Tag Archives: design

Garden Arbours & Pergolas

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It’s the dead of winter in my part of Canada, the garden buried today under more than a foot of snow (which always makes me laugh, to see photos from milder climates of ‘the winter garden’ and how to design for that season). But winter is always a good time to think about plans for the garden – especially those involving ways to make it more inviting to those who want to spend time relaxing, dining or napping in it. Enter those structures — sometimes architectural, sometimes rustic, sometimes just plain whimsical — that transform the garden from a ‘place for plants’ to a sanctuary for people. I’m thinking mostly about arbours and pergolas, two words that have come to mean almost the same thing, but in fact have different roots. Pergola comes from the Latin “pergula” for “projecting roof”, meaning an open-work-roof structure attached to (or immediately adjacent to) the house. Arbor/arbour derives from the French and Old English “herbere“, originally meaning a herb garden, but later a structure for supporting heavy vines such as grapes. Below is an illustration of a 16th-century German celebration in an outdoor arbour or pavilion, taken from a 1992 book on my shelf called Decorating Eden by Elizabeth Wikinson and Marjorie Henderson.

In time, “arbour” evolved to mean a simple structure with an open-work roof within the garden, sometimes containing a seat. Today, those words are almost interchangeable and encompass myriad styles, from barebones rustic to architecturally ornate. Let’s start with one of my favourites, because it reflects the talent and style of my dear, late friend Penny Arthurs, aka The Chelsea Gardener, who designed and built this arbour in her Toronto garden. Teal stain transforms the enclosing walls and cross-beams through which Boston ivy creeps. The front posts at left support climbing roses, while the ‘floor’ is the same brickwork Penny used in the rest of her garden. The rustic bench completes the scene. I so miss Penny and wrote a blog about her in memory.

In Shirley William’s garden in North Grafton, Mass., a rustic arbour featuring rough-hewn uprights and cross pieces supported climbing vines that were just coming into leaf when I was there in May a few years ago. It was furnished with comfy chairs for taking a weeding break. I wrote a blog called “Spring at Brigham Hill Farm” after my visit to this delightful garden.

Derek Bennett’s food-forward Toronto garden included this trellised arbour for al fresco dining – featuring an overhead lamp and a rustic, dry-laid brick floor. Morning glories grew through the trellis and basil and tomatoes grew in pots nearby.

This formal poolside Toronto structure seen on a garden tour seems best described as a pergola, despite being away from the house. Architect-designed to be integrated into the raised terrace, its supports are strong enough for the massive overhead wisteria about to burst into bloom.

A well-known pergola at Wave Hill garden in the Bronx features an open wall for guests to view the Hudson River and New Jersey’s Palisades on the far shore. It is surrounded by and hung with containers of plants, many rare. Have a look at my blog on Wonderful Wave Hill.

In Wave Hill’s famous Flower Garden, rustic arbours with built-in seats face each other across the colour-themed garden. One is wreathed in climbing roses……

…. while the other hosts roses and dainty Clematis ‘Betty Corning’.

I loved the bright blue beams of this “ramada” (Spanish for open air structure covered in branches) in the herb garden of the Tucson Botanical Garden. Why don’t more people use colour like this in the garden?

A massive white wisteria rests on sturdy overhead beams in the Pond Arbor at Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, PA. The beams are supported at the back in brackets attached to the stone wall of the Gravel Garden, above and behind it, and in front by sturdy, stone-faced, concrete posts. Guests can rest in Chanticleer’s iconic chairs, listening to the breeze ruffle the ‘Everillo’ sedge and fullmoon maple nearby. Chanticleer is my favourite small public garden in the world! Here’s my latest 2-part blog from Sept. 2023.

At the Idaho Botanical Garden in Boise, a series of arbors in the English Garden fitted with steel mesh on the overhead timbers support clematis, climbing roses and other vines . They contain benches so visitors can stop and enjoy the sound of the central fountain. Here’s my 2017 blog on the Idaho Botanical Garden, which highlights native plants on the Lewis & Clark Trail.

I walked through the aquamarine pergola/colonnade in the Walled Garden at Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island – home of the wealthy Phipps family – a few decades ago, so this photo could be out of date. But I was delighted to see the garden used as a location for the society opening of “the botanic garden” in HBO’s ‘The Gilded Age’ a few months ago. It features a border of ferns and wisteria overhead.

At Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., landscape architect Beatrix Farrand originally designed the Arbor Terrace in the 1920s as one of seven garden rooms on the property. In 1944, it was re-imagined by owner Mildred Bliss with designer Ruth Harvey, its lawn replaced by Tennessee stone and the oak arbor rebuilt out of cypress. You can read my blog on Dumbarton Oaks – including the grape arbor – here.

