A garden on Cape Cod

Knitting Out Loud is a vendor at library conferences, and so I was at the Massachusetts Library Association 2010 Conference in Hyannis last week. I stayed with friends in Brewster, John Posey and his partner Paul. John is a landscape designer and Paul has an antique shop, although "antique shop" doesn't quite capture the extraordinary pieces he has in the gorgeous renovated barn which houses his shop.

John's is one of my very favorite gardens. It is charming and intimate with a lovely structure of interesting trees and shrubs beautifully juxtaposed.

When I was a child in California, my grandmother and my mother both made beautiful gardens, filled with apricot and almond trees, fuschia, roses, gladioli. When we moved to the D.C. area we often visited Beatrix Farrand's amazing Dumbarton Oaks. Moving to New England, Caprilands became our garden destination. Finally, a move to one and a half acres in Maine twenty years ago gave me the space to create my own garden.

But it doesn't have the wonderful sense of mystery and intimate space that John's garden has. You turn off the road through big evergreen shrubs and emerge on the tree-lined gravel drive.

I love the gravel drive, you emerge from between the evergreens to this serene space, bordered on one side by the row of trees, and on the other by the Federal period house.

Teddy greets you.
Garden sculpture
leads to an inviting winding path.
There are secret doors.
I love the box. It won't grow in my garden, too cold perhaps.
The antique shop appears.
Another inviting path.
The garden melts into the woods.
Another view of the shop.
Olive and Teddy accompany me down another path,
past tulips
and yellow primroses.

I love the shapes and colors of the shrubs and space they create.
The entrance to the house is framed by holly trees and lovely urns. Inviting and tantalizing.
Korean spice viburnum. Lovely fragrance!
Another charming path. You always want to see where they lead!
Charming rabbits on the steps to the guest house.

Clivia.
And gorgeous begonias!


Now I'm going to go weed my garden!
- Kathy