Clark Gardens in Stow, Massachusetts has been in development for over 30 years. It started serendipitously with a chance encounter at a parent teacher school event, held during the owners’ first winter in Stow, with a local landscape architect, Yurich Fenigsen-Zieba. “When he stated he was a landscape architect, I explained to him my wish to have a waterfall built and the following summer he built a beautiful waterfall with large boulders previously removed from the foundation of our house. And thus began a collaboration which continues to this day.” Over the 30 years, many garden “rooms” have been created culminating with the “woodland garden” which has been developing over the last three years and occupies the last section of the two acres of gardens and lawn available. There has never been a formal “plan” to the gardens. This Garden Conservancy event takes place May 10 from 10 – 4, $10 for nonmembers, $5 for Conservancy members. Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/garden-directory/open-days/clark-gardens
As part of The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program, the Kinsey-Pope Garden in Amherst, Massachusetts will be open on Saturday, April 26. You may choose from either of two sessions, 10 – 1 or 1 – 5. Please note you will have two other opportunities to view the garden, on May 31 and September 27, if the April date is not convenient. $10 ($5 Conservancy Members). Reserve at www.gardenconservancy.org.
The owner says: “This is a garden begun by my late husband and me (both academics with no formal garden training) soon after we moved here in 1978, working and learning together for twenty years. I have been the primary garden designer from the beginning, and designer and gardener for another twenty years, now recently with some wonderful garden help. It is a landscape of many uncommon trees with strikingly beautiful bark and a wide variety of textures, flowers, berries, and great autumn color; many shrubs with more than one season of beauty; perennials flowering in three seasons; ground covers of unusual dramatic effect covering all beds during all seasons; and in winter offering a wide palette of interesting shapes, lovely bark, and many evergreen trees and shrubs. In addition, there are three bridges over a stone-lined swale, a hand-built screened gazebo and curved top arbor, a charming little pond, many benches and Japanese stone lanterns, large-stone walkways and stone walls, and a Japanese inspired fence surrounding all of the 1/2-acre garden.
The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program will visit Middlesex County on Saturday, May 10, with five gardens open to the public. Three gardens in Stow, one in Carlisle, and one in Concord will be in full spring display.
Clark Gardens has been in development for over 30 years. It started with a chance encounter at a parent teacher school event, held during the owners’ first winter in Stow, with a local landscape architect, Yurich Fenigsen-Zieba. When he stated he was a landscape architect, they explained to him their wish to have a waterfall built and the following summer he built a beautiful waterfall with large boulders previously removed from the foundation of our house. And thus began a collaboration which continues to this day. Over the 30 years, many garden “rooms” have been created culminating with the “woodland garden” which has been developing over the last three years and occupies the last section of the two acres of gardens and lawn available. There has never been a formal “plan” to the gardens. Identifying an area and then adding desirable shrubs and plants, has been the only “plan”.
The Gardens at Clark Barn has been on the Open Days program before. The Ruettgers have been gardening here 45 years, although the house and drying barn date to 1790. Entering the gardens from an arched gate, explore the old barn with trays of dried flowers and herbs harvested from the adjacent gardens. During 1939, these trays were drying digitalis leaves for a WPA project for the war effort while cut off from Europe. The digitalis was used medicinally for the heart. As you exit the first garden, you enter by a Belgian espalier fence of pears which encloses this room with borders of tulip mixture of ‘Lemon Chiffon,’ ‘Explorer,’ and ‘Avant Garde.’ Later, the bed changes to dahlias potted in the greenhouse, as well as seed trays of zinnias and salvias. A grape arbor leads you into a walled garden in four quadrants. In the early season, it is just awakening with antique roses, beds of thyme and lavender, purple fennel, angelica, and lovage. The greenhouses are filled with tender perennials, annuals, and a collection of scented geraniums, over 25 varieties of dahlias, and Abyssinian bananas, all waiting to be planted. The outside cold frames are filled with a mix of soft pink petals of Tulip ‘China Town’ and Tulip ‘Esperanto.’ Looking to the East, you see an orchard of apples and peaches. West of the greenhouse is a tall stand of oaks showing you the way past the children’s tree fort to the woodland garden and pond. This is the garden that appears in April and May. The woodland ephemerals put out a show each day with bloodroot, Erythroniums both white and yellow, trillium, Dutchman’s breeches, Podophyllums, squill mix, anemones and Leucojum. Later in May, alliums pop up between the hosta collection and Japanese Peonies japonica and obovata. Pass through a hornbeam hedge to the Clock Barn. In this barn, don’t miss several spring floral displays in the downstairs space. As you exit the barn, the house is on the left. Step up onto the patio to view the Italian pots and trough filled with bulbs and a collection of dwarf conifers. As you descend the end stairs, you see a border of tulip mixture leading to the secret garden with Japanese fencing on one side.