A large arbour decorated with hanging ornaments encloses an outdoor seating area in Colleen Jamison’s Austin, Texas garden: a perfect spot to relax on warm evenings. Here’s my blog “Birds, Bling and Beguiling Brown” on Colleen’s garden.

This beautiful dining arbour designed by Maureen Sedran of Mark Hartley Landscape Architects was on a Toronto garden tour ages ago. I loved that the urn fountain was near enough to create a soothing soundtrack for the lucky people enjoying dining under the suspended hurricane lamp.

Maureen Sedran of Mark Hartley Associates also designed this airy arbour and the surounding garden featuring an elegant white redbud (Cercis canadensis f. alba).

For several years when we attended the Shaw Festival in Ontario’s Niagara-on-the-Lake, we stayed with friends at Lakewinds Bed & Breakfast. It had a beautiful garden, a covered veranda with comfy seating and this pergola dripping with wisteria. Sadly the owners moved on – but of course I wrote a blog!

When we were on our South Africa garden tour years ago, the garden of Henk Scholtz was a delight. I wrote a blog about his “wonderful, whimsical garden” that included the photo below, of Henk’s grape pergola.

Architect Minky Lidchi’s ornate Johannesburg garden did not feature a traditional pergola, but used metal beams between sturdy concrete pillars blanked with vines to create an airy overhead effect. Here’s my blog on Minky’s garden.

I liked this metal chandelier hung amidst the wisteria in the dining pergola of Stellenberg Garden, in Cape Town, South Africa. Of course I wrote a blog about this Cape Dutch Class house and garden.

On a 2022 wine tour of Sicily, we had an outdoor tasting under an interesting shade pergola/awning at Principi di Butera winery. It would be easy to attach a canvas above the overhead pole array to provide more shade.

Sometimes, privacy is as important in an outdoor structure as overhead shade or vines. In artist Bev Stableforth’s garden in Creemore, Ontario, outdoor draperies can be drawn to create a sense of intimate sanctuary.

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MY GARDEN

When we did some landscaping in 1988, having a two-level deck off the back of our 1915 house helped ease the transition from the back door to the garden in a way that regular stairs would not. An architect neighbour more accustomed to designing museums did the original rough design – placing the structure on 16 cement sono-tubes – a foundation our contractor swore could support a small house. It had an inner bench, a milled-lattice privacy screen and a solid cedar wall that made the deck feel like the prow of a ship. I loved it, but wanted something a little more romantic right outside the door. So a few years later, I hired a carpenter to build a pergola and planted a wisteria in the garden to the right of the deck, the idea being it would reward me with purple flowers each spring. That did not happen, the deck being a little too shady, but the foliage was pretty. (Some of you might have read my poem ‘Wisterical’ about my flower-shy vine.)

However, late afternoon was often too sunny so I hemmed up three sections of pink candy-striped fabric and suspended them via eyelet rings between the cross-pieces. It looked very festive! And I had the chunky table built to fit the space.

In the 1990s, my husband still had his company and we hosted a few garden parties, inviting friends and clients. The bar in the pergola was a popular first stop.

The post featured my artist son’s clay mask and at the base, an assortment of containers filled with annuals and perfumed star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides), which I brought indoors in autumn to overwinter.

I strung lights in the wisteria for evening dinners.

A 1998 garden party saw us take precautions against rain with a marquee that went right up and over the deck and pergola.

It was very romantic – though the rain stopped in late afternoon.

The deck from the garden.

I sewed up some cushions for the built-in-bench and the sling chairs. But eventually the non-flowering wisteria irritated me enough to get rid of it. Though it was too big to dig up, I cut it back and put a garbage bag over the bottom of the trunk until it gave its last gasp. Then I planted a hybrid Asian clematis called C. x fargesoides that features small white summer flowers and rampant growth to more than 20 feet.

This was the view of the pergola and privacy screen from beside the deck.

But the Asian clematis was a nuisance to try to train on the sparse overhead boards, as you see here.

And by 2009, the wood on the deck – including the pergola – had sustained more than 20 years of rot (especially sitting under a 70-foot black walnut that rained nuts and leaves down each autumn) so a rebuild was in order. Those 16 cement sonotubes were still in good shape, howver!

And admitting defeat on the deck pergola idea, I opted instead for a simpler design – no benches, a traditional railing wall that would dry out better than the solid cedar wall and iron outdoor furniture. Not as romantic, but less maintenance.

