Boyd Family Farm
125 E. Dover Road, Wilmington
http://www.boydfamilyfarm.com, 802 464-5618
The Boyd Family Farm, in the Deerfield Valley just minutes from Wilmington Center, is a gorgeous summer destination. Pick your own flowers and blueberries here and find an extensive array of annuals and perennials. Many workshops are offered, such as “Hanging Basket and Planter Workshop” and “Fruit Trees and Berry Bushes for Fathers.”
The garden of Cyndy Fine, one of the stops on the Gardens of Westminster tour.
The Gardens of Westminster
Westminster
http://www.westminstercares.org
July 22-23: See the gardens of Mary and Gordon Hayward, nationally known garden designers, writers, and lecturers, in their July glory. Five more fabulous gardens are on the tour as well: those of Fran Renaud, Cyndy Fine, Ann Kebbell, and Kathy Leo, and the Westminster Center School Garden (Saturday only). Buy food and enjoy music at the Haywards’ garden and make a day of it. Assorted specialty sandwiches, summer slaw, watermelon slices, raspberry oat bars, ginger almond cookies, fresh lemonade, and ginger mint iced tea. Sponsored by Westminster Cares. Rain or shine. Admission is $15, or two passes for $25. (Discounted tickets online.)
Hildene
1005 Hildene Road, Manchester
http://www.hildene.org, 802 362-1788
May 21-June 11: Celebration of Peonies. Traditionally the last two weeks of May and the first two weeks of June, when the Formal Garden signals the beginning of the season with thousands of peony blooms—many of them from the original 1907 plants.
Village Arts of Putney
114 Westminster Road, Putney
May 29-June 2, 9a-4p: “Spring in Vermont: Painting the Garden from Life” with Kathy Anderson. Tuition $350. In this three-day workshop, Kathy provides brief demos focusing on composition and blocking in a strong design—which can be confusing when painting from life in the garden. Emphasis is on keeping flowers transparent and delicate and how to mass-in leaves without too much detail. Kathy will explain how to keep your painting true to the feeling of a natural garden while maintaining movement throughout. Register with kathy@kathyandersonstudio.com.
Walker Farm
1190 Route 5, East Dummerston
Display gardens and the scenic views of the Connecticut River valley provide a splendid backdrop for educational opportunities at Walker Farm, operated by the Walker family since 1770. Check the website for information on such classes as “Fruit Trees: Selecting, Growing, and Pruning Varieties for a Home Orchard,” “Raspberries, Blueberries, and Strawberries: Creating and Maintaining the Berry Patch of Your Dreams,” and “Pots in the Garden: Designing, Planting and Placing Seasonal Containers in the Garden.”
“Two Sisters (On the Terrace),” Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881.
The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement (1887-1920)
Bellows Falls Opera House
7 Square, Bellows Falls
http://www.rockbf.org, 802 463-4766
June 22, 7p (doors open at 6:30)
This 90-minute feature, taking up American impressionists and the growing popularity of gardening as a middle-class leisure pursuit at the turn of the 20th century, was nominated for a Global Fine Arts Award and captures the Impressionist movement and its influence tied to a love of gardens by its two most famous artists, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. As the exhibition program explains, “The American Impressionist movement followed its own path which, over a thirty-year period, reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about its art as a creative powerhouse.” The viewer is treated to a mesmerizing inside look at studios, gardens, and famous locations throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
Themes addressed include American Artists/European Gardens; the Lady in the Garden; Leisure and Labor in the American Garden; the Urban Garden; the Artist’s Garden; and the Garden in Winter/Garden at Rest. Among the artists whose works are included are Hugh Henry Breckinridge, Cecilia Beaux, William Merritt Chase, Charles C. Curran, Maria Oakey Dewing, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Daniel Garber, Philip Leslie Hale, Childe Hassam, Violet Oakley, Jane Peterson, Jessie Willcox Smith, John H. Twachtman, Robert W. Vonnoh, and J. Alden Weir.
Tickets are $10, general admission (adults). Purchase at http://www.siteline.vendini.com/site/rampartstickets.com or at the door. For more information, call Susan MacNeil at 603 313-0052 or write susan@svidol.com.
