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maxine paetro garden conservancy open days

Broccoli Hall - Garden of Dreams

by Mary Jasch

Broccoli Hall, the private country garden of writer Maxine Paetro. Come see this garden on June 26, 2004 in The Garden Conservancy's Open Days Program.

Maxine Paetro lives in her garden. Composed of distinct rooms, the garden surrounds her house ¬ a step outside any door. Every day she wanders through the cottage garden on her way to get the mail and across the courtyard garden to the guest house. She reads under apple blossoms in spring and views the landscape regularly through the many French doors and windows of her Cape Cod home. In her case, the term “garden room" has substance. Hers hug the house and ramble down the hill. They, too, are home.

On June 26, she opens Broccoli Hall to share her garden, ideas, and experiences - her gardener's dreams come true.

Open the blue iron gate at Number 23. With a storybook quality remembered and joyous mix of cubbyhole gardens and long views, Broccoli Hall delights. Paetro enjoys the tease of her gardens that lead from one to the next, first with a glimpse, then by indulgence. Let us stroll.

Pass the Hydrangea tardiva and sweet autumn clematis readying for a fall show on the white fence and say hello to exuberance - boisterous perennials in boxwood-edged beds in a lively cottage garden. “I went to Ireland and saw boxwood used to define a cottage garden so it wasn't an overflowing mess," says Paetro, mistress of Broccoli Hall. To the left and right, each bed is ready for inspection. Her garden is lushly-behaved.

Go ahead, walk through the apple tunnel to the courtyard, this landscape's heart. When Paetro bought the property in 1984, she envisioned certain garden accoutrements: “a cottage garden, apple tunnel, wrap-around porch and roses more than anything." She sent away for the tunnel's structure, which arrived by mail, as did the apple trees and pear trees, four feet tall in a box. She espaliered the apples on the metal arch and the pears, now dripping Bartletts and Seckels, on the white fence.

A second arch leads into the bricked courtyard where, just inside the fence, two Manchurian lilac stand. This is the garden's center and beginning, marked by a water garden central to all axes. Beds with herbs and more perennials are sunk between the bricks. Errant thyme begs to be stepped lightly upon to release its scent. Fragrant white rugosas Blanc Double de Coubert decorate the porch.

In 1984, there was no garden, little topsoil, and certainly no roses. “I bought the property because the whole front of the house faces south and I could have roses. I had a vision of what it could be and an idea of an English country garden on this barren slope of a hill. I had a dream and I went to England and saw some really wonderful gardens and I constructed it. What really makes this garden special is the structure."

She converted the old garage that faces the courtyard to an elegant country guest house.

"Tim Steinhoff is a very gifted garden designer and horticulturist and he truly helped me turn my dreams into reality. I couldn't have done it without him. He taught me about garden structure and introduced me to many of the plants I love so much, even opening the door to the wide world of roses, which are a special love of his, too."

Noted horticulturist and landscape architect, Timothy Steinhoff, helped Paetro implement her dreams. "Tim and I started the garden on a bull-dozed clay field around a broken down old house. The first two years were spent doing the hard work of amending the soil and getting the garden's structure in place; the rose border, the courtyard, and the apple tunnel through the cottage garden were our priorities. Later, Tim moved on to other projects and I added to the gardens we developed together using much of knowledge I gained from working with him."

Around back, three shade gardens use the same plants to create a feeling of unity - white violets, Manhattan euonymous, pulmonaria, hosta, lily, fern. Above them, a surprise waits in the trees ¬ The Treehouse of the August Moon, “a wonderful place to visit with friends at sunset." The view from the deck is meadow and hilly fields in the near and midground and a mountain view. Climb up, but first visit the vegetable garden with its two-seater outhouse reincarnated as tool shed, and where four tomato plants share space with peonies and other bloomers.

Part the branches of a hemlock and walk through the trees straight ahead. Enter a woodland garden that started with three stepping stones. “I guess I wanted to do this garden. After it was open to the public, it made me want to have a better garden." Native strawberries, Solomon's seal, Christmas ferns, lady slippers, columbines and bottle-brush buckeye pretty up the path. Paetro relishes the delicate flowers in spring and the shady coolness in summer.

Step from out of the darkness into the blazing June border, ripe now with the scent and sight of roses of every hue, size, shape and pedigree: Sara van Fleet, Sir Thomas Lipton, Celsiana (“I'm so glad she made it this winter. She's like a ballerina's tutu. I just love it."), William Baffin, multiflora. They flounce one over the other, each important in their visual symphony. Peonies punctuate their delicacy. Paetro is happy in June.

On to the grassy rose-blazed path that tempts you into the woods again. You're on your way to the Teddy Bear's Picnic. The grass winds through woodland beds of ferns, viburnums, cimicfuga, day lilies. A bench invites a rest under three crabapples.

“This was going to be a wildflower garden but there were burdock weeds. They showed me where the beds should go."

In spring, it's a daffodil, trillium, crabapple delight. In Paetro garden room style, a surprise awaits.

Across the drive, stone steps with locust railings lead up an embankment back to the house, with more gardens along the way. First, the pond with koi and little catfish. If you are lucky, you'll see Paetro feed the fish. Native Iris pseudacorus adds color to this mesmerizing water scene.

Walk up along the Daffodil Swale, a great swath of foliage once over run by forsythia until the lady of the house bulldozed it out. This green garden, with a collection of dogwood, leads to the terrace garden where old-fashioned iris and choice peonies grow.

“I've learned a lot from this garden," says Paetro. “I've learned that levels are a good thing to have. It's levels that make this garden so big. It's good to have borders that border something. You see it in the oblique ¬ you get a sense of distance. Visitors have told me they can tell I'm a writer because each of these gardens has a beginning, middle and end. When you go into each room, you have a different feeling. Each leads to the next. The architecture is important. For three or four months there's nothing growing, but there are benches, the tunnel, boxwood, and spruce. The garden structure really holds true."

She enjoys the fact that her garden has something to offer other gardeners ¬ and it's no novice crowd she caters to. “People can take away pieces and replicate it. In seven to nine years I had an apple tunnel. Anybody who thinks they like to do something like that should do it.

"The Open Days makes you get your game better. You bask in the work."

“It's a great gift to be able to share the garden with others. I never thought I would have the opportunity to do such a thing because before Garden Conservancy, I only thought of it as my garden and there was no way to visit private gardens here in the US back then.

"Now that the garden is open, I can walk along with visitors, and we exchange ideas. I was inspired to put in a peony bed after the one I saw at Innisfree...the open garden concept is great because we can all learn from one another."

Come visit Maxine Paetro's enchanting garden on its Open Day. Paetro awaits you.