Recently, I heard about the practice of forest bathing, which involves spending a few hours in the woods, or at least surrounded by trees, and focusing on the senses around you. It is said that forest bathing has physical and mental benefits, and I believe it does. My husband suggested that I try a variation of it: a garden bath. One crisp, early morning last week, I ventured out to soothe my senses. Within minutes, I was inspecting my recently transplanted lady's mantle and feeling guilty for neglecting to water it. This isn't the right garden bath, I told myself. So I focused on the unmistakable calls of a Baltimore oriole that had made its nest in a nearby maple tree. Lovely. Next thing I knew, I was uprooting the maple seedlings that had sprouted up everywhere. Ok, I concluded. I can't practice a garden bath in my own yard! But maybe in someone else's yard…
This weekend is the perfect opportunity to experience the wonders of a garden bath: the 30th annual Northampton Garden Tour takes place this Saturday, June 8th, from 10am to 4pm, rain or shine. The tour will take you through six beautiful home gardens where you can immerse your senses without the hassle of dying plants and weeds that need to be pulled.
On this year's tour, I was able to get a sneak peek at one of the gardens, belonging to Amy Reiser, who lives on a cul-de-sac in a quiet Northampton neighborhood that's close to the city but still feels very private. Reiser explained that she grew up in New York City and had zero gardening experience before moving to Shelburne Falls in 1975. She started with a vegetable patch and eventually created a total of 22 different flower beds across her vast property. In 2012, she bought her current home in Northampton, a run-of-the-mill one-story home that she magically transformed into a unique Craftsman-style bungalow. She replaced the rock and clay with sand and swapped the large space for a small lot in the city.
Reiser says their new property was a “total blank slate,” with just grass and a few mature trees, including a stately shagbark hickory that Reiser jokingly calls his “four-season trash tree” for the hard-shelled nuts, leaves and twigs it drops year-round. Though they planned to keep the garden small in their new location, they brought some things with them from their Shelburne Falls yard: lots of peonies, seven or eight mature lilac bushes and three picturesque boulders. “We put the boulders on the north side of the house where nothing else grows,” Reiser says. “One for each of our daughters.”
One of Reiser's daughters was a landscape gardener at the time, so she helped lay out the garden and create the foundations, using granite bricks to outline the flower beds and create a graceful curve around the edge of the property. A tall wooden fence surrounds both sides of the property. Gardens often foster good relationships between neighbors, and one of the gardeners' flower beds blurs the boundary with an adjacent yard. Reiser explained that when she was laying out the garden, she and her neighbors agreed to create a “community garden” to connect their adjacent properties. “I enjoy my neighbors' gardens, and they enjoy mine.”
While most of the garden receives full sun, there is a shady corner flower bed where primroses, hellebores, hostas, anemones and ferns thrive. The Shelburne Falls property is too sunny for a shade garden, so shade gardening is a new learning process. The corner flower bed is proof of the endless possibilities for a great shade garden.
Numerous trellises and arbors add variety and structural interest throughout the garden. Bearded irises bloom in unusual shades: ivory with orange beard, deep burgundy, and two-tone yellow and tan. “I like finding unusual things,” Reiser said, pointing to a pot filled with miniature gladioli. At the other end of the size spectrum is a gigantic, spreading tree peony, about 8 feet in diameter. Its lush pink flowers are out of season, but its velvety brown seed pods continue to provide sensory intrigue. Reiser enjoys the experimental side of gardening. “Gardening is about variety,” she said, adding, “This is my playground. It's fun.”
For example, this spring a young woman working in the yard decided there was “too much grass,” so she installed an additional flower bed on the south side of the house, an irregularly shaped island that breaks up the expanse of grass in an artistic yet natural way.
The grounds, which include a beautiful stone deck surrounded by low walls, are filled with all kinds of pots and planters overflowing with colorful combinations of annuals. An almost black petunia shares a pot with an orange nemesia, a lovely and unexpected combination; one pot is about 80 years old, given to Reiser by an aunt. Reiser values the continuity and touchstone her garden provides. Though she loves all aspects of gardening, she says her favorite is container gardening, which allows her to enjoy different combinations every year. And she appreciates that it's something she can do herself, which is an important consideration for all of us old gardeners.
Among the garden's many stunning features are the roses, which are in full bloom this week. Roses are a relatively new endeavor for Reiser, but she clearly has a knack for growing these finicky plants. There are climbing roses, drifting shrub roses and tea roses, in every shade of white, yellow and orange. Most of her roses prefer sun, but she has managed to grow a beautiful yellow climbing rose with dense petals in a relatively shady part of the garden. “All roses don't need sun,” she says. She is passionate about scent; all her roses smell good and remind her of the wide range of rose fragrances.
Roses aren't the only fragrant flowers in the garden. Reiser's garden is filled with old-fashioned peonies that give off a subtle, elegant scent. In spring, the garden's fringe trees bloom, releasing an intoxicating scent. Nearby sweet shrubs “smell like fruit cocktail,” says Reiser.
While a garden cannot help but reflect the gardener's own style and taste, Reiser's garden felt especially personal, being the result of years of experimentation, hard work and dedication.
“This makes me so happy,” Reiser would often exclaim as she guided us through the gardens. Her joy in working in the gardens is palpable. Garden tour visitors can also experience the Garden Bath here, immersing themselves in the many sensory pleasures that Reiser has woven into her own personal paradise.
The tour raises funds for the Friends of Forbes Library, Inc. in support of Northampton's historic public library. Each garden has handouts explaining the plantings and volunteer garden guides to answer questions. You'll also have the opportunity to enjoy lively music and observe plein air artists at work. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $20 at Bay State Perennial Farm in Watley, Cooper's Corner in Florence, State Street Fruit Store in Northampton, Gardener's Supply Company in Hadley, Sugarloaf Gardens in Sunderland, and Forbes Library. Tickets can be purchased the day of the tour for $25 at Forbes Library from 10am to 1pm. Your ticket includes directions to this self-guided 12-mile tour and parking information.
Mickey Rathbun is an Amherst-based author whose new book, “The Real Gatsby: George Gordon Moore, A Granddaughter's Memoir,” was recently published by White River Press.