And that’s the end of my winter contemplation of pergolas and arbours. If you’re interested in garden construction, you might want to read my blog on our garden path and gate, “The Gate, the Grate, the Path”, featuring the 35-year-old magazine cover below of my gate on the first issue of Canadian Gardening Magazine in Feb/March 1990.

Pooled Assets in Wiltshire

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While I was eating delicious, home-baked cake in Juliette Mead’s enchanting garden in the village of West Amesbury last June, I had no idea we were sitting just two miles from prehistoric Stonehenge.  It was only later, as we drove out on Stonehenge Avenue past this circular assemblage of 5,000-year-old stones arranged to mark the year’s winter and summer solstice, that I realized that the garden I’d just visited had once shared its chalky soil on the banks of the River Avon with people of the Stone Age. But I was not aware of that bit of geographic trivia when the family dog Ada led our Carex Tours group under a rose-wreathed timber arch into the garden behind the house.

Here, in a courtyard configured in the shelter of the U-shape of the house – originally a row of workers’ houses joined together which, from the road, still wear their original facades – were deep mixed borders and planting beds featuring multi-stemmed ‘Evereste’ crabapples forming the season’s fruit above early summer sages, alliums, irises and peonies.

Crimson roses clambered up the window frames and gold euphorbia gleamed in the afternoon sun.

I had spent the previous afternoon photographing gorgeous roses at Kew Gardens so I loved seeing Juliette’s collection.

In early June, the herbaceous colour palette in England seems to lean to lavenders, purples and blues, such as the Allium cristophii and Salvia nemorosa  paired below. 

But as an insect photographer, it was still tempting to want to photograph every bumble bee I saw, including this one on the starry allium flowers.

We were here on a Carex tour of “New Gardens of England”, including Dan Pearson & Huw Morgan’s Hillside and Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth nearby because, almost 20 years ago, shortly after buying the house, Juliette and her husband Guy Leech hired a friend, the Hertfordshire designer Tom Stuart-Smith, to re-imagine the landscape of their 3.5 acre property. In his career, he has become internationally renowned, working everywhere from India to Marrakech, won eight gold medals and three Best in Show awards at London’s annual Chelsea Flower Show, designed a garden for Queen Elizabeth’s 2002 Jubilee at Windsor Castle and been awarded the Order of the British Empire. But back then, Juliette and Guy had specific objectives: they wanted a lawn for their four children to play sports and host friends; Juliette wanted to cut flowers for bouquets; and Guy wanted a swimming pool, but not a small pool – he wanted to swim serious lengths, thus a minimum of 20 metres was his stipulation.  So, from the courtyard with its traditional deep borders and planting beds lush with grasses surrounding an alfresco dining area, we were led once again by Ada the Alsatian to the stunning walled garden surrounding the 21-metre (68.9 feet) swimming pool.  In the distance you can see the thatched, lime-washed cob wall that is a traditional feature in this part of England.

Though it’s difficult to discern without an overhead photo, the parterre arrangement of dozens of planting beds surrounding the pool has been described by Juliette as a Persian tapestry, and something she enjoys looking down on from the second floor, especially in winter. Phlomis russeliana is among the roster of hard-working plants that flower in June.  By stepping the garden down on this side of the pool and raising it on the far side, Tom Stuart-Smith enhanced the garden view from the house and underplayed the view of the swimming pool behind layers of plants. The new walls in the garden, including above the pool, are zinc-coated steel. At right are beech hedges with a large gap to display the view through meadows and trees to the River Avon.

As I walked around the pool, I was struck by the magical movement of the golden oats grass (Stipa gigantea – Celtica) used extensively in the garden, along with other grasses such as Panicum virgatum ‘Cloud Nine’, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’and Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Hameln’.  Along with Molinia cultivars like ‘Transparent’ and ‘Skyracer’, Stipa gigantea is one of the best “scrim” or “screen” plants, adding a kinetic quality to a garden while offering a porous veil in front of the scene behind. Interestingly, Juliette was not keen on grasses and had to be talked into including them by Tom; they now make up 40% of the roster and their tawny forms provide much of the winter interest.

The timber decking around the pool has aged to a soft silvery-grey that enhances the turquoise Marbleite pool and looks lovely with the billowing ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint (Nepeta racemosa) that was in peak June bloom.  Looking out over the pool through the break in the beech hedge and a barely-visible iron fence, we see a meadow and trees that line the banks of the River Avon ninety metres away.

