Hollister House Gardens – Rural CT
20th Century English Garden Designs Adapted to North America.
Hollister House Gardens (Washington, CT) demonstrate how garden designs furnished with plants matched to regional- and micro-climates allow garden landscapes to thrive.
Overview
Hollister House Gardens, named for colonial-era CT builder Samuel Hollister and located in Washington (rural Litchfield county) CT, demonstrate how garden designs furnished with plants well matched to regional- and micro-climates allow garden design ideas to thrive. Hollister House garden landscape is the creative idea of former antiques dealer George Schoellkopf, who admires and appreciates 20th-century English country garden styles.
Essentials
Sited on 25 acres of southeasterly-facing sloping hills and dales in northwestern CT, Hollister House's two acres of gardens took about 20 years to build. George Schoellkopf initially drew upon the physical help and design advice of Ron Johnson, and more recently that of Gerald Incandela.
Hollister House Gardens, built around a pre-Revolutionary saltbox farmhouse, are a garden design blend of three exceptional 20th-century English garden styles:
- Vita Sackville-West and Nigel Nicholson's Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, Kent,
- Christopher Lloyd's Great Dixter, East Sussex, and
- Lawrence Johnston's Hidcote Manor Gardens, Gloucestershire.
George Schoellkopf designed and planted his awe-inspiring gardens by adapting the three English designs to distinctive North American features such as plant hardiness zones and topography.
Design Features
Washington, CT is designated United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Plant Hardiness Zones 5 to 6 (average minimum temperatures -10°F to 10°F) and American Horticultural Society (AHS) Heat Zone 4. The three English gardens, rank as a zone eight (average minimum temperatures 10-20°F) on a European version of the American Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
Much like Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, Great Dixter, and Hidecote Manor Gardens, Hollister House Gardens show off individual garden spaces or "rooms." These spaces take advantage of the rolling northwestern CT topography and are created by:
- Parterres of boxwood;
- Hedges of Yew (Taxus sp.) eight to ten feet tall;
- Walls of red brick as tall as the hedges; and
- Walkways of local fieldstone,
These structures create a firm architectural framework of separate spaces that:
- Establish a sense of formality through basic straight lines and rectangular spaces;
- Increase and retain temperatures localized within the rooms; and
- Extend the design significance of the house.
Results
Gardeners can easily appreciate the rigors of formal straight lines in these garden designs by looking at base maps of these gardens. (See "Garden Visit" on Hollister House Gardens' Web Site). The straight arrangement of fieldstone walkways positioned within wall and hedge boundaries results in views that lead visitors' eyes from space to space,and on to hidden vistas. There is always a beckoning surprise down the next path.
- The red colonial house provides one of the garden landscape's focal points and is visible from any place in the garden design. It sits slightly off-center at the north end of the site at the top of the property's primary slope, surrounded by the gardens.
- The slight temperature increases allow Schoellkopf to try out plants that need warmer temperatures than what northwestern CT normally provides. Protection from weather extremes also permits verdant and luxuriant informal planting arrangements. The formal edges of Hollister House Gardens, much like those at Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, Great Dixter and Hidcote Manor Gardens, blur when naturally large plants and rambunctious climbers in bold colors flow over walls and onto paths.
Here are some noticeably striking plants that appear at the end of June. (See "What's in Bloom" on the Hollister House Gardens' Web Site):
- Climbers
- Actinidia kilomikta (Kolomikta Actinidia – a type of kiwi-fruit vine)
- Hydrangea anomala subspecies petiolaris (Climbing Hydrangea Vine)
- Hardy Herbaceous Plants
- Alchemilla erythropoda (Lady's Mantle)
- Crambe maritima (Sea Kale)
- Filipendula rubra 'Albicans' or 'Magnificum Album,' white flowers, but shorter in stature than those possessing pink flowers (White Queen-of-the-Prairie)
- Filipendula rubra 'Venusta,' deep pink flowers (Pink Queen-of-the-Prairie)
- Nepeta x faassenii 'Six Hills Giant' (Faassen's Catmint / Ornamental Catmint)
- Sanguisorba menziesii 'Dali Marble' (Variegated Burnet)
- Annual and Half-Hardy Perennials
- Dahlia 'Bishop of Landalf', purple, almost black foliage
- Deinanthe bifida, pale blue flowers
- Angelonia angustifolia hybrid, white flowers
Visitor Information
Hollister House Gardens is a project of The Garden Conservancy, a national, nonprofit organization founded in 1989. The mission of The Garden Conservancy is the preservation of exceptional American gardens for public education and enjoyment. Information about open days and directions to Hollister House Gardens is located on The Garden Conservancy web site. Information about special events and directions specific to N.E. may be found at the Hollister House Gardens web site.
© Text and photograph by Georgene A. Bramlage. 2007. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
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