Lisa Chasan-Tabor’s English-inspired formal garden in Hadley is an exercise in ordered simplicity. The garden features fragrant boxwood borders surrounding a series of individual garden “rooms,” filled with chaste plantings that are limited to a palette of whites, lavenders and silvery greens. It is one of six gardens featured in this year’s Amherst Historical Society’s annual garden tour that takes place June 29 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Chasan-Tabor’s inspiration for her garden took root during a sabbatical year in Cambridge, England in 2009-10. “I was missing home, and the English gardens were so beautiful,” she said. She began reading historical gardening books, including those by British gardening giants Gertrude Jekyll and Penelope Hobhouse. She has long been a fan of British literature. “I love reading the ‘dead British women,’ ” she said, laughing. “When I started reading Jekyll and Hobhouse, it all fit together.”
Although her gardening experience had been limited to vegetables and a small apple orchard, she decided that when she returned to Massachusetts she would create a flower garden. “I actually designed the garden when I was still in England,” she explained.
The first order of business for Chasan-Tabor was to level out the sloping space surrounding her house and build a retaining wall of Goshen stone to support it. She then laid out the gardens. The most challenging configuration is her “knot” garden, two interlocking oval and round shapes edged by boxwood. Her two lavender borders are planted with two kinds of Nepeta, ‘Hidcote’ lavender, Echinops and other purple flowers that bloom throughout the growing season. The Nepeta, with its serrated, triangular-shaped leaves and shoots of small lavender flowers, is abuzz with bumblebees this time of year. “Hummingbirds love the Nepeta and the Baptisia, too,” said Chasan-Tabor. “They’re equal opportunity hummingbirds. We love to sit on the porch and watch them.”
Four rectangular beds make up the white garden, filled with white-flowering plants and silvery-gray foliage plants. In early spring, two varieties of Iberis semperviens (candytuft) emerge. In June, lush clumps of white Paeonia ‘Elsa Sass’ anchor each bed, followed by Dianthus gratianopolitanus ‘Greystone,’ Phlox paniculata ‘David,’ Echinacea purpurea ‘Virgin’ coneflower and other perennials. Artemesia schmidtiana ‘Nana’ and ‘Silver Mound,’ and two types of Stachys (lambs ears) are among the plants providing pops of silvery gray.
The garden also includes four triangular herb beds surround a lush wisteria vine that covers an arched trellis. Chasan-Tabor’s herbs include common sage, which has lovely purple flowers, thyme, mint and oregano. Chasan-Tabor incorporates a series of raised beds for vegetables, including peas, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. The raised beds, built by Chasan-Tabor’s husband, Scott, are modeled after a design created by Barbara Damrosch, celebrated author of “A Garden Primer.” The rectangular wood frames are stackable and interchangeable and can be screened to provide shade for delicate lettuces and other greens.
“I like having constraints,” said Chasan-Tabor, “including colors. That’s why I only use white and purple flowers.” But for her, the most important features of the garden are not the blossoms. “I actually like the foliage, pretty lines and symmetry of the garden more than the flowers,” she said.
Although Chasan-Tabor favors strict geometry in her garden design, there’s nothing rigid or forbidding about the space. The scents of boxwood, lavender and mint are soothing, the restful shades of white, lavender and silver-green are easy on the eye. Open swaths of lawn surround the garden, counterbalancing the symmetrical definition with a sense of spaciousness. The garden is barely ten years old, but it feels it’s been there much longer.
Chasan-Tabor’s favorite English garden is at Sissinghurst in Kent, the former home of Vita Sackville-West. “I love her writings and her garden,” said Chasan-Tabor. Her other favorite is much closer to home: Edith Wharton’s garden at The Mount, the writer’s former home in Lenox. She is pleased that the gardens at the Mount have been completely reconstructed over the past ten years. “There’s a lot of interesting symmetry, along with patterns and shapes, at the Mount,” she said. “There’s a lime walk and an all-white garden, too.” Lime walks, by the way, are straight rows of regularly placed lime trees (also called plane trees) that are commonly featured in formal English gardens.
Despite her love of English gardens and literature, Chasan-Tabor’s professional life is in an entirely different sphere. She is a professor and chair of the Biostatistics and Epimediology Department in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass. She treasures the break from work that gardening gives her. “I love being out here after work,” she said. “It’s so different from sitting at a computer. I love that gardening is so immediately responsive. It’s visceral, getting my hands in the dirt. It rounds out the day really nicely.” She added, “it’s a good physical workout, too.”
Outside the boundaries of the formal garden are blueberries, raspberries and two rows of semi-dwarf apple trees. Chasan-Tabor and her husband planted the apple trees back in 1997, when they purchased their house. The trees include more than a dozen heirloom and disease-free varieties such as Gravenstein, Northern Spy and Golden Russet. “We can only eat about a half a tree’s worth of apples,” she said. They donate the rest every fall to the Western Mass Food Bank. She is grateful to Jon Clements of the UMass Extension service and Wesley Autio, professor of pomology at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, for their generous help and advice on techniques for apple-tree pruning and Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
In addition to Chasan-Tabor’s garden, the self-guided tour features five other spectacular properties that have never been on the tour before, including a Japanese meditation garden. Tour participants are also welcome to visit the 18th-century garden and new beds of medicinal herbs at Strong House, the Historical Society’s own museum in the center of Amherst.
Tickets are on sale at A.J. Hastings, the Hadley Garden Center, Andrews Greenhouse, on the Amherst Historical Society’s website and at the Amherst History Museum during open hours. Advance ticket prices are $20 for the general public and $15 for members. All proceeds from the tour will benefit the Amherst Historical Society in its efforts to connect people with the town of Amherst, its history and culture.
For more information, contact the Amherst History Museum at 413-256-0678 or email info@AmherstHistory.org
Mickey Rathbun, an Amherst-based lawyer turned journalist, has written the Get Growing column since 2016.
There are lots of fun activities, including day camps, for children of all ages. The Hitchcock Center in Amherst has space still available in several of its popular summer camp sessions. Check on their website, hitchcockcenter.org, for more information on ages, costs, etc. Berkshire Botanical Garden also offers its Farm in the Garden summer camps. See berkshirebotanical.org for more information. Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston also provides lots of great programs for families and children, both on weekends and weekdays. These include weekly Story Times, Learn and Grow, and Garden Discoveries. See their website for more information: towerhillbg.org
Another great family activity is strawberry picking. There are a number of PYO sites around the Valley, including Simple Gifts Farm in North Amherst. And after you’ve picked all you can, head home to make goodies like strawberry shortcakes. These are easy to make from scratch, or with store-bought ingredients. I recommend the scratch approach—it’s so much fun for kids to play with real dough and to whip real cream. A bit messy but entirely worth it!
Blueberry season will be here in no time, with plenty of PYO opportunities.