Several garden rooms surround the gambrel house located on a cul-de-sac with very little road frontage at the bottom of a fairly steep wooded and boulder-laden hillside, which is marked with a hemlock tree, a few wild dogwoods, and many pines and oaks. In 1996, the house had basic foundation plantings--rhododendron, magnolia, dogwood, azalea, boxwood, and lilac--on two sides with minimal lawn verging on the weedy, brushy woods.

The need for our very own Big Dig was clear as soon as the family room addition took shape. The hill in back needed some serious taming if getting around the house--without going around to the front--was to be possible. And so, the only part of the garden’s evolution that could be called a Grand Plan began as chainsaws and backhoes bit into the hillside seeking order, space, and sunshine.

Strong backs and pallets of rocks created 100+ feet of fieldstone dry walls in two levels, carving the landscape into the foundation for the Perennial Garden. A vision of a future water feature (2003) incorporated a grotto and a 100+ year old sandstone sink into part of the stone wall. This 700# sink, once used on my grandfather’s dairy farm in Connecticut, was moved to several gardens before its final journey from my mother’s home to this site.

Enter the garden at the right side of the garage through the Creature Garden of day lilies, iris, coral bells, sedum, and bleeding hearts--watched over by metal sculptures created by a neighbor’s teenage son--with the not-so-secret path to the house next door.

Around the corner sheltered by the giant Bonsai pine is a granite ledge with cascading juniper. The curve of the wall opens up to the back door patio and into the Perennial Garden. An assortment of plants topping the wall at eye-level was chosen to create color and/or form in all seasons, and now flourishes after we added yards and yards of supersoil, compost, and material to the native clay and sand so familiar to New Hampshire gardeners. Rodent condo dwellers are a constant challenge for garden and gardener. More lilies, coral bells, daisies, foxglove, sedum, delphinium, and rudbeckia share space with special shrubs--gifts from family and friends.


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© 2003-2007 The Colonial Garden Club of Hollis
Hollis, NH 03049