Boston Flora

Tag: Open Days

  • Sunday, May 20, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm – Branford Connecticut Garden Tour

    The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program begins the 2012 Northeast season with a tour of the garden of Dr. Nickolas Nickou and Carol Hanby on Sunday, May 20, from 10 – 3, with guided tours at 10:45 and 1 pm. This three-acre garden features many species and varieties of mature rhododendrons and azaleas. In addition, there are many rare trees and shrubs from China and Japan, coupled with woodland flowering plants, ferns, Japanese primulas, and other bog plants.

    Directions: To get to 107 Sunset Hill Drive in Branford, From I-95, take Exit 55 and go east on Route 1; if traveling north turn right at end of ramp; south, turn left. Go 0.4 mile and turn right onto Fearbed Lane. Go to end, about 1 mile. Turn left onto Damascus Road and go 200 feet then turn right onto Griffing Pond Road. Go 0.5 mile to driveway on left with yellow fire hydrant at #107. (Griffing Pond goes into Sunset Hill Road in 0.5 mile). Ignore first right after getting on Griffing Pond for Sunset Hill Drive as this is long way around hill to #107. Please park along road. (Note: some paths are rough and steep.)  Complete details may be found at www.gardenconservancy.org.

  • Saturday, June 18, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Seekonk Open Days Garden Tour

    Landscape designer Andrew Grossman’s Seekonk, Massachusetts gardens, which border the Martin Wildlife Refuge and the Runnins River, showcase a wide variety of perennials, shrubs, and grasses. The property includes a blue-and-white garden, a hot colored garden with a checkerboard thyme patio, a cottage garden planted with roses and other old-fashioned favorites, and a rustic pond surrounded by bog plantings. There is also a cutting garden currently planted with tea roses and dinner plate dahlias.  Andrew’s garden will be open on Saturday, June 18, from 10 – 4 as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days schedule, along with three additional gardens in nearby Kent County, Rhode Island.  For a complete description, visit http://www.gardenconservancy.org/opendays/open-days-schedule/openday/390-east-greenwich-area-open-day.  Admission is $5 per garden, or $25 for all six gardens open on this date.  Discounted ticket booklets can be purchased on June 18 at each participating private garden or at Tranquil Lake Nursery, 45 River Street, Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

     

  • Sunday, July 25, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Stockbridge Open Day

    Stockbridge, Massachusetts is the site of a three garden tour on Sunday, July 25  sponsored by The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program.  Admission to each garden is $5, and tickets are not needed.  For complete information log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.

    Garden of 1826 Pease-Lincoln House, 82 East Main Street (Route 102)
    Stockbridge, Massachusetts

    A 1929 plan by sculptor Daniel Chester French divided these three acres into several sections. The west terrace features a fountain by French and a latticed folly mirroring artist Richard Haas’ trompe l’oeil in the summer porch. An homage to Marcel Duchamp may also be noted. Steps through the border gardens lead to a curving path of marble squares edging the central lawn which lead the visitor to the grape arbor and goldfish pond with pineapple fountain. A grass path beyond, lined with Thalictrum and heritage roses, leads to a hedge-flanked gate. To the left are a kitchen garden, raspberries, and a cutting garden; to the right, a small lily pond draining to the Housatonic River. A woodland path, starting at the screened tea house, returns to the central lawn and completes the circuit.

    Directions:
    From Massachusetts Turnpike, take Lee Exit and go south on Route 102, 6 miles to site. From in town and Red Lion Inn, drive north on Main Street, bear right at Route 102 and look for a blue picket fence 300 feet long on right.
    From Lenox, go south on Route 7 and turn sharp left at junction with Route 102. Park at Berkshire Theatre Festival (Berkshire Playhouse). After parking, cross East Main Street carefully and enter property. Note White Whale (Moby Dick) atop barn; paint scheme by Andrew Jackson Davis.

    Brown Garden, 17 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts

    The house, built in 1823, has a plant-filled porch overlooking the gardens and is framed by a copper beech tree estimated to be 150 years old. The property consists of twenty-five acres, and the gardens, in development since 1980, are divided into three areas. The walled garden is designed not to reveal open spaces and is dominated by perennials planted around a fountain. A hosta arboretum is featured in the north section of the gardens. Evergreens and other trees frame the pool while summer annuals abound.

    Directions:
    At intersection of Routes 7 and 102, go north from The Red Lion Inn. Go past town tennis courts and proceed 1.5 miles. Parking is provided before Prospect Hill Road and continues over turnpike on left.

