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Massachusetts
AVANT GARDENS
710 High Hill
Road, North Dartmouth, MA 02747
(508) 998-8819
Chris and: Kathy Tracy
Annuals
and tropicals. Uncommon perennials, pines. Container garden plants
Ornamental trees and shrubs. Specialty nursery. Open April to
October. Hours from April through June, daily 9:30—4:30; call
for summer and fall hours Catalog $3. Mail order Shipping orders
begin mid-March. Will-call orders and special orders accepted.
Trial and display gardens. Visitors welcome during business hours
Group tours by arrangement. Lectures and workshops. E-mail: plants@avantgardensne.com. Web site:
www.avantgardensne.com.
Creative
gardeners have a way of seeing plants with new eyes, appreciating
their essential strangeness—their dynamic forms, curious seeds,
and odd habits—in a way that refreshes the relationship between
plants and gardens. A cutting-edge nursery In southeastern
Massachusetts, Avant Gardens is owned and run by horticulturists
Chris and Kathy Tracy, trained artists who bring a radical
aesthetic vision to the operation of their nursery
Avant
Gardens operates out of greenhouses behind the Tracys’
18th-century farmhouse and gardens. Avant Gardens claims to be a
“specialty nursery devoted to serious gardeners and collectors
of fine plant material”—it has been called “a little gem.”
It focuses on growing a varied range of uncommon plants spanning
many categories; a recent emphasis is on some unusual annuals and
tropicals that have attracted so much attention in recent years.
Avant Gardens also grows excellent structural plant material:
perennials, rock-garden plants, woody shrubs, and trees. All these
are well described in the nursery’s mail-order catalog, one of
the few catalogs we really pore over in spring.
Avant
Gardens built its reputation growing perennials that are hard to
find in the horticulture trade, and remains a superior source of
these plants. The nursery has unusual holdings of aquilegia, or
columbine, “a flower that could entice fairies to your
garden”; of cranesbill geranium, that “most rewarding” of
ground covers (25 kinds); of New England asters in vibrant shades
of purple. pink, and blue; and of extra-hardy fall mums (Dendranthema
spp.) In unusually clear colors. Special collections have been
assembled for hellebores, primulas. epimediums, euphorbias.
thalictrums, bleeding hearts, and foxgloves (including a chocolate
foxglove, and wild Grecian and Spanish varieties). Decorative
herbs such as nepeta, salvia, and ornamental oregano represent
stylish plants that have leaped “from the herb garden to the
sunny border.” A fine group of hosta includes the classics and
some Japanese hybrids.
Avant
Gardens was the first nursery we knew that grew golden hops and
European sweet violets. Garden mavens now champion Veronicastrum
sibericum, a long-flowering relative of Culver’s root
resembling lavender-blue gooseneck loosestrife; Avant Gardens had
it all along. Charming miniature alpines and rock garden plants,
and the custom-cast hypertufa containers in which to grow them,
offer a special lure to trough gardeners. Grasses and sedges form
another fine resource, as do the companion shrubs and trees.
Wonderful
as its perennial stock may be, in recent years Avant Gardens has
really excelled in its selection of greenhouse-grown annuals and
tender perennials. These are plants of superior flower-power that
often begin blooming in spring or early summer and do not quit
until fall or frost; smart gardeners have learned to welcome them
into their borders and container gardens. Avant Gardens grows
scads of flowering maple (Abution spp.), angelonia, diascia,
nicotiana, canna lily, passionflower, and variegated ivy. It has
yards of coleus, in all forms and colors; an amazing array of
annual salvias; and many bushy, trainable fuchsias, some with
variegated foliage—not to mention geraniums, or pelargoniums
(“you know, the window box kind”), especially those with
bronze or black foliage.
Many
other extraordinary plants, still little known among gardeners,
appear on Avant Gardens’ plant list. We once found lavender
African snapdragon here, and a white cup-and-saucer vine. Avant
Gardens is a marvelous place for experimental purchases, for the
Tracys themselves are horticultural adventurers who have trialed
the plants in their catalog, thus reducing the risks, but none of
the fun, of trying out some of their novelties.
Avant
Gardens is a small nursery by industry standards, but its intimacy
with the plant stock permits it to maintain consistently high
standards of quality and care. Mail-order plants come in small
pots, nursery purchases in larger sizes. Lectures and workshops
are offered to the experienced and novice gardener on such
subjects as uncommon perennials, hypertufa troughs, and drystone
wall construction. Display gardens (which are the Tracys’
private gardens, and also their trial gardens) offer a delightful
opportunity to view the nursery stock in action. These include
shady woodland beds, mixed borders, container gardens, a pergola,
and a bluestone patio surrounded by sculpted alpine gardens. A
catalog-based Web site offers plant list updates to garden
futurists who cannot wait for the next new thing.