Also in Stow is Glenluce Garden, a small, personal, and romantic garden. Entering by the western gate, you will fnd 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. Magnolias, rhododendrons, peonies, and roses abound in Glenluce Garden.
Rock Bottom Garden is a one acre garden shaped by three decades of collaboration between a woody plant zealot and a perennial gardener. From the 1855 house situated on top of a dry knoll, one enjoys sweeping vistas of the gardens below. When we first started gardening here, the property was a jungle of invasive trees, dying white ash, and multiflora rose. All were cut down, leaving us with a garden as sunny and windswept as the plains of Kansas for some years. We remedied this by planting trees, some of which are now nearly 60 feet tall. At present the garden is shaded in large part, and the perennial plantings are transitioning to reflect that. The garden features many unusual trees and shrubs, including rare magnolias and maples (some grown from seed), an herb garden, gravel garden, and a small vegetable garden. The striking topography makes the garden seem much larger than its actual size, and the trees include beautiful specimens you probably won’t see anywhere else in New England.
Finally, visit a Wildflower Woodland Garden (pictured below) in Concord. Nearly ten years ago, an uninhabited 1962 modern home and its abandoned garden were revived and reimagined. An indigenous woodland wildflower plant palette is arranged using concepts of midcentury modern garden design. The garden is organized as a stroll garden, with a main path giving access to a variety of experiences and some surprises.
Admission to each garden is $10 for nonmembers, $5 for members, and pre-registration is now open at www.gardenconservancy.org.
The Garden Conservancy presents three private gardens open to the public on October 19 from 10 – 4. Complete details are found at www.gardenconservancy.org
The Kinsey-Pope Garden in Amherst has been a work in progress since 1978. It is a landscape of many uncommon trees with strikingly beautiful bark and a wide variety of textures, flowers, berries, and great autumn color; many shrubs with more than one season of beauty; perennials flowering in three seasons; ground covers of unusual dramatic effect covering all beds during all seasons; and in winter offering a wide palette of interesting shapes, lovely bark, and many evergreen trees and shrubs. In addition, there are three bridges over a stone-lined swale, a hand-built screened gazebo and curved top arbor, a charming little pond, many benches and Japanese stone lanterns, large-stone walkways and stone walls, and a Japanese inspired fence surrounding all of the ½-acre garden. Please note this garden is open for two sessions, 10 – 1 and 1 – 5.
Rock Valley Paradise is located in Holyoke. The garden is a sanctuary, and a happy place. Although the owner has flowers and herbs, her passion is food for the family. The spot includes a small orchard of fifteen fruit trees, apples, peaches, plums, pears, apricots, and cherries. Our berries include blueberries, goji berries, elderberries, and black, red, and champagne currants. The concord grapes provide us with lots of juice for the winter months. Seasonally she grows all five kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, eggplant, and all the other “regular veggies.” Our homestead also boasts two dairy goats, a dozen chickens, and a hive of honey bees. This garden’s estimated size is ¼ acre.