The windows at the back of the house look out onto the garden surrounding the sleek pool, which Juliette and Guy specified they did not want hidden behind a fence. Has an exercise setting ever looked so gorgeous? Behind the sun umbrella you can see the soft-grey, low zinc wall.

I seemed to be drawn to the golden oats (Stipa gigantea). What a fabulous grass – sadly not hardy for us in Toronto.

Purple catmint, turquoise pool, mauve sun lounger: this couldn’t be prettier or better coordinated.

 The planting beds around the pool, separated from each other by narrow grass paths, are at their best in mid-summer, but early June’s palette of meadow sage and catmint is dependable and romantic. Here you get a closer look at the thatched cob wall.

I had never come across horned spurge (Euphorbia cornigera) before, but it seems similar to moisture-loving E. palustris.

As I left the pool side of the house, I was struck by the beauty of the Chilean potato vine (Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’) climbing the house wall.

What a stunning vine.

Walking behind the house towards the river, I stood for a moment under the tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) in the lawn. It was the only tree that Tom Stuart-Smith kept from the previous landscape.

Then I walked around  small wetland niches with lush plantings at the bottom of the garden.

Tall stems of pink flowers would soon rise from masses of umbrella plant (Darmera peltata) flanking the water.

There were moisture-loving Siberian irises (Iris sibirica) down there….

…… and luscious Japanese irises (I. ensata) too.  

I walked to the edge of the River Avon, which reflected the idyllic green glades on its shores.  Later, I learned that there are actually nine Avon Rivers in Great Britain, including the one running through Shakespeare’s Stratford-Upon-Avon. The root of the word Avon is “abona” in Celtic or in Welsh, “afon”, which means “river”. So, strictly speaking there are nine “River Rivers”.

Juliette graciously invited us into the house for tea and cakes – a lovely English garden-visit custom……

….. and I can say without exaggeration that she is a talented, inventive cook with a keen eye for presentation.

Then, with a last look at the garden, I turned the corner around the unique flint & limestone wall of the house towards the bus and the journey past Stonehenge towards Bath.

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Want to read more blogs about my English trip in June 2023?

Sissinghurst in Vita’s Sweet June

Boldly Go: June Glory at Great Dixter

Hillside: Dean Pearson and Huw Morgan in Somerset

Malverleys: A Garden of Rooms

Yews Farm – A Brilliant Marriage…. of Boxwood and Beans

Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth

The Newt

Fairy Crown #26-Fall Finery

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For me, autumn is a time of richness as the gardening season nears its end in an explosion of pigments and seedheads.  Those pigments, in particular, have always fascinated me and I made a concerted effort to use brilliant fall foliage colours in my own garden design.  So today’s fairy crown, the 26th, features the fall leaves and fruit of shrubs and trees in my Toronto garden in early November, including Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), Washington thorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum), burning bush (Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’), barberry (Berberis thunbergii ‘Rose Glow’) and, draped down my front, a compound leaf of my black walnut (Juglans nigra).

Every year is a little different in terms of the parade of colour. Here you see my Japanese maple showing off its regular autumn leaf change as the burning bush hedge turns colour. In the pollinator garden, the ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum seedheads are ruby-red, but the fothergilla haven’t begun to change yet. The columnar red maple (upper left) that the city chose for my boulevard (I asked for one that turns red) has taken on its disappointing dishwater-yellow. Red maples, of course, don’t always turn red in fall.

In this photo taken a different year, the fothergilla in the pollinator garden is a rosy-apricot.  That’s catmint in the front giving a nice glaucous contrast with Russian sage and echinacea seedheads adding structure.

From across the street, my neighbours see my garden through the fan-shaped yellow leaves of my second boulevard tree, a ginkgo (G. biloba).  

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you likely know that I’ve had fun turning those yellow leaves….

….. into ballet tutus of tiny dancers.

The Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) I planted in front of my living room window decades ago is a great joy to me. It’s the straight species with green leaves – in Japan it would be a common forest tree.  But in my garden, since there are no drapes on my front window, it forms a lacy curtain from spring (when bees buzz around the tiny May flowers) to fall. In very late October or the first week of November, the foliage turns a range of rich hues from yellow to apricot, scarlet and crimson.

The leaves are delicate, their branching exquisite. It’s no wonder they were the subject of the renowned Japanese woodblock artists like Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi.

As I’ve written before, my Japanese maple’s brilliant autumn colour lights up my living room in early November….

….. enhancing the glass witches’ balls I’ve suspended from the window frame.

And, of course, the leaves also provided me with an appropriate costume and landscape for my little geisha.  