    Fitzpatrick’s Hillhome, Stockbridge, Massachusetts (Please Note: This garden is open from 11:00 am – 3:00 pm only)

    Hillhome, a historic and distinguished Stockbridge estate, was designed in 1918 by a protégé of Charles F. McKim who was known for the design of private country houses and U.S. diplomatic offices abroad. Its gardens, created from 1933 to 1935 by the well-known landscape architect, Prentiss French, nephew of the sculptor Daniel Chester French, set off an impressive view of the Berkshire Hills. Leading to a long stone-paved and grass terrace is a heavy wooden garden door. At the northern end of the terrace stands a three-sided stone architectural structure resembling an arched ruin and created by moving an old mill, stone by stone, from West Stockbridge. This folly continues to provide a quiet and secluded space from which to enjoy the expansive views beyond. French made extensive use of massive stone retaining walls, thereby creating dramatic terraces in the steep hillside. Today, the walls contain charming alpine plants. Not to compete however with the view, the genius loci of the property, are the generally more restrained plantings and perennial borders. Be sure to visit the twenty-foot waterfall which splashes through serpentine paths leading down to an iris-bordered lily pond (below). You will reach it through a small secret garden at the southern end of the main terrace. In 1949, Hillhome was awarded the prestigious Gold Medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Today, French’s original design remains largely intact.

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3178/2741827055_cdce480701.jpg?v=0

  • Saturday, July 24, and Sunday, July 25, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – York County, Maine Open Days

    The Garden Conservancy will sponsor a two day garden tour of six gardens in York County, Maine on Saturday, July 24 and Sunday, July 25 from 10 – 4.  Entry to each garden is $5, and advance tickets are not required.  For complete information, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.

    Howells-Metz Gardens, 9 Lawrence Lane, Kittery Point, Maine

    The property overlooks the Piscataqua River and Pepperell Cove. The landscaping joins four houses and outbuildings with lawns and gardens that flow into each other. An English conservatory is used for starting seeds for vegetables and annuals.There are rhododendrons and azaleas and shrubs along the houses. Other gardens include a rock garden, a rose garden, borders along a rocky ledge, a vegetable garden with flower borders on two sides for cutting, and an herb garden. In most places daffodils appear in the spring, giving way to day lilies in the summer and annuals (zinnias, asters, dahlias) in the fall. A swimming pool near the beach is filled with salt water from the sea. The family has lived here for some ninety years and currently the houses are occupied by four generations.

    Seapoint, 6 Seapoint Road, Cutts Island, Kittery Point, Maine

    Seapoint is a gardener’s garden overlooking a creek, salt marsh, and the ocean beyond. The property was once part of one of the original saltwater farms on Cutts Island and is nestled alongside of one of the region’s most beautiful wildlife refuges. The garden features an extensive variety of flowering specimen trees, shrubs framed by meandering paths, and intricate stonework.

    Directions:
    About 5 miles from I-95 in Maine, take Exit 2 to Kittery Point. In 0.25 mile enter rotary and exit on Route 236/Kittery Point. Route 236 becomes Route 103. Continue straight across bridge and pass CITGO gas station. In 0.25 mile take fork to right (there are signs for Seapoint). Go straight as road winds around. Pass sign for Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge. Once past sign, garden is at second house on right, #6.

    Braveboat Harbor Farm, 110 Raynes Neck Road, York, Maine (below)

    This garden has been evolving over the last fifty years. It surrounds and complements a Georgian-style stone house. There are formal and informal borders, a vegetable garden, orchards, and collections of various flowering trees and shrubs. Apples and pears are espaliered on the house and along the walls of the formal front garden. Water features include a goldfish pond in an old septic tank, a farm pond with rustic bridge, and the Atlantic Ocean. This treasure is protected by a sculpted arborvitae hedge on the northwest, a mature stand of hickory on the northeast, and an extensive screen of old lilacs on the south. New projects include expanding the collection of magnolias and rhododendrons, introducing hydrangeas, an espaliered pear fence, a woodland walk, a new pond at the north end of the woodland garden, and a summerhouse with views to the pond and the sea.

    Directions:
    Located off Route 103 South and Braveboat Harbor Road to end of Raynes Neck Road. Please park in field below house.

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3223/2795647729_c763891df7.jpg

  • Sunday, June 27, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program in Marblehead

    On Sunday, June 27th, explore three private gardens in Marblehead, open to the public through The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program. Admission to each private garden is $5. Open Days are rain or shine, and no reservations are required. Call 1-888-842-2442, or visit www.opendaysprogram.org for more information.

    At The Fettyplace-Bowden House (15 Waldron Court, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) local stone, ancient cut granite, and bluestone were used to create raised and sunken planting beds, a patio, and paths. Colonies of many prized and unusual perennials, edibles, over-wintered annuals, shrubs, and trees cover every available piece of ground as well as the roof of a wood storage alcove. The gardens at Grey Gulls (429 Ocean Avenue, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) feature sinuous beds mirroring the surrounding curves of shore and sea, hundreds of unusual annuals, perennials, and bulbs thrive, and a whimsical vegetable garden includes heirloom varieties, climbing vines, and delectable berries. At The Parable – Ellen Cool’s Garden (19 Circle Street, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), the landscape represents a gathering of the longest blooming and otherwise most pleasing hardy perennials, dwarf and unusual trees, shrubs, and vines, chosen for foliage and/or other reliable attributes to keep the garden freshly lovely from May through October. This is the working space as well as the display garden of a landscape designer, so there are stone features, garden buildings, tools, books, and working systems that may provide some added ideas for your own garden work.