Directions:
From Route 195, take exit 1 2A/Faunce Corner and follow Faunce
Corner Road north to the very end. Turn left onto High Hill Road;
the nursery is 1.5 miles on your right.
From
Route 140, take the Mt. Pleasant exit, bear right off the ramp,
and follow around the airport (becomes New Plainville Road). Take
your first right onto Shawmut Avenue and pass the Dartmouth town
line (becomes High Hill Road); the nursery is at #710 on your
right.
From
Route 24, take exit 10 and go east off the ramp on North Main
Street. In Freetown, turn left onto Route 79 north and take the
first right onto Elm Street. In about & miles (becomes High
Hill Road), the nursery is at #710 on your left.
Nearby
attractions: Sandwiched between areas of suburban sprawl, the
landscape retains patches of rolling farmland interspersed with
river views~ Observe in passing the old Faunce family graveyard on
the east side of Faunce Corner Road; the Faunces were original
settlers from Plymouth, and their cemetery is still tended by a
descendant. The Berkeley Bridge, a one-lane iron suspension bridge
built in 1888 between Berkeley and Dighton, is arguably the
prettiest bridge in the state, affording rustic views of the
Taunton River and a streamside dairy farm. Dighton Rock State
Park, Bay View Road, Berkeley, open daily 9—6, has a riverside
picnic grove and a museum housing Dighton Rock, whose prehistoric
petroglyphs are variously attributed to Algonquin tribes, visiting
Norsemen, Portuguese fishermen, Phoenician traders, and Irish
monks
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BLUE MEADOW FARM
184 Meadow Road,
Montague, MA 01351
(413) 367-2394
Alice and Brian McGowan
Unusual
annuals and container plants. Perennials. Small specialty
nursery. Open April 15 to August 31, daily 9-5. Closed July 4.
Catalog $3. Mail order. Display garden. Daylily Viewing Day in
July. Open Garden Day in August. Slide lectures and group tours by
arrangement.
Blue
Meadow Farm is a premier resource in New England for annuals,
tropicals, and tender perennials that function as annuals in our
raw climate. This small, family-run greenhouse nursery is sited
behind an old farmstead on a country road in western
Massachusetts, two hours from Boston. A cutting-edge nursery
continually on the hunt for new plants,Blue Meadow specializes in
flower and foliage plants that are not always available in the
nursery trade. Pick a sunny morning and make it a day trip; the
nursery is sited in the rich soil and rolling fields of the
Connecticut River Valley, where the air is tonic and the sky seems
larger than usual. Blue Meadow Is a favorite destination of
gardeners and connoisseurs seeking uncommon plants and annual
color in the garden.
Because
of variations in plant readiness dates, repeat visits to Blue
Meadow during spring and early summer can be rewarding. In April,
Blue Meadow’s greenhouse is the scene of a color riot in the
viola family. By mid-May, when the selection of annuals Is at its
peak, the greenhouse offers remarkable collections of annual
salvia (45 varieties), nicotiana (10 kinds, including a variegated
N langsdorfi4, verbena (13 varieties), and several unusual
lewisia and clarkia (named for the American explorers Lewis and
Clark).The nursery’s coleus collection, embracing more than 50
varieties. Is the largest in the East and features amazing,
multicolored hybrids such as ‘Japanese Giant’ and ‘Crazy
Quilt’. We were wowed by the many choices of fuchsia, diascia,
and cosmos (including white, sulfur and chocolate cosmos). Blue
Meadow has a large collection of tender and scented geraniums
(actually pelargoniums); one Victorian-era pelargonium called
‘Vancouver Sentinal’ has multicolored leaves shaped like the
Japanese maple. Some choice annuals, such as the white California
poppy, have won quality awards. Much greenhouse space is devoted
to unusual foliage plants, often with heat- and drought-tolerance
capabilities that guarantee them a prime place in container
gardens.
Many
plants at Blue Meadow Farm are little known and lack common names,
including interesting natives of South Africa, South America, and
India well suited to specimen planting. Each year brings exciting
introductions: perhaps a rare native baptisia from Georgia
(hardy to Zone 5), or a clump-forming red rice called ‘Red
Dragon’, used as a row marker in Philippine rice fields. We know
nowhere else to find Japanese morning glories. Blue Meadow’s
variegated cobaea vine is an original sport (a shoot differing
from the parent plant) found at the farm. Gardeners with children
may choose African peanut butter plant (Melianthus major) for
its fragrance, and cinnamon vine (Dioscorea batatas) on
account of its tuberous fruit, which “make great dollhouse
potatoes.” Deft gardeners may secure the legendary Himalayan
blue poppy (Meconopsis betonicifolia) before it is snapped
up by collectors.
