Five beautiful gardens in the Mondadnock Region of New Hampshire will be on display Saturday, September 23, from 10 – 4 courtesy of The Garden Conservancy. Preregistration is required at www.gardenconservancy.org. Admission to each garden is $5 for Conservancy members, $10 for nonmembers.

With dramatic views of Mt. Monadnock and the Pack Monadnock range, the large open spaces, woods, and colorful gardens of “Monadnock Vistas” in Peterborough is a stunner. The 65-acre ridgetop property affords a variety of ways to enjoy the New Hampshire landscape. The current owners bought the property in 1989 and worked extensively with their landscape designers, ZEN Associates, and currently with local landscaper John Sandri to establish an environment that complements and enhances the natural topography. The driveway ascends through forest to a reassembled eighteenth-century barn and paddock area. Replacing the front lawn of the Cape Cod-style house is a mature field of grasses, perennials and low shrubs that offers a commanding view of Mt. Monadnock. The meandering path ends overlooking a playing field surrounded by rail fencing. Below are the orchard and vegetable garden. Nestled into the woods above the playing field is a guest cottage and swimming pool. Guests are welcome to walk down the short driveway and through the Japanese-style gate to the pool enclosure to view the garden of sedums, astilbes, and other perennials and ornamental grasses. To the right of the granite barbeque area is a path that leads across a basketball/pickle ball court and emerges onto the back lawn that has been planted with drifts of shrubs, roses, and native plants in arrays that bloom continuously for three seasons. The east-facing pergola and terrace feature an outdoor fireplace, grape arbor, and view of the pond below. Guests are welcome to visit the pond.

Also in Peterborough is the garden of Betsy and Michael Gordon. 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 to create a garden room. The lowest level, an informal woodland garden, has both eastern North American and eastern Asian shade-loving plants. The garden was planted with a mixture of unusual trees, shrubs, perennials, grasses, annuals, and bulbs. Plants were selected primarily for interesting form, foliage, and texture. The garden is chronicled on Instagram @thegardenerseye. As a garden “extra”, Fassett Farm Nursery of Jaffrey will be selling native plants on site.

Continuing on in Peterborough, you may visit the garden of Amy and Tim Riley. Over the past seven years, with the encouragement and artistry of some inspiring professionals, they’ve been gradually changing the 1.5 acres of lawn and field that surrounded the small house into a number of garden areas designed to invite exploration, complement the sloping terrain, and reflect this specific environment in southern New Hampshire. The oldest part of the garden is a winding meadow of grasses and perennials, the newest a grove of river birches, rocks, and massed shrubs. A semicircular terrace anchors the back of the house and provides a path to the meadow on curving stone steps. Three of the garden areas-an entrance garden, a peastone garden, and a moist shade garden-are each home to a work by a local sculptor.

The owners of Duck Soup in Harrisville say “We have lived at Duck Soup for fifteen years. It is an old garden with good bones that had been let go. We have been opening it up to get back the original view of Mount Monadnock. The garden is informal and native plants have been used extensively with the goal of little watering and low maintenance. We have a lot of hostas and because of our three dogs, seem not to have a deer problem in spite of being surrounded by 2,000 acres of conservation land! The is a large vegetable and cutting garden behind our eighteenth-century barn.”

The final stop (although you may visit the gardens in any order) is Skatutakee Farm in Hancock. The gardens surround Hancock’s first house, built in 1776 by the town clerk, Jonathan Bennett. Since it is a farmhouse, the plantings are informal and blend into surrounding fields and woods. On each side of the “front” door are raised beds reminiscent of Colonial gardens. The real front door (never used) is flanked by plantings of old roses and Nepeta. Behind the 1970 kitchen wing is a forty-eight-foot-long koi pond designed by landscape architect Diane McGuire and planted with lotuses, irises, and water lilies. McGuire also laid out the perennial bed and woodland border. The AIA-award-winning screened porch was designed by Dan Scully. Sculptures in the terraced vegetable garden are by Noel Grenier, and a pair of 200-year-old granite Korean rams graze on the back lawn. I followed McGuire’s brilliant layout of the parallel borders but deepened the perennial bed to make a bit more room to “paint” with annuals and perennials. The woodland border is planted with witch hazel, azaleas, snakeroot, and Rodgersia. Walking beyond the borders, one comes to a new bog garden surrounded by marsh marigolds, skunk cabbage, and sedges. A trail of cardinal flowers brightens the wetland beyond. This garden will be open until 5 pm.