Boston Flora

Tag: Ruettgers

  • Saturday, September 9, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Garden to Table at Clock Barn

    Join the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days, a nationwide garden education program, for an adventure-filled day for gardeners and foodies of all ages in the extraordinary Gardens at the Clock Barn, home of Maureen and Mike Ruettgers in Carlisle, MA. From a stylish landscape full of choice plants to an inviting and inventive children’s garden with myriad hands-on activities, there are delights aplenty to discover from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 9, 2017.

    Gardens at the Clock Barn, 453 Bedford Road, Carlisle, is certainly a place of magic. It was featured in Outstanding American Gardens: A Celebration: 25 Years of the Garden Conservancy (Abrams, 2015) Surrounding a late 18th century house and drying barn, this utterly charming garden brims over with herbs, vegetables, and flowers for cutting, in addition to choice perennials, trees, and shrubs. It also includes an amazing garden for children, a veritable wonderland designed to ignite curiosity and elicit delight in young gardeners from toddlers on up. There are many gardens to explore, including the pizza garden, fairy garden, pumpkin patch, and tee pee – plus watering cans everywhere for anyone to use. Throughout the day, activities for families will abound, from three scavenger hunts (little kids, big kids, and a rare plant hunt for adults) to demonstrations on straw bale gardening and making lavender ice cream. The Ruettgers’s beekeeper will be on site and guests will be able to create their own bee hotels for native pollinators. Farm and Fable (www.farmandfable.com), an online shop focused on beautifully made goods for the kitchen and home launched by Ruettgers daughter Abigail Flanagan, will host a pop-up shop offering carefully curated goods for gardeners and cooks.

    Open Days and the Ruettgers will also welcome a special guest, Chef Ben Elliott. Using fresh ingredients from his nearby Saltbox Farm, Ben will demonstrate preparation of one of his signature seasonal dishes during interactive demonstrations at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., giving families and foodies alike ample opportunity to exchange ideas with him—and with each other. Through the Garden Conservancy, farm-to-table box lunches from Ben’s acclaimed local café and brewery, Saltbox Kitchen, will be available to Open Days guests via pre-order.

    Chef Ben Elliott has more than twenty years’ experience working with some of the country’s most renowned chefs, including Barbara Lynch in Boston, named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People this year, and Laurant Gras in San Francisco. Ben and his young family live and work at the 10-acre Saltbox Farm started by his grandparents in Concord in the 1940s. As a child, Ben spent summers in the fields at Saltbox Farm with his grandfather and learned to cook alongside his grandmother, so he knows the joy and importance of growing and preparing food with loved ones. This is a practice shared by generations of the Ruettgers family, and one they hope to encourage during this special celebration in their private garden. Ben brings the farm-to-table ethos to life at Saltbox Farm, which offers an annual CSA program, acts as a venue for weddings and other catered events, and offers regular cooking classes (www.saltboxfarmconcord.com). Saltbox Farm also provides much of the fresh produce for Saltbox Kitchen, Ben’s café, brewery, and catering company, in West Concord (www.saltboxkitchen.com).

    Admission to this Open Day is $7 per person; children 12 and under are free. There will be no additional charge to participate in any of the activities, although there will be a charge of $15 for Saltbox Kitchen’s box lunches, which must be ordered in advance. To order lunches or for any additional information, please contact the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days either by phone at 888.842.2442 or by email at opendays@gardenconservancy.org, or visit www.gardenconservancy.org.

  • Saturday, September 26, 10 – 4 – Boston Area Open Day

    Visit two private gardens, one in Carlisle, one in Lexington, with the Garden Conservancy.  For more information, and to purchase tickets, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.

    Gardens at Clock Barn – Home of Maureen and Mike Ruettgers, 453 Bedford Road, Carlisle

    The Gardens at Clock Barn have been created by the Ruettgers over the last thirty years. The house and drying barn date back to 1790. As you enter the gardens through an arched gate, you walk by the old barn which has trays filled with herbs and flowers from the cutting garden beyond. These trays were built in the late 1930s as a Works Progress Administration project for the drying of digitalis leaves for medicinal use. A grape arbor leads into a walled garden with four quadrants anchored by antique roses and mixed borders with sweeps of foxgloves, Salvia viridis, and nepeta intertwined with salad greens and edible herbs. A second tier is flanked by two reflecting pools fringed by Allium senescens montanum and an herbal tapestry design mirrored on each side. A greenhouse and potting area houses a collection of more than forty varieties of scented geraniums on one side and pots of kaffir limes, Meyer lemons, figs, bay, and rosemary on the other. Exiting the glass house, a canopy of 100-year-old oaks provides shade for paths that wind through a series of woodland gardens and past a small pond and water feature bordered by hakonechloa. Hosta divisions from the garden of Francis Williams anchor the first shade garden. Favorite plantings in these gardens include anemones, epimediums, Kirengeshoma palmata, Jeffersonia dubia, and shade-loving peonies. The path widens as you exit the gardens through a hornbeam arch to finish the tour below the face of The Clock Barn.

    Anne Kubik and Michael Krupka, 7 Bennington Road, Lexington

    This steeply sloped site has been terraced with a series of fieldstone walls to create a variety of outdoor rooms that complement the spaces closer to the house. Reclaimed granite, Massachusetts fieldstone, bluestone and dimensional granite, along with brick and clay tile, have all been used to create a unique character for each space. The surrounding conservation land drew the owners to the site and as a result, the planting concept for the property has purposely relied heavily on native plants. Favorite spaces include the espaliered apples in the kitchen garden, the beech hedge around the pool garden, and the columnar trees and bamboos around the central stairway. The perennials are loosely arranged in billowing masses with many varieties blooming in late summer and early fall when the garden is in full use. An exuberant display of tropicals and annuals in an assortment of clay containers bloom throughout the season and peak in late summer and early fall.