Outside
the greenhouse, Blue Meadow Farm offers its collection of hardy
perennials, alpines, ornamental herbs, and a few woody shrubs and
grasses, all arranged In well-labeled rows. The perennials include
more than 50 daylilies, 50 hostas, colorful succulents, numerous
ornamental grasses, and some lovely, old-fashioned campanulas and
cranesbills. The nursery also carries intriguing items such as
variegated horseradish, ivory monkshood, and a fragrant vernal
grass grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. We admired the
unusual thymes. Including one with salmon flowers and another
scented, gold-tipped variety that looks permanently in bloom.
Select
woody plants are offered in gallon pots, such as shrub willow,
miniature cotoneaster, native Conradina canescens from
coastal pinelands, and a lilac relative, the American fringe tree (Chionanthus
virginicus), which British authorities think should be our
national shrub. Gardeners may notice a fey quality at this
nursery, affording ineffable moments of delight to the visitor. We
saw an iridescent ruby-throated hummingbird sipping the red
salvias in the greenhouse. A little wooden table outdoors once
bore a sign that declared, in a child’s writing, MUD PIES, 10
CENTS.
Since
its founding in 1987, Blue Meadow Farm has benefited from its
owners’ expertise and good contacts with prominent
horticulturists. This winning combination produces constant
innovation and an intriguing catalog deserving special scrutiny.
Blue Meadow propagates its plant stock from seed or cuttings, and
sells well-labeled plants in small pots with substantial roots.
Beneficial insects are used for pest control in lieu of chemicals.
We once battled surface weeds in the soil of some Blue Meadow
succulents we bought for a window box (we had to remove them with
chopsticks), but such lapses are rare. Blue Meadow is for early
birds: The nursery cannot hold plants, and sometimes runs out of
its best horticultural treasures. Visitors who do not know a plant
or its habits should converse with the McGowans about their
fascinating collection. Mail order is available, but we still
prefer coming in person with the station wagon.
Directions:
Montague is near Green field. Take Route 2 west to Turners Falls
and turn left (south) onto Green field Road. In 2.4 nines, turn
right onto Meadow Road; the nursery is 1 mile on your left.
From
Route 91 south, take exit 27/Route 2A to Turners Falls and follow
directions above. From Route 91 north, take exit 24 onto Route 116
south, go over the bridge, and turn left at the lights onto Route
47 north. In 1 mile, take the first left onto Falls Road; the
nursery is 3 miles on your right.
Nearby
attractions: Bibliophiles can lunch, browse for used books, and
admire the waterfall at the Book Mill Cafe in Montague
(413-367-9206). The Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls is a
charming perennial garden sited on a disused suspension bridge
spanning the Connecticut River; some odd natural blowholes are
located nearby Gould ~s Sugar House on the old Mohawk Trail (Route
2), Shelburne Falls (413-625-6170), sells maple ice-cream cones
for 25 cents. The Agway in Green field (413-773-9639) carries
Turface, a hard-to-find soil aeration material used on athletic
fields (and great for container gardens). The Blue Meadow catalog
lists attractive hikes and drives in this scenic region.
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OLD STURBRIDGE VILLAGE
1 Old Sturbridge
Village Road, Sturbridge, MA 01566
(508) 347—3362; fax (508) 347-0369
Heirloom
seeds and plants. Nonprofit
outdoor history museum. Open all year, April through October 9-5,
November through March 10-4; dosed January except weekends. Free
catalog Mail order for seeds only. No admission charge for plant
sales in gift shop
Old
Sturbridge Village (OSV) is a re-created New England farming
village of the early 19th century, a period of rapid economic
change when food-crop cultivation began making way for ornamental
gardening. OSV’s display gardens, planted with historically
accurate flowers and vegetables, exhibit the styles and practices
of gardening common to New England in the 1830s. Seeds and plants
of the kind grown in the museum’s period gardens (some
propagated on the premises) are sold to gardeners through OSV’s
seed catalog and through plant sales in the gift shop.
Many
of OSV’s heirloom flower and vegetable seeds are still familiar
to modern gardeners, but others are little known or hard to obtain
from commercial sources. Examples of now uncommon flower seeds
are OSV’s scarlet tassel flower, tall mallow, and pre-l860
‘Connecticut Tavern’ columbine collected from an abandoned
garden in Connecticut. Heirloom vegetable seeds include
‘Jacob’s Cattle’ bush bean, ‘Dwarf Cray’ sugar pea,
‘Wethersfield’ onion, ’Soldier’ bush bean (good for Boston
baked beans), and a rare Connecticut field pumpkin provided to
early settlers by Native Americans. This is one of the few sources
for salsify, or vegetable oyster, a pre-1800 root
vegetable with a flavor resembling that of oysters. OSV’s
heirloom seed list includes fuller’s teasel (once used for
carding wool), motherwort (for female “hysteria”), and an odd,
parsniplike root called Hamburg parsley.
