Stonecrop Gardens

by Mary Jasch

Entering Stonecrop Gardens through the Woodland Garden brings the visitor diminutive delights and sweet surprises – a carpet of spring ephemerals. May apple, brilliant blue forget-me-nots, hellebore, primula of all sorts, trillium, and wonderfully fragrant Kerria japonica.

This is a case for natives!

Wind your way through the woods and out to the office. Grab a plant list and take the tour.

Out front, troughs of alpines, dwarf shrubs and perennials thrust stalwart buds and blossoms upward. Turn left between the swaths of ostrich fern and narcissus blessing a row of shaggy sugar maple. Never did anything seem so pure.
Soon, an arch doorway in a high fence smothered in Chocolate Vine, Akebia quinata, leads into the Enclosed Flower Garden. Grass paths amble beside raised beds without built borders, tutuers and a hay and burlap Gertrude Jekyll guarding a riot of bulbs and emerging perennials which will grow tall by summer. Beds without borders seem to be the order throughout Stonecrop. It is inspiring and seems to demand less work, should the visitor care to imitate the method at home. The flower beds are arranged according to color and towards the end of the garden, veggies fill beds.

Outside, paths to discovery lead in all directions. To the right, a tub of alpines guards a spruce grove that leads downhill to Systematic Order Beds.

But take some time to see the greenhouses such as the English-style sunken Pit House, designed to take advantage of the earth’s constant temperature and protection against winter’s elements. It’s been “green” before green became fashionable. In winter, Pit House temperature remains in the low 40s. Inside are collections of Lilliputian hellebore, primula, asarum, cyclamen, galanthus, iris and Moroccan and Mediterranean bulbs. Wee trailing specimens grow in cinder block holes – a great idea for cascading bloomers.

In the Alpine House, drabas grow– big lumps of soft cushion that, if large enough, would invite one’s whole body to lay on them.

Outside, take gravel paths to a fascinating Gravel Garden with more borderless beds bursting with enthusiastic shrubs – some dwarf, some very slow growers. Pink-striped tulips sparkle among evergreens, juniper, spirea and incognito deciduous shrubs and small trees such as Japanese styrax. A truly low-growing Forsythia viridissima 'Bronxensis' clambers over rocks.

Downward, Malus ‘Red Jade’ above bright-eyed anemones on a stony peninsula spreads budding limbs over pools of water.

Take the stone steps down alongside a bubbly waterfall on Stonecrop’s famous rock ledge, where potentilla grows in crevices. Look up to see a craggy and dramatic Japanese Scholar Tree, Sophora japonica.

It’s hard to imagine that this was once a farm field. It was bull-dozed out and the pond was excavated and lined with clay. They brought in rock from the property’s ridge-line and created pools, steps, crevices and the garden’s Flintsone Bridge. Well water is pumped into a 2,000 gallon cistern and runs during the day to keep the waterfall going and the pools filled.

“The spillway simulates snow melt,” says Michael Hagan, staff horticulturist. “The Rock Ledge was specifically designed for Alpines and enhances the natural stone outcrops upslope.”

Walk along the rocky bottom to see all the little pools and plants. One spot looks like a wedding: pale petals float on water, purple phlox and primula brighten the ground beneath a shower of pink, tiny-flowered Prunus serrulata 'Shirofugen' and jutting white birch.

Yellow-stemmed Salix alba ‘britzensis’ shrubs brighten the area. They are cut back every two years and its stems are used to make the fence in The Enclosed Garden. Nearby, in one pool lies a figure of impending drama: In summer, tropicals and aquatics occupy the pools.

Back across to land with soil. Across the ledge a phalanx of Dawn redwood form a Metasequoia grove. Through Froggy’s Pavilion downslope to the Bamboo Grove pass an interesting Spike Witch-Hazel then, later, back up to a lightly fragrant spring beauty, Magnolia x loebneri.

Up top, Raised Stone Beds hold wee pine trees, blooming phlox, arabis, potentilla and draba among the evergreens.

Take a walk to the Conservatory, whose plants will be outside along the Cabot house come mid-May. If you visit then, go see them. Right now, the fragrances of many mingle including, surprisingly a Zone 7 Buddleia Louisiana with long yellow flowers produced by Longwood Gardens. It grows as tall as the roof. Also, yellow powder puff flowers of the New Zealand Azara dentata and the yellow blooming Genista canariensis. What a treat.

Onward and out the other side through white birch to perhaps the most beautiful magnolia this writer has seen: Elizabeth. In the pond, giant bullfrogs hang out and amuse the visitor. Schools of their offspring enchant, as does a dark water snake.

Toward the woods, Gunnera manicata, a sub-tropical that lives outdoors in this Zone 5 winter, thrives near a magnificent stand of Giant Butterbur.

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published May 15, 2009