The Garden Conservancy’s Berkshire County Open Day will include the following superb properties. For more information, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.
Seekonk Farm – Honey Sharp’s Garden: 296 Division Street, Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Featured in the 2008 book, Great Gardens of the Berkshires, this eighteenth-century Seekonk Farm is set amidst New England fieldstone walls, antique iron gates, and a handmade fence. A natural arbor beyond an American elm and a large katsura tree invites one to a woodland path where Honey Sharp continues to labor on re-introducing native plants. Closer to the house, a lavender edged walkway follows a small herb garden while the old-fashioned perennial beds now feature pale pink penstemon and dark fuchsia-colored sanguisorba rubbing shoulders. Leading to the pool garden are old-fashioned climbing roses spilling over a fence that borders the small vegetable garden. The pool garden enjoys a chartreuse, silver, and burgundy palette. Contrasting textures and shapes abound amidst the grasses, Japanese maples, smoke bush, ‘Black Lace’ sambucus, and small conifers. An old stone well cover, highlighted by rust colored lichens, remains a focal point. Golden Trowel Award in 2000.
Under the Hemlocks,258 Great Barrington Road, Housatonic, Massachusetts
This bowl-shaped garden in the foothills of Tom Ball Mountain came with many natural gifts: boulders, hemlocks, black birch, pines, etc. Adding shrubs, bulbs, and perennials rich in textures and color, Goshen stone paths, and various sculptures completed it. The owners were lucky to uncover a perfect place within the given ledge for water to gracefully fall into a small lily pond. This is a major focal point in the garden. It’s the flow of these gardens that seems to please: from the sunken “fairy woodlandâ€, with a succession of bluebells, foxgloves then in fall, echinacea, to the over-scale rock garden, topped out by hydrangeas. Look for the secretive, mossy “Othello Boudoir†engulfed by ligularias next to the outdoor living room. Going behind the huge rhodies up the secretive path to the “upstairs†hosta path garden and around back to view the water garden, with perhaps a lotus in bloom will complete your tour. In June a few tulips and other bulbs may still be in bloom. This garden is one that is featured in the new book: Great Gardens of the Berkshires, by V. Small & R. Pomerantz.
Good Dogs Farm – Maria Nation and Roberto Flores, 334 West Stahl Road, Sheffield, Massachusetts
This is a distinctly handmade garden that includes the whims and accidents and (let’s be honest) half-baked ideas that would never end up in a professional “landscape.†It’s a place that reflects the owners’ philosophy that, like life, the garden is best when shared with friends, when simple pleasures are part of the plan, and when things aren’t taken too seriously. Here, good dogs romp and friends linger. Garden paths lead to numerous garden rooms, “secret†sitting areas, an outdoor shower, and an outdoor sleeping room. A handmade, rough-cedar fence surrounds our large vegetable/cutting garden where a very crowded bat house towers above. A wood burning bake oven gave Maria and Roberto an excuse to add a hedge garden that defines the pea-stone cooking courtyard. A new greenhouse-type-thing gave them another reason to add yet another garden area. The gardens have been featured in Cottage Living, Berkshire Living, The Litchfield County Times, and Oprah’s O at Home magazine. In 2008 they were honored to be included in the book Great Gardens of the Berkshires, and are still blushing to be included in such august company.