If there’s a saying that “good fences, good neighbours make”, it can also apply to hedges – which was how I ended up making this hedge in my front garden more than 30 years ago. (My current neighbours are lovely!) Today, environmentalists tend to shun burning bush, given its invasive tendency in milder regions, but my hedge produces very few seedlings, unlike the Norway maples in my neighbourhood which are a scourge. And this neon display in autumn is truly amazing.

My belly dancer’s costume was made from the leaves of my burning bush hedge.

Though there’s no fothergilla in my crown, it is definitely a big part of the fall colour in my front garden.  In this photo made just before Halloween, you can see one of my shrubs has turned a rich burgundy-red beneath the Japanese maple.

The richer, more moisture-retentive soil in my pollinator island tends to produce orange and gold colours in the three fothergilla shrubs there.

Look at those colours! Who needs the spring flowers….

…. though they are lovely, if short-lived, in late May.

And, yes, I did harvest my flamenco dancer’s multi-colored skirt from my fothergillas.

Turning colour a little later in the front garden is my paperbark maple (Acer griseum) with its red trifoliate leaves.

Moving into the back garden, you see Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) cloaking the driveway gate.  I didn’t plant this vine, nor did I plant all the Virginia creeper vines that pop up throughout the garden. That’s Mother Nature’s role and she’s very enthusiastic about it (!)

I confess that I wanted the Washington thorn tree (Crataegus phaenopyrum) in my garden long ago purely for its multi-hued fall leaves.

But it turned out to be a wonderful tree for bird life – IF the birds can out-compete the squirrels for the fruit. The robin, below, managed to do that, but so have cedar waxwings and cardinals.

Here you can see the range of autumn colour in the foliage of Washington thorn.

When we bought our house in 1983, the native black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) on the property line between us and our next-door neighbour was already mature. In the 39 years since then, it has hosted raccoon families in the crook of its trunk, carpenter ants in its bark and countless cardinals practising their song in its branches.

Our bedroom sits right under the tree, but we seemed to have missed the obvious ramifications of putting a skylight in our ceiling – particularly when windy nights in September roll around and the roof is pummelled with billiard-ball-sized nuts. Though the skylight has proven strong, we’ve replaced two car windshields since the tree’s branches — and nuts — extend far over the driveway.

The walnuts are enjoyed by the neighbourhood squirrels….

….. but the natural dye in the husks creates an unbelievable mess.

The arborist has told us the tree has rot in the trunk, but my neighbour and I have had it cabled and pruned away some of the branches over our houses to reduce the nut fusillade. It is our tree, after all, it gives us shade and we feel a duty to keep it – thus its inclusion in my 26th crown. 

I don’t really notice the ‘Rose Glow’ barberry (Berberis thunbergii) in my back garden until it turns rich crimson-red in autumn – then it’s a show-stopper. It’s another one of those shrubs that environmentalists shun – especially in milder U.S. regions where it seeds around freely. I haven’t seen one seedling in my Toronto garden.

I have a fairly new addition to my back garden:  a little sassafras tree (S. albidum). which I wanted especially for its fall colour.  This autumn – admittedly one of the best for colour in many years – it has begun to display the reds, corals and yellows for which it is known.

Those colours, by the way, are on leaves that exhibit three distinct shapes:  elliptical; mitten-like and three-lobed.  This is what they look like on my light table.

Designing with and celebrating fall-colored plants and shrubs is my way of expressing my appreciation for nature’s yearly preparation for winter, as it cycles through the yellow/orange “accessory” carotene pigments in the leaves of certain species to harvest and synthesize as much sunshine as possible, once the ‘green’ pigment chlorophyll breaks down in cooler temperatures. Red colour is from anthocynanis. According to the USDA, “Anthocyanins absorb blue, blue-green, and green light. Therefore, the light reflected by leaves containing anthocyanins appears red. Unlike chlorophyll and carotene, anthocyanins are not attached to cell membranes, but are dissolved in the cell sap. The color produced by these pigments is sensitive to the pH of the cell sap. If the sap is quite acidic, the pigments impart a bright red color; if the sap is less acidic, its color is more purple. Anthocyanin pigments are responsible for the red skin of ripe apples and the purple of ripe grapes. A reaction between sugars and certain proteins in cell sap forms anthocyanins. This reaction does not occur until the sugar concentration in the sap is quite high.”   Because the reaction requires light, you often see leaves (or apples) fully exposed to sun that are red while those parts that are shaded stay green or yellow, like these Boston ivy leaves on my fence.

I love making the leaf montages that celebrate these pigment changes, like the one below from leaves in my garden.

