Open Days Program Means Access To Private Gardens

Have you ever caught a glimpse of another gardener’s handiwork ... a quick look over a hedge, through an arch, or down a tree-lined drive and longed to be invited through the gate for a closer look?

The popularity of home and garden tours speaks volumes to the charm of gardening and the admiration of the work of gardeners. Surrounding towns have already announced tours this year, Newtown Historical Society is planning its annual popular event (details on the July 6 tour will be presented next week), and even the continued growth in the number of garden-related books and magazines all attest to the love of working the earth by people of all ages, backgrounds, and means.

The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program provides the passkey to hundreds of enchanting private garden domains and this weekend marks the continuation of the 2002 program, and one of the first that will include gardens in Fairfield County and others. Admission is $5 per garden, and reservations are not necessary.

On Sunday, June 23, homeowners in Fairfield and Litchfield counties will combine to host open gardens at 13 homes. Most gardens will be open from 10 am to 4 pm; deviations from those hours are noted in the descriptions below.

One of the closest open locations on Sunday will be The Gardens at Horsefeathers, at 313 Unpawaug Road in Redding. This location will open at noon.

Horsefeathers is known in Redding as The Aaron Barlow House. Joel Barlow, for whom the town’s high school is named and one of Aaron’s brothers, lived in the house after the French Revolution. Aaron Barlow was an attaché for the US embassy in Paris at the time of Thomas Jefferson and was instrumental in the signing of the purchase of Louisiana from France.

The completely organic gardens at Horsefeathers are influenced by French and English period gardens and are structured around a reflecting pool, with French curves of nepeta on the outer borders. Stone walls, boxwood, and a pergola give the garden architectural bones in all seasons.

In Roxbury, the three-acre hillside garden owned by Martine and Richard Copeland at 12 Eastwoods Road is bordered by stone walls and staircases that serve to connect multilevel terraces. The walls also serve to incorporate the structures and features of the French and Italian traditions such as vistas, paterres and hedges of yew and box, potted plants, water features, statues, and seats, all with a variety of plant material.

The work in progress also includes a shade garden, an old-fashioned flower garden, and a rose garden, all surrounded by green architecture.

Three gardens in Washington and another in Washington Depot will be open this weekend. Brush Hill –– at 88 Clark Road in Washington and owned by Charles Raskob Robinson and Barbara Paul Robinson –– was included in Rosemary Verey’s book The Secret Garden and also the October 1997 issue of House & Garden magazine. The property will be opening at noon on Sunday.

The garden is set between an 18th Century Connecticut farmhouse and barn, amid old stone walls. It features a rose walk with old roses and climbers, a fountain garden planted with yellows and purples, herbaceous borders, and a terraced garden leading up to a garden folly and through a woodland arch to a developing woodland walk.

The property also includes an old Lord & Burnham greenhouse, along with a white wisteria-draped bridge over the pond with water lilies and grass borders.

Sunday’s Open Days Program will also be presented in Fairfield at the home of Nancy and Tom Grant, 4014 Redding Road, and On the Harbor, at 328 Sasco Hill Road; in Westport at the home of Susan Lloyd, 59 Center Street; at Hughes-Sonnenfroh Gardens, 54 Chestnut Woods Road in Redding (with gate proceeds to be shared with Redding Garden Club).

Litchfield County gardens also include Maywood Gardens, 52 Cooper Road in Bridgewater (closing at 2); the home of Don and Joyce Lake, 258 Beach Street in Litchfield (open 2 to 6 pm; proceeds shared with Habitat for Humanity), and the home of Mr and Mrs David Stoner, 183 Maple Street in Litchfield (opening at noon, proceeds shared with The Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden in Bethlehem); the home of Linda Allard, 156 Wykeham Road, and the home of George Schoellkopf, Nettleton Road (open 2 to 6 pm), both in Washington; and the home of Gael Hammer, 63 River Road in Washington Depot.

These gardens –– and every one across the country –– are listed in The Garden Conservacy’s Open Days Directory, a 512-page book that includes detailed driving directions and vivid descriptions of each garden written by their owners. The 2002 edition costs $15.95 plus $4.50 shipping and handling and can be ordered over the phone at 888-842-2442, or through the mail be sending a check to The Garden Conservancy, PO Box 219, Cold Spring, NY 10516. The directory is also available wherever books are sold.

The 2002 season will continue on June 29 with gardens in Litchfield County; July 7, Litchfield and New Haven counties; July 14, Fairfield and Windham counties; July 21, Fairfield, Hartford and Litchfield counties; August 11, Fairfield, Hartford and New Haven counties; and September 8, Fairfield, Hartford and New Haven counties.

The Open Days Program

Open Days is the only national program that invites the public to visit America’s very best, rarely seen, private gardens. The mission of the program is to increase public appreciation and enjoyment of America’s gardens in each of their regional diversity, and to build an audience to support garden preservation in the country.

The Garden Conservancy was founded in 1989 to provide the resources necessary to preserve many of America’s finest gardens and to open to gates of these gardens to the public. Experts estimate that more than two-thirds of great American gardens have already been lost. As the first national organization devoted to garden preservation, The Garden Conservancy is working to identify gardens of unusual merit.

The conservancy is also working with the gardens’ owners and other interested parties to ensure the gardens’ future. The conservancy works in partnership with individual garden owners as well as public and private organizations and uses it legal, financial, and horticultural resources to secure each garden’s future and to make as many as possible permanently accessible to the public.

The Open Days program was launched in the Northeast in 1995 with 100 gardens in New York and Connecticut. The Garden Conservancy has since expanded the program to include hundreds of private gardens across the country, with plans to continue that expansion. Residents in 26 states are opening their gardens to the public this summer, along with public gardens taking advantage of the extra attention visitors bring to their areas.

In 2001, the program contributed more than $35,000 to local nonprofit organizations designated by participating garden hosts.

Later This Season,

A Garden In Newtown

While none of the Open Days gardens this weekend are located in Newtown, there is one property just outside Paugussett State Forest that will be open later in the season.

Next month the self-taught master gardener, popular lecturer, and successful author Sydney Eddison will offer the rare opportunity for the public to visit her gardens in the Hanover district of town. Details will follow in an upcoming issue of The Newtown Bee.