Boston Flora

Tag: Perennial Beds

  • Saturday, July 10 – 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires Garden Tour

    Six private Stockbridge gardens, as well as several houses,  will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 10 for the 20th Annual Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires tour.

    Advance ticket purchase, $35, is recommended, by check and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the Lenox Garden Club, Box 552, Lenox, Mass., 01240. Box lunches cost $20 and must be pre-ordered. Tickets will also be available at Mary Stuart Collections, 69 Church Street, Lenox,  Campo de ‘Fiori, 1815 N. Main Street, Sheffield, and Hammertown Barn, 325 Stockbridge Road, Great Barrington.  Tickets, if available on the day of the tour, will be $40 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Congregational Church.  Information: (413) 298-3089 and lenoxgardenclub.net.

    http://www.gardensoftheberkshires.org/Images/Mission-Large.jpg

  • Saturday, July 11 – 10 – 4 – Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires Garden Tour

    Seven private gardens will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires tour, including a site in a former quarry, with pine trees and stone deer lining the path to the small lake; the grounds of a Federal house, which is shaded by old-growth trees and lined with perennial beds; and a quiet country garden with a variety of plantings centered around a waterfall and koi pond.

    Advance ticket purchase, $30, is recommended, by check and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the Lenox Garden Club, Box 552, Lenox, Mass., 01240. Box lunches, reserved by June 30, are $20. Tickets, if available on the day of the tour, will be $35 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church, 1156 Ashley Falls Road in Ashley Falls. Information: (413) 298-3089 and lenoxgardenclub.net.

  • Sunday, June 28, 10 – 4 – Berkshire County Open Day

    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 woodland”, 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.

  • Thursday, June 25, 7:30 a.m. – 6:45 p.m. – Coast of Maine and Seacoast of New Hampshire Day Trip

    The Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture has organized a fabulous day trip on Thursday, June 25.  Meet in the Gray Parking Lot to carpool at 7:30 a.m.  Expected return time is 6:45.  The first garden stop is Braveboat Harbor Farm in York, Maine, the home of Cynthia and Calvin Hosmer.  These gardens were hay fields which rise from the rockbound coast.  Visit the formal front garden, a vegetable garden, an orchard, a woodland garden, and collections of hostas, lilacs and magnolias.  This bit of paradise was featured in last summer’s issue of “La Vie Claire” and has been a participant in the Garden Conservancy’s Open Gardens Day for the past eight years.

    The lovely home of Vance and Anne Mitchell Morgan on Gemish Island in Kittery Point will be the setting for lunch.  The garden, largely designed and created by them, overlooks a tidal inlet and features a rock garden, perennial beds, a fountain garden and a wonderful shady woodland garden.  Colorful containers on the deck show off choice plants.  The Morgans moved to Maine when Anne retired from the Wellesley College Alumnae Association.

    Fuller Gardens in North Hampton, New Hampshire, is a turn-of-the-century estate garden established by then-Governor of Massachusetts Alvan T. Fuller to please his wife, Viola, who loved flowers and especially roses.  Today Fuller Gardens is known primarily for its extensive collection of roses, and Garden Director Jamie Colen will give a short talk about the roses and other features of the Gardens.  A stop at the nearby home of Anne Sinnott Moore for refreshments preceeds heading back to Wellesley.  Members $48, Non-Members $60, includes lunch, snacks, and gardens.  To sign up, log on to http://www.wellesley.edu/WCFH/Courses/OnTheRoadJune09.pdf,  or mail a check to Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481-8203.