A few years ago I even held a photography show called “Autumn Harvest” featuring a number of my leaf montages.

Finally, this week as I walked out onto my front porch and gazed into my garden, this is what I saw– a multi-hued tapestry that shows that nature is the best designer of all. It’s my reward for a gardening season that began seven months ago with the first snowdrops and will soon come to an end with the first hard frost.

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My year of fairy crowns is soon drawing to its wintry finale. If you missed a few, here they are:

#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan
#17- Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake
#18- Russian Sage & Blazing Stars
#19-My Fruitful Life
#20-Cup Plant, Joe Pye & Ironweed
#21-Helianthus & Hummingbirds
#22-Grasses, Asters & Goldenrod
#23-Sedums, Pass-Along Plants & Fruit for the Birds
#24-Fall Asters & Showy Goldenrod for Thanksgiving
#25-Autumn Monkshood & Snakeroot

Spring at Brigham Hill Farm

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One of the best things about travelling for me is visiting gardens.  And one of the best things about having pals who are gardeners is the chance to visit beautiful private gardens at the drop of a hat!  So it was that the day after our spectacular May visit to Garden in the Woods in Framingham, MA (see my 2-part blog beginning here), my dear friend Kim Cutler of Worcester MA and Doug and I found ourselves walking up the stone path in front of the pretty yellow house of Kim’s friends, Shirley and Peter Williams at Brigham Hill Farm in North Grafton, MA.  The oldest part of the house dates from approximately 1795 and the property is on land established by Charles Brigham in 1727. According to the Grafton Land Trust, “Charles Brigham was one of the ‘Forty Proprietors’ who were given the grant to settle Grafton by King George II of England. The farm eventually covered most of Brigham Hill and raised fine dairy cows.”

Though Shirley was entertaining a friend in her lovely screened porch….

…. she cheerfully invited us to tour around the property ourselves.

What a gorgeous spot to enjoy the view to the garden without being bothered by insects or inclement weather!

Since it was mid-May, the late tulips were still looking gorgeous and Shirley had filled vases….

….. and bottles with them from her cutting garden.

Off we went past a towering sugar maple tree and stone wall toward the still-awakening perennial garden.

We passed the old, beautifully-restored 18th century barn on the right and more of the amazing stone walls that characterize Brigham Hill.  The house and barn are part of the parcel of land purchased in 1975 by Shirley and Peter Williams.  In time, Shirley and Peter purchased a large, adjacent piece of land and in 2007 they gifted a conservation restriction on the land to the Grafton Land Trust; its name is the Williams Preserve. But in those early days after their children were raised, the house and barn restored and the stone walls rebuilt, they were ready to begin gardening in earnest, at times seeking the expertise of designer/plantsman Warren Leach of Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth MA.

There were late daffodils and lots of fragrant lilacs nestled beside the stone walls.

Edible gardens are a big summer focus at Brigham Hill but I had never seen an espaliered apple using the heat of a stone wall to produce fruit.

Rhododendrons looked lovely, too.

Though billowing beds in the perennial garden form the focus in this area later in the season, I was happy to find this rustic, little red cedar pergola with….

….. bleeding hearts and Japanese hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) looking fresh and lovely in a shady planting that also featured…

….. a stunning array of Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) with bloodroot foliage (Sanguinaria canadensis).

I am a great fan of drama in the garden and this Warren Leach-designed dark border at the barn tickled my colour fancy a lot!

The big plants are hardy ‘Grace’ smoke bush (Cotinus hybrid) kept pruned into a columnar shape and tender black cordylines in pots.

At their base were the dark tulip ‘Queen of Night’ and the emerging black leaves of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’).

Nearby, a cold frame contained an assortment of lush leaf lettuce for spring salads….

… while around the corner were Shirley’s annual seedlings, including varieties of love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), statice and amaranth.

Across the way, a shade-dappled woodland on a rocky outcrop beckoned to us. At one time, according to a story by Carol Stocker in the Boston Globe, this was originally “a hill overrun by Japanese knotweed and poison ivy.”  Warren Leach found original granite foundation stones from the 18th century barn and “cellar holes” left as remnants of old colonial settler homes and used them to create the pond, rill, small waterfall and rugged stone steps that makes this feature so magical.

I was enchanted by the reflections of the chartreuse spring tree canopy in the pond.

Large granite pieces form sturdy steps…

…. while water bubbles down between stones.

Velvety moss is a major part of the charm of this garden….

…. but it is also a garden of sedges and woodland plants including greater yellow ladyslipper (Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens)….

…. which is such an iconic native orchid for the northeast….