    These Open Days gardens are featured in the 2010 Open Days Directory; a soft-cover book that includes detailed driving directions and vivid descriptions written by their owners.  The directory includes garden listings in 21 states and costs $21.95 including shipping. Visit www.opendaysprogram.org or call the Garden Conservancy toll-free at 1-888-842-2442 to order with a Visa, MasterCard or American Express, or send a check or money order to: the Garden Conservancy, P.O. Box 219, Cold Spring, NY 10516.  Discount admission tickets are available as well through advanced mail order.

    The 2010 Open Days Program is generously sponsored by Garden Design Magazine as its National Media Sponsor.  The Garden Conservancy introduced the Open Days Program in 1995 as a means of introducing the public to gardening, providing easy access to outstanding examples of design and horticultural practice, and proving that exceptional American gardens are still being created. The Open Days Program is America’s only national private garden-visiting program, and is made possible by the work of hundreds of volunteers nationwide.

    http://greayer.com/studiog//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/16-500x340.jpg

  • Saturday, July 18, 10 – 4 – Williamstown Open Day

    The Garden Conservancy partners with the Berkshire Botanical Garden to sponsor this Open Day.  For information and to reserve tickets, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.

    152 Ide Road, Williamstown

    This garden, surrounding an old carriage barn, is divided into rooms to resemble the English gardens loved by the owner/gardener/English professor. A walled garden leads to a formal pool, with an island waterfall and the divine lotus that blooms in mid-July. The entrance, a rustic pergola, borders 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 arched window on an old marble base, framing the folly, the long hot border, or the distant landscape, looks into the past and future.

    260 Northwest Hill Road, Williamstown

    This lovely house features a harmonious landscape of interweaving meadow, lawn, stone terrace, gardens, pools, and house. Elegant, yet informal, the outdoor spaces vary in character from a dramatic woodland ravine, to an intimate bedroom shade garden, to an expansive lawn with views of Mount Greylock and Dome Mountain. Guests are immediately welcomed by an arrival garden with a terraced front entrance. They will visit a rhododendron and hosta shade garden, a rock garden with fishpond, and a lower grove with a sitting garden. Each is unique in character, yet intimately connected with the house and the surrounding multi-level terrain.

    Brooks Garden, 36 Keep Hill Road, Williamstown

    This garden surrounds one of the first “modern” houses in Williamstown, which was built in 1948 overlooking the valley and Mount Prospect beyond. The pond and fountain in the entrance circle is one of four made by the owners. On the west side of the circle is a small katsura grove. Connecting the house and garage is an herbal courtyard with a pergola and trellis that holds grapevines, wisteria, and kiwi in profusion. In the middle is a small pond with a quiet fountain surrounded by herbs and pastel spring flowers which give way to warmer colors that attract hummingbirds and butterflies later on in the summer. A larger pond and watercourse is found in the more extensive part of the garden where paths connect different rooms—a shade garden and sedum garden are among them. On the east side of the house is a small vegetable garden, a grove of lilacs, and the patio with a small fountain. All landscaping, garden design, stone walls, and care are provided by the owners.

    Mount Hope Farm, Williamstown

    Views of Mount Greylock and the Taconic Range from informal gardens makes this property enjoyable to see any time of day. Carol and Bob began creating their gardens at their hilltop home in 2000. Carol is interested in newly introduced, native, and sometimes rare plants, Zone 4, that give color, shape, and texture throughout the year and stand up to strong winds and low temperatures. There are mixed grasses at the entrance, native plants and a dry creek with mosses and ferns leading to the front door, and a sculptural installation and a sunken patio/ room where there are tender perennials. Succulents and low-growing plants surround a seating area. Most of the plants have been selected and tended by the owners.

    Wagner Garden, 33 Haley Street, Williamstown

    One of the original Haley houses in Haley Village, Williamstown, this in-town house and garden on a quarter-acre lot has evolved over a period of seventeen years. The garden complements the simple lines of the 1940s house and is a creative example of what can be done in a small landscape. The garden has been designed and entirely maintained by the owner. Mixed borders consisting of perennials, shrubs, and ornamental trees create garden rooms that each have their own character. The lawn is used as a path to lead visitors from one area to another. Annuals and containers are used for continuous color, especially on the stone patio. A variety of vines have been used for privacy fences and to add visual height to the garden. Rather than an abundance of flowers, the main focus of the garden is on foliage textures and plants of personal interest.

  • 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 garden”, the focus at Parterre is on horticultural specimens and diversity.

  • 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 chicks”. Allow forty-five minutes to one hour for your visit.

    To register, link to www.gardenconservancy.org/opendays.