The last garden on the tour is Swampfield, in Sunderland (below). The owner says: “When we moved here in 2015, the property was a blank slate. Since then, we have added 7,000 sq. feet of perennial border, in a mixture of sun and shade. Our sunny borders are filled with classic cottage garden plants and many natives. While there’s a playful exuberance, the color palette within each season is relatively limited—creating a sense of harmony and continuity as you explore the property. The two woodland gardens are lush, with towering actaeas and tiny primroses and everything in between. The garden crescendos in the fall as mums, asters, sedums, and more explode alongside scores of ornamental grasses and shrubs—just as their foliage begins to take on exciting hues. “Welcome to Swampfield! This garden’s estimated size is 7,000 sq. feet.
The Wit Mckay Garden has one foot in the wild. Surrounded by forest which is preserved in conservation and framed by an undeveloped meadow to the east and a clear rock brook to the south, it sits on the shoulder of the Taconic ridge to the west, with distant views of the Green Mountains. The garden was built by the owner with no particular plan at the start, other than to hold back the jungle and to find interesting plants to thrive in particular spots. Masses of native ferns and a mature line of tall white pines mark the edge of the forest. Plantings around the house are anchored by peonies: herbaceous, Itoh intersectional, and tree peonies. Inset between two sections of the house is a large lily garden alongside perennial borders. The north side of the house is reliably moist as well as high shade, supporting a lovely early season garden, a mix of unusual native plants and exotic selections which must be cold hardy and shade tolerant. A semi maintained “pasture” garden flows downhill from the eastern porch and supports naturalizing garden varieties and wildflowers. Expanses of daffodils, Siberian iris, asters, and black-eyed Susans grow amid native grasses, wildflowers, and barely contained native interlopers. Paths are mown to lead down and around to a shaded hammock, picnic table, the bee yard, and very high (60 foot tall) swing. A screen of apple trees, masquerading as an orchard, delineate the edge of the garden from the wild meadow and are kept company by a grouping of blueberry bushes. At the bottom, by the road, is a cutting bed devoted to dahlias. In what passes for full sun is a pollinator garden, a part shade plot, and a charming hosta garden shaded by an old lilac and enormous sugar maple.
The Barn gardens were designed by Gerard St. Hilaire, and the pond area gardens were designed by Ann McCallum. This is a hilly property gradually lowering to a pond with stone staircases on two sides. One staircase takes you past the waterfall and the other leads to a play area. The stone walls all around the property contain a profusion of annuals and an entertainment area with tall grasses as well as many regional flowering plants. Beyond that area is a beautiful view of Mt. Graylock which was our intentional focus. The grape arbor path leads to more beautiful and varied native grasses. The fields to either side of the pond are left in their natural states with paths cut through them for strolling or driving a farm type vehicle. The tree line at the bottom of the property leads to a stream.
Ilona’s Garden, surrounding an old carriage barn, is divided into rooms to resemble the English gardens loved by the owner/gardener/garden writer/English professor. The tour begins with a sunken, walled garden that leads to a formal pool with an island waterfall, water lilies, and goldfish. A rustic pergola connects the water garden to a trellised, ornamental kitchen garden. A white garden, surrounding clumps of native birch, pays homage to Sissinghurst. A folly, with broken stones and a dripping column, evokes ancient ruins, while an aged cedar window on an old marble base frames the folly, the long hot border, and the landscape beyond. Lushly planted pots, secluded seats, and carefully positioned ornamental trees and shrubs provide focal points that draw the eye from one garden room to the next. The large number of climbing structures covered with flowering vines and the wide variety of perennials and annuals, arranged in surprising combinations of color and texture, will make this densely planted garden equally interesting to plant lovers and aesthetes. Pictures and additional information can be found online by searching Ilona’s Garden at Smithsonian Archives.
Lastly, 328North is a half-acre farm specializing in Asiatic vegetables, fruit, and specialty cut flowers. By implementing natural plus regenerative practices, Tu and Matt demonstrate how intensive hand-scale farming on half an acre can be rewarding and productive. Farmer/designer/chef Tu Le uses the farm as his lab for his events. Farmer/artist Matt Bertles uses the farm to build sculptures and infrastructure to support his partner.