… and Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum)…

…. and crested iris (I. cristata).

This was a pretty combination of Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) with yellow wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum) and ostrich ferns (Matteucia struthiopteris).

Rhododendrons were flowering with the ferns in the woodland, too, and….

…. at the very edge, tulips grew in a carpet of Virginia bluebells.

Back out in the open, late-season tulips were still looking good in Shirley’s raised cutting bed.  What a luxury, to have armfuls of tulips for vases!

Next up was the chicken coop with its succulent green-roof planted with sempervivums or (haha) “hens-and-chicks” – a nice pad for the resident hens.

Strawberry plants were flowering behind critter-proof protective mesh.

Caned berry bushes have their own enclosure.

The back of the house with its dining terrace features more stone walls, their geometric lines echoed in the clipped hedges. Later, colourful perennials will emerge in the beds here. Those stone steps lead into the walled vegetable garden, still unplanted.

If you visit a garden in May, you see spring things, but I did regret not being able to see the large, raised-bed vegetable parterre behind the stone wall in summer.

Trees, both in the native forest on the property and cultivated in the garden, are a focus at Brigham Hill Farm.  This featherleaf Japanese maple is a good example, as are…

…. the trees in the “arboretum”, including native flowering dogwood (Cornus florida)…

…. which looked resplendent against the blue May sky.  

We circled around to the front of the house and met Shirley’s guest, Kathleen Ladd, departing with a giant bouquet of freshly-cut lilacs and tulips, a lovely gesture from a gardener who also shares the expansive beauty of Brigham Hill Farm with many charities and groups for fundraising events

Kathleen Ladd with bouquet of lilacs and tulips from Shirley Williams's garden.

At the gate, we said farewell to my friend, gardener and well-known potter Kim Cutler (left), and to Shirley Williams, thanking her for her generosity in sharing her garden with us, strangers from Canada!  It was a highlight of our spring road trip.  (Stay tuned for Chanticleer!)

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Want to see some of the other inspiring private gardens I’ve photographed?
Here is Katerina Georgi’s garden in Greece 
This is tequila expert Lucinda Hutson’s fabulous garden in Austin, TX
The spectacular Denver CO garden of Rob Proctor & David Macke
The Giant’s House in Akaroa NZ – a mosaic masterpiece
Architect & art collector Sir Miles Warren’s garden Ohinetahi in NZ
Garden designer Barbara Katz’s gorgeous garden in Bethesda, MD
My friend and plantswoman Marnie Wright’s garden in Bracebridge ON  

Designing with Perennial Geraniums

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Late spring… early summer… it’s flight time for the ‘cranesbills’ – all those lovely perennial geraniums that add that soft, billowy, romantic effect to perennial borders. Over the years, I’ve collected a series of combinations featuring many of these valuable perennials. Perhaps you might find some inspiration in those that follow – the bees will certainly appreciate it!

Our North American native spotted or wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) gets its name because of the spots on its leaves. Here it is with native golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea) at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Here is G. maculatum with Welsh poppy (Papaver cambricum) at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver.

In my own garden, below, I grew Geranium maculatum under Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum). I must check to see if it’s still there, or if it’s been swamped by the aggressive Solomon’s seals.

G. maculatum looked lovely amidst hostas at Chanticleer Garden outside Philadelphia.

I just saw this combination at the Toronto Botanical Garden a few weeks ago:  Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica ‘Excelsior’) with bigroot geranium (G. macrorrhizum ‘Czakor’).

Also at the TBG, here is the variegated form of bigroot geranium (G. macrorrhizum ‘Variegatum’) with catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’).

Bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum) is a popular, early-flowering cranesbill with magenta blossoms. Here it is with Phlox carolina at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

It makes an attractive, front-of-border mound, below, along with lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis).

This was an interesting monochromatic combination, of bloody cranesbill with Dianthus ‘Oakington Hybrid’.

I thought this was a pretty June border on a garden tour: bloody cranesbill with Siberian iris and bearded iris.

I believe the cranesbill below is Geranium sanguineum ‘Max Frei’, partnering with Veronica ‘Glory’ at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

There’s a pale-pink form of bloody cranesbill, G. sanguineum var. striatum (formerly G. lancastriense), that makes a very pretty partner to late forget-me-nots.

Peonies offer a vast palette of possibilities as cranesbill companions, including the spectacular Itoh Hybrid intersectional peonies (herbaceous-shrub crosses). Below is ‘Cora Louise’ with Geranium’ Brookside at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Here’s lovely ‘Brookside’ (G. clarkei x G.pratense) with Sicilian honey lily (Allium siculum)….

