Old, magnificent beech trees dictated everything this gardener has done over the course of the past 50 years.
Over the years, she has developed a garden that features interest in almost every season. When other gardeners are hanging up their trowels at the end of the summer and preparing for weeks of raking fall leaves, this garden continues to amaze.
“My mother and my grandmothers had very nice gardens,” says the owner. “I think [a love of gardening] comes from what you’ve grown up with. If your mother is a good cook, and you were allowed to be in the kitchen and to grow up in the kitchen, you will be a good cook. I came by gardening naturally.”
Just as the owner came by her green thumb naturally, her garden is the result of the natural evolution of time and plant life. Trees have come and gone, shade gardens have become full sun and vice versa, a pergola was built, a pond was added, daffodils and wild azaleas grew to fill in a wooded glen. The two constants on the property have always been the owner’s respect of the lay of the land and her preservation of three structurally magnificent beech trees. “The land and the three beech trees have dictated everything I’ve done,” she explains, adding that, “I don’t like straight lines, because nature makes nothing in straight lines, so I have curved beds. Every garden except the kitchen garden flows with the shape of the land.”
The gardens gently wrap around the hilltop house like a colorful shawl. Even after the boisterous colors of spring and summer have faded, the shawl tightens its embrace to bring a splash of subdued color before the long winter months descend. The owner maintains a detailed garden journal from year to year so she can tell, almost to the moment, when the dahlias will bloom, what the weather was like when the asters last arrived, or how the fall foliage appeared from year to year. “I have things in bloom here for many months,” she states. “I’m for anything that will lengthen the time I can have things in bloom.”
Despite her interest in cut flowers, her real passion is leaf texture and changes in garden texture, so she often places items together in pleasing combinations of color and pattern. She then notes in her journal how successfully the pairings develop. In her “yellow border,” fashioned after the evergreen borders used in Scotland to brighten the long, dark winters, she placed junipers, variegated holly, and variegated leaf forsythia to create a rich weave of tactile color. In another border, she has a winged Euonymus alata and a dark red barberry that act as a vibrant backdrop to her flowers. Although she has learned that both plants, which were probably dropped in the garden by a passing bird, are now considered invasive species, she just cannot bring herself to remove them. “They give another color and texture that play off the evergreens,” she notes.
In September, the Heptacodium miconioides, a Chinese tree known commonly as Seven-sons flower or Seven-sons tree, develops clusters of dark blue berries. Like many of the plants in this garden, it, too, has a story attached to it. The owner received the tree as a gift from a famous nurseryman on her way home from Nantucket one year. He also gave her one for Ladew Topiary Gardens and one to gift, on the nursery’s behalf, to the National Arboretum. She piled them all in her station wagon and headed home with the loot.
Within her borders, there are also flowers that complement the fall foliage produced by these trees and shrubs. “The beech trees are a muddy yellow that is not the most beautiful color, but their structure is wonderful,” she explains. “Leaf texture is very important to me, and the leaves here are absolutely gorgeous, not a lot of harsh reds but salmon and gold and soft reds.” There are tall and short dahlias, Japanese anemones, pink shrub roses, and perennial begonias in shades of pink and white. She plants Salvia leucantha (Mexican bush sage), an annual that produces deep blue, spiked blooms in fall, then she takes cuttings of the plant to nurture in her greenhouse through the winter.
The contraband euonymus creates a rich backdrop to the Hydrangea paniculata ‘Tardiva,’ with its pale pink-tinged cream blooms and cone shape, that is backed by tall stands of Aster tataricus and Joe-Pye weed. The owner copied this combination of plants from a border at Ladew Topiary Gardens . With each month, there is a new surprise: sedums, Queen Anne’s Lace, and snapdragons in September, then lancifolia hosta and creamy-edged variegated liriope in October, for example.
Perennial chrysanthemums in pale yellow and true pink, which the homeowner stole from the site of a home that was about to be demolished, are new additions to the garden. The night prior to the rescue mission, she hosted a dinner party where the consensus was that she should save the chrysanthemums. “Everyone said ‘Oh, go ahead, but if you go to jail, we won’t bail you out,’” she laughs, recalling. “I knew it was stealing, but I also knew they were going to be run over by a bulldozer, so one day, I went with help and dug them up,” she explains. Thankfully, there were no repercussions, and the chrysanthemums are now another chapter in the garden’s ever-developing story.
Now in her eighties, the homeowner looks as fresh and vital as the garden she tends with the help of two longtime assistants and one part-time professional gardener. Even though she jokes that she cultivates her seedlings and cuttings in her greenhouse because, “I’m a Yankee, and [since] Yankees don’t like to spend money, I prefer to double and triple my plants,” there is also something about maintaining the garden and prolonging its beauty far into the dwindling, dusky days of autumn that keeps her vibrant. “Working with seeds and plants, your mind is free of all problems and worries. It’s extremely satisfying.”
Christianna McCausland is a Contributing Editor to ChesapeakeHome.
