-register by calling 781-784-0567, extension 7001. For more information on other properties open for viewing during the summer, log on to www.thetrustees.org.
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Saturday, June 20, 10 – 4 – South End Garden Tour
Roof decks, patio spaces, backyards, neighborhood parks and community gardens will be part of the 16th annual South End Garden Tour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Proceeds benefit the South End/Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust, which owns and maintains 16 community gardens. Tickets, $20, will be sold at the South End Branch of the Boston Public Library, 685 Tremont Street (Rutland Square). Advance tickets, $17, and information at (617) 437-0999 and southendgardentour.org. This year, there is a special ticket price to members of area garden clubs. If you purchase 5 tickets or more, the price drops to $15 per person. This is called the “carpool discount” – just mention your affiliation with the Garden Club of the Back Bay when you call to reserve.
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Saturday, June 20, 10 – 4 – Pocket Gardens of Historic Charlestown
Gardens for Charlestown, Inc. presents Pocket Gardens of Historic Charlestown on Saturday, June 20, 2009 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $15 each. Pick up tickets and start at the Community Garden at the corner of Main Street and Bunker Hill Street. For more information contact Pat McSweeney at patmcs@verizon.net. Gardens for Charlestown is a non-profit, all-volunteer garden and greenspace organization established in 1976. It owns and maintains a 63 plot community garden and supports neighborhood initiatives to reclaim abandoned or neglected public spaces throughout Charlestown.  Log on to www.charlestownonline.net/gardens.htm for updated information.
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Saturday, June 6, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. – Garden Conservancy Open Day in Worcester County
Glenluce Garden 18 Marlboro Road,Stow, Massachusetts
Glenluce Garden is a small, personal, and romantic garden. Entering by the western gate, you will find yourself on a mound with green paths beckoning in seven directions. Explore these paths to discover a grove of paperbark maples, an island of tree peonies, or a border of fragrant native azaleas. A pergola covered by climbing roses leads to a frog pond shaded by heptacodium and a courtyard with raised vegetable beds. Glenluce Garden is the home of at least twenty-two magnolias, eighty-eight rhododendrons, about 100 peonies, and more than 150 old-fashioned roses.
Rock Bottom Garden, Stow, Massachusetts
This one-acre garden has been shaped by sixteen years of collaboration between a woody plant zealot and a perennial gardener. From the 1840s house situated on a dry knoll, one can enjoy sweeping vistas of the gardens below—these include mixed borders, a woodland garden, an herb garden, a bog garden, two rock gardens, and a sizable propagation area. The gardens feature numerous unusual woody plants including many rare magnolias. With any luck, the bigleaf magnolias will be in bloom. Their dinner plate-sized flowers are a striking garden feature in early June.
Maple Grove, 16 School Street, Boylston, Massachusetts
Designed around a late-eighteenth-century Cape Cod-style house, Maple Grove is framed by mature sugar maples. Located within the historic district of Boylston, the garden is adjacent to an eighteenth-century cemetery, giving it charming borrowed scenery. A true collector’s garden, Maple Grove has a wide assortment of choice woody and herbaceous plants in a connected series of borders, beds, and islands, with sculpture and water features.
The Garden of John D. Mapel and Stephen J. Libuda, 95 Brigham Hill Road, Grafton, Massachusetts
After two decades of gardening at this location, original plantings have begun to mature. Visit Brigham Hill Farm’s horticulturist’s garden whose philosophy is to gently guide nature to take its own course. Perennial borders have given way to lower maintenance shrub borders and container plantings that keep in tune with the naturalistic surroundings. A water garden, meadow, terraced spaces, and walking paths encompass the two-acre property. A passion for plants has developed into a retail nursery and greenhouse space with a unique selection of annuals, perennials, herbs, and vegetables. There is something for everyone at this one-of-a-kind plant collector’s garden.
Brigham Hill Farm, 128 Brigham Hill Road, North Grafton, Massachusetts
This 200-year-old colonial house and barn were purchased in 1975 by the present owners. The first thirteen years were spent in dealing with the ailments of an old house and in the rebuilding of old stone walls on the property. After all this work was finished, the gardens were planned and planted one by one. The herb garden was planted in 1996 off the south side of the kitchen wing. In 1997 a woodland water garden was started on the hillside to the west of the barn…this has become an ongoing project! In the fall of 1998 the perennial bed by the swimming pool was redesigned using most of the original granite and perennials. In 2007 and 2008 off the north side of the house, a large bluestone terrace was installed for entertaining with many large container pots for plantings. Down the broad steps from this area is a high-walled vegetable garden with a rill and granite-raised beds. Warren Leach of Massachusetts designed and planted all the above gardens. There is another large vegetable bed to the north of the barn which holds raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, cutting gardens, and various slow growing annual vegetables. Eight chickens occupy a hen house there with a roof planted with “hens and chicksâ€. Allow forty-five minutes to one hour for your visit.
To register, link to www.gardenconservancy.org/opendays.
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Friday, June 12 – Saturday, June 13 – Garden ‘Sites’ & Floral ‘Delights’
The Acton Garden Club presents Garden ‘Sites’ and Garden ‘Delights’ from 10 – 4 on Friday, June 12 and Saturday, June 13. Explore seven unique gardens and enjoy outstanding fresh floral arrangements created by members. To further tantalize you, there is a labyrinth to walk and an adult tree house. Advance tickets $20, $25 day of tour. For tickets and more information, log on to http://www.actongardenclub.org.
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Thursday, May 21, 9-5 – The Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill
Take a tour of the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill on Thursday, May 21, 9-5, rain or shine. The tour is self-guided and may be viewed at your own pace. Complimentary tea and coffee will be served at The Church of the Advent, 30 Brimmer Street. To purchase tickets in advance by mail, send a check payable to Beacon Hill Garden Club before May 7, 2009 to Ticket Chairman, Beacon Hill Garden Club, Box 302, Charles Street Station, Boston, MA 02114. Include a stamped, self-addressed business sized envelope with your check. Tickets in advance are $30 each. Tour day tickets, if available, are $35. No refunds or exchanges are allowed, and there are no group discounts. If you have questions, you may call 617-227-4392. Tickets may also be purchased on line at www.beaconhillgardenclub.org.