….. and with Campanula ‘Sarastro’…..

….. and Veronica longifolia ‘Eveline’ and Achillea tomentosa ‘Moonlight’ at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Here is ‘Brookside’ clambering around the wine-red flowers of Knautia macedonica, also at the TBG.

Geranium Rozanne® (‘Gerwat’) is a similar-looking cranesbill, but a cross between G. himalayense x G. wallachinianum ‘Buxton’s Variety’. Very popular and long-flowering, it was the Perennial Plant Association’s 2008 Plant of the Year. Here it is with the yellow Itoh peony hybrid ‘Sequestered Sunshine’….

….. and billowing atop lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis).

Rozanne adds a little lavender ‘zing’ to this green vignette of Molinia caerulea ‘Variegata’ and the striped leaves of Iris pallida ‘Variegata’.

Flowering shrubs such as hydrangea can be enhanced by an underplanting of many varieties of cranesbill, like the unidentified one below.

The pale-pink flowers of French cranesbill (Geranium endressii) add a delicate note to Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum).

Magenta Armenian cranesbill (G. psilostemon) is rather fleeting in bloom, but looks lovely with Bowman’s root (Porteranthus trifoliatus, syn. Gillenia), below, at the TBG.

Just around the corner, it was used with tufted hair grass (Deschampsia cespitosa) in a lush design.

At wonderful Chanticleer Garden near Philadelphia (have you read my 2-part blog on this favourite garden?), I found G.psilostemon looking spectacular with chartreuse meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria ‘Aurea’).

Out at Vancouver’s VanDusen Botanical Gardens one spring (another favourite garden I’ve blogged about), I was taken with this vignette featuring the hybrid Geranium ‘Brempat’ with Allium cristophii and dark Heuchera ‘Crimson Curls’.

Nearby at VanDusen was the dark-coloured mourning widow cranesbill Geranium phaeum ‘Samobor’ emerging in a chartreuse sea of Bowles’ golden grass (Millium effusum ‘Aureum’).

The delicate-looking but vigorous mourning widow geranium has a white form (Geranium phaeum ‘Album’) that Piet Oudolf uses in his designs, including with Baptisia ‘Purple Smoke’ in the entry border at the Toronto Botanical Garden. (I’ve also written a 2-part blog about Piet’s design for this border.)

I also loved the way he interplanted Paeonia ‘Bowl of Beauty‘ just coming into flower with the white-flowered mourning widow.

This delicate, monochromatic combination, also in the Oudolf–designed entry border at the TBG features Geranium x oxonianum ‘Rose Claire’ with Astrantia ‘Roma’.

Hostas and cranesbills always look good together, as demonstrated by Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo’, below.

Geranium clarkei ‘Kashmir Purple’ makes an interesting contrast to the tiny white flowers of flowring sea kale (Crambe cordifolia).

Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ is an old-fashioned hybrid, a cross between G. himalayense and G. pratense. Doesn’t it look spectacular with the purple bellflowers (Campanula latifolia var. macrantha) and meadow sage (Salvia nemorosa) flanking the rose garden at Vancouver’s VanDusen Botanical Garden below?

Purple always works with chartreuse, and G. Johnson’s Blue’ is the perfect companion to Heuchera ‘Lime Rickey’.

Toronto’s Spadina House is my favourite cottage garden in the world, with a mass of artful flowers tumbling around expansive vegetable gardens. Meadow cranesbill (Geranium pratense) is much-used in the garden, as with lanceleaf coreposis (C. lanceolata), below….

….. and foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea)….

….. and small yellow foxglove (D. lutea).

I also found it growing in the fabulous Denver garden of plantsman Panayoti Kelaidis and his partner Jan Fahs. This romantic planting of roses, gas plant (Dictamnus albus var. purpureus) and G. pratense is actually Jan’s domain! (And, of course, I wrote a blog about PK and Jan’s garden.)

When I was having dinner at the spectacular Deep Cove Chalet restaurant in Victoria, B.C. one spring, I was enchanted by this unusual and richly-coloured combination:  G. pratense with peach alstroemeria, yellow Phlomis russeliana and pink spirea.

Though most cranesbills flower from late spring into early-mid-summer, there are a few species that hit their stride in late summer and continue blooming well into fall. I saw one of them one August at the Piet Oudolf-designed Lurie Garden in Chicago (another fantastic garden from my blog). For my final homage to the versatile cranesbills, meet pink-flowered Japanese cranesbill (G. soboliferum) with lilac prairie petunia (Ruellia humilis).