328North is a half-acre farm in Williamstown specializing in Asiatic vegetables, fruit, and specialty cut flowers. By implementing natural plus regenerative practices, Tu and Matt demonstrate how intensive hand-scale farming on half an acre can be rewarding and productive. Farmer/designer/chef Tu Le uses the farm as his lab for his events. Farmer/artist Matt Bertles uses the farm to build sculptures and infrastructure to support his partner. The Garden Conservancy Open Days 2023 in Massachusetts kicks off with gardens in Williamstown, in the Berkshires, on July 15 from 10 – 4. Tickets for this event became available starting May 1, and we suggest planning now due to limited availability. NEW THIS YEAR: all tickets must be purchased in advance and online. No day of tour tickets will be sold. Complete details on the website, https://www.gardenconservancy.org/open-days/ $5 Garden Conservancy members, $10 nonmembers.
This June 11 Garden Conservancy program, led by The Trustees’ Director of Horticulture, Joan Vieira, will provide an overview of this special Beverly, Massachusetts property, detailing its early history as a garden for the Sedgwick family to its status today as a well-loved public garden. We will also explore the garden, looking at interesting specimen trees and other notable plants that have thrived in this space for decades.
For more information, please contact the Garden Conservancy by telephone 845.424.6500, M-F, 9-5 Eastern, or email events@gardenconservancy.org. To register online, click HERE.
The Garden Conservancy hosts the Middlesex County Open Day on May 20 with three gardens, one in Weston, two in Stow.
The Spencer-Scott Garden in Weston is a sun-drenched site with deep loam. The owners set out to create a garden to satisfy their varied interests in flowering trees, shrubs, vines, ground covers, perennials, and bulbs. They designed, created, and maintain the garden. Included are rock gardens, partial shade gardens, dwarf evergreens, and perennial beds with walking paths, all set against an open meadow. Of special interest are many varieties of peonies, species of old roses, iris, hardy geraniums, alliums, lilies, wildflowers, clematis, daylilies, azaleas, and rhododendrons. They have collected more than 1,500 varieties over the years.
The Rock Bottom Garden in Stow is a one-acre garden has been shaped by three decades of collaboration between a woody plant zealot and a perennial gardener. From the 1855 house situated on top of a dry knoll, one enjoys sweeping vistas of the gardens below. When they first started gardening here, the property was a jungle of invasive trees, dying white ash, and multiflora rose. All were cut down, leaving them with a garden as sunny and windswept as the plains of Kansas for some years. They remedied this by planting trees, some of which are now nearly 60 feet tall. At present the garden is shaded in large part, and the perennial plantings are transitioning to reflect that. The garden features many unusual trees and shrubs, including rare magnolias and maples (some grown from seed), an herb garden, gravel garden, and a small vegetable garden. The striking topography makes the garden seem much larger than its actual size, and the trees include beautiful specimens you probably won’t see anywhere else in New England.
Also in Stow is Glenluce Garden, 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. Magnolias, rhododendrons, peonies, and roses abound in Glenluce Garden.
Register now for the May 22 Garden Conservancy Open Day and especially for the Digging Deeper program from 12 – 2 on Croquet and Cocktails: Preserving and Restoring Sporting Greens, since tickets are limited and sell out early. For each garden access, the fee is $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $10 for nonmembers.
Pre-registration is REQUIRED for each garden. Pre-register for each HERE, except where specifically indicated otherwise. Children under 12 are free and do not need to be pre-registered if accompanied by pre-registered adult.
Capacity is limited. Sorry, no walk-ins allowed; no paper tickets or cash payments will be accepted on-site.
Masks are required, at the discretion of the garden owners, and social distancing is encouraged at all in-person events.
The first on the list is the Spalding Garden in Milton. Designed by renowned landscape architect Fletcher Steele in 1924, the Spalding Garden was rescued from demolition in 2005 by the Milton Garden Club. A cultural landscape report was commissioned, and preservation efforts began shortly thereafter and continue at present. The garden, as it remains, stands on half an acre and includes formal gardens bordered by mature boxwoods, a perennial garden, a bowling green, and much of the original brickwork. In acquiring the garden, it has been the Milton Garden Club’s mission to create a pilot project to demonstrate the importance of saving local period landscape from development, to educate the public, and to adopt sustainable practices that set community standards for gardening and preservation. This is the site of the Croquet and Cocktails event ($30 Garden Conservancy members, $40 nonmembers).