In
addition to seed, more than 100 hIstoric OSV plants are cultivated
in the museum’s greenhouses. These include black hollyhock,
maiden pink, Roman chamomile, clary sage, and antique dyer’s
herbs such as weld and woad. Apple trees propagated from the
museum’s Preservation Orchard are also available, along with a
few historic roses.
Directions:
The museum entry is on Route 20 in Sturbridge. From Route 90/Mass.
Pike, take exit 9 onto Route 20 west; the entrance is shortly on
your left. From Route 84, take exit 2 or 3 onto Route 20 west; the
museum entrance is shortly on your left.
Nearby
attractions: A similar re-created historic village, Plymouth
Plantation, EQ. Box 1620, Plymouth, MA 02362 (800-262-9356),
publishes a free mail-order catalog for historic seed and heirloom
vegetables derived from New England è American Indian tribes; the
seed list includes a cornfield pole bean planted by Wampanoag
women when the oak leaves were the size of a mouse’s ear.
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TOWER HILL BOTANIC GARDEN
P0. Box 598, 11
French Drive, Boylston, MA 01505-0598
(508) 869-6111
Worcester County Horticultural Society
Heirloom
apple scions. Nonprofit botanic garden. Open Tuesday to Sunday
10-5. Free scion list. Mail order, spring only. Peak orchard bloom
mid-May. Spring plant sale. Horticultural display gardens. Garden
tours. Entry fee; free to members. Web site: www.towerhillbg.org.
Tower
Hill Botanic Garden maintains a flourishing garden on a 132 acre
hill farm in central Massachusetts, east of Worcester. Tower Hill
is home to the Worcester County Horticultural Society, the third
oldest active horticultural society in America, founded in 1842 by
the same fruit-growing farm community that produced Johnny
Appleseed (a native of nearby Leominster). Many years ago, the
society inherited a collection of 119 heirloom apple trees
collected by S. Lothrop Davenport in the 1940s, when
old varieties were being lost to commerce. The Davenport
collection spent years at Old Sturbridge Village (MA) before being
replanted in the Harrington Orchard on the south slope of Tower
Hill.
Many
apples in the Davenport collection are heirlooms developed by
farmers in New England and New York; some even hark back to the
Middle Ages. Every March, scion wood from the collection is sold
for $2.50 per stick (each stick producing two or three scions) to
gardeners who want to propagate heirloom apple trees; grafting is
necessary because apples do not breed true from seed. Seminars on
grafting, with rootstock provided, are held in the Stoddard
Education and Visitors Center, which enjoys spectacular views west
over the Wachusett Reservoir.
Tower
Hill offers a year-round display of fine garden plants suited to
cultivation in New England. A brainchild of the society is the
Cary Award, given annually to distinctive, season-extending woody
plants suitable to northern gardens, many of which can be seen in
Tower Hilts gardens. A new 18th-century-style Orangerie exhibits
tender exotics readily grown in a northern greenhouse. The New
England School of Gardening, a Joint effort of the society and
Clark University offers a certificate in horticulture and other
lectures and classes. Tower Hill’s popular spring plant sale
offers many unusual perennials and woody plants (including Cary
Award shrubs); exotic annuals and container plants; specialty
plants at plant society booths; and for lunch, “hort dogs.”
Directions:
Tower Hill is in central Massachusetts, 8 miles east of Worcester.
From Route 90/Mass. Pike, take exit 11 onto Route 495 north, then
exit 25 onto Route 290 west. Take exit 24 and turn right off the
ramp in 3 miles, pass through Boylston center and turn right at
the blinking yellow light; Tower Hill is the first driveway on
your left.
Nearby
attractions: Established in 1915, Bigelow Nurseries, 455 West Main
Street (Old Boston Post Road), Northboro, MA 01532 (508-845-2143),
is a large, family-owned nursery maintaining one of the largest
tree and shrub inventories in the country on 400 acres in
Worcester County; retail customers can make an appointment to
select specimen size trees and shrubs In the growing fields, just as
professionals do. Davis Mega-Maze (978-422-8888) is New
England’s largest field maze, designed in England by master maze
designer Adrian Fisher on a century-old family farm in Sterling; a
unique labyrinth is created each year in the cornfield, affording
dazed visitors an opportunity to get truly lost (open from July
through September, 10-5; allow several hours).
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