When my late wife Sandi, and I purchased the houses (in 1989 & 1991) and surrounding 20 acres, the gardens were simple and overgrown with weeds. What is today the central section around the putting green was a hay field, cut twice a year with the product used by local cattle farmers

 Upon my retirement from Investment Banking in 1996 and finding ourselves with adverse medical situations, life became about staying at home and creating a little oasis nestled in the Green Mountains.

As the design developed, it needed to merge a variety of elements: My desire to create a structured and formal English type garden and my enjoyment of Golf and Lawn Bowls while concurrently integrating my wife’s preference for a minimalist, more locally traditional and less structured garden.

The transformation started around the historic 1830 farm-house with an enclosed formal quatrefoil structure within the U shaped driveway and a tranquil patio with two water features (waterfall and copper fountain) adding competing soothing sounds. The next garden structure surrounding the house is the Yin-Yang pond (balancing tranquility and movement of water) and the raised bed vegetable gardens, which trough ingenious design are fully transformed into greenhouses, extending the “in-ground” growing season.

The central “sunken” structure surrounded by dry laid stone walls, features wide beds surrounding a 5,000 Sq Ft putting green complete with two sand traps and chipping area. Central to the formal area is a gazebo with kitchen facilities that is balanced by the large fountain and the whimsical “Alice-in-Wonderland Garden” with its giant chess, Mackia+ paper bark maple trees and Larch domed entrances. Leading to one of the entrances and lateral to the property is the Vineyard alee. The rear of the formal area sees the Lawn Bowls, with an Emerald Green Arborvitae hedge and Barn.

Merging the two styles is achieved through a sinuous dry river bed with a honeysuckle roofed pagoda at the rear of the property, and a complementary parenthetical bed at the front of the property which also provides a privacy hedge for the road. The Northern property line is marked by different hedging styles, of note being the Kiwi-fruit and topiarized forsythia kiwi bird.

The minimalist unstructured rear side of the property has a series of areas including an Alpine garden, “Golfer pond”, flowering trees and a raised bed inspired by Cape Cod hydrangeas and young plum trees. A large patio off the kitchen overlooks this tranquil section. The more traditional front of house lateral and road border provide the more usual plantings of New England.