In Boston proper, visit the Dustman-Ryan Garden, known as The Artful Garden. This garden reflects the creative efforts of a mighty team: Christie Dustman, professional garden designer, and Patti Ryan, a professional furniture maker. In their own personal garden, these two artists have let nothing hinder their zeal for plants, stone, and whimsy. The garden is in its eleventh season, and its transformation was done in phases, keeping only a privet hedge and one andromeda. The garden uses plants and objects as sculptures in an array of vignettes and intentional views. By showcasing some plants and objects against a background of other plants and elements, this garden has many levels of complexity and interest. The owners are members of the Conifer Society, and you will find more than 50 different conifers, as well as rare and unusual plants. It is the reclaimed and castoff items used as art and decoration, like basketball hoops and organ pipes, that often command the most “ooohs and ahhhs.” Garden is partially accessible.
Fairview Garden is located right in Roslindale. Tucked a few steps from the Peters Hill gate of the Arnold Arboretum, is a peaceful oasis of a garden. The owner began gardening about 18 years ago, initially inspired by perennials gifted from neighbors. You will be greeted with the varied colors and textures of maturing weeping conifers. Look for the swirling umbrella pine and colorful Japanese maple. A newer front bluestone walkway leads to a fieldstone wall, and in back there is a sense of quiet awe with dappled sunlight and subtle splashes of color. Zen statuary and handmade trellises support an extensive clematis display and give a Japanese feel to the garden. Garden is partially accessible.
In West Roxbury, the James/Raverso Garden (below) will be on view. This romantic urban escape with eye-popping color provided by hundreds of annuals, perennials, roses, and vines is viewed from a double-layered backyard deck that engages seamlessly with the surrounding gardens. Inspired by the classic “over the top” layered floral displays in English country gardens, it has taken eight years to build up four distinct garden areas that surround this Boston home. Definitely not a “low maintenance” garden, variations of color and texture provide a never-ending display from early Spring to late November.
The Open Days Gardens events are almost upon us, and locally, plan to visit the Garden of Pepe and John Maynard in Groton on May 15 from 10 – 4. Members $5 per person; General admission $10. Children 12 and under free. Visitors MUST pre-register at www.gardenconservancy.org. The owners describe their property as follows:
Our place, currently about 25 acres, was originally part of a much larger property, most of which was placed under conservation in 2006. We were attracted to it by the sweeping views to the west and the protection offered by hundreds of acres of surrounding fields and woodland, all protected from development. Starting in the nineteenth century, successive large country houses had been built on the site, surrounded by the formal, high-maintenance gardens of the day. The last of these rather grand houses was demolished in the 1960s. The succeeding generation of the previous owning family was more interested in breeding Black Angus than in horticulture. As a result the formal gardens had succumbed to neglect, bittersweet, and browsing deer by the time we purchased the property in 2007. At that time we had no interest in restoring formal gardens. Our first steps were to plant an allée of small sugar maples along the lane leading to our barn, and to fence a small nursery area where we could stockpile plants and grow them safe from deer. We dithered about building a deer fence around more of the property, fearing it would interfere with the view, but finally fenced about fifteen acres. The fence enabled us to begin planting to create informal, naturalistic grounds using native plant material as much as possible. While the nursery is now empty and the maples in the allée have reached eight inches diameter, all the plantings are still young and have only begun to mature. Nonetheless we believe the grounds have grown in enough to reward unhurried exploration with a wide variety of trees and shrubs, and, in the spring, extensive plantings of daffodils and other bulbs. The surrounding areas under conservation are open for walks, and a few remaining Black Angus add interest to the landscape. In the summer of 2020 an energetic couple working for us decided to clear out a small formal garden neglected for 25 years and overgrown to the point of invisibility. An exceptional stonemason rebuilt the dry stone walls over the winter and we began replanting in the early summer of 2021. An exceptionally wet summer helped to get new perennials established. We are hoping it will look presentable by 2022.
