Stockbridge House.

A walled garden in the Berkshires, drawn from a postwar plan.

Plate
13
Location
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Site
2.3 acres
Scope
II · Design + build

Status

Design + build · Scope II · stewarded year-round

Begin a similar brief All plates

I.PLATE 13 · INTRODUCTION

The brief,
in short.

A 2.3-acre Berkshires property with the bones of a 1948 walled garden that had gone to grass. We restored the walls, replaced what couldn't be saved, and re-planted to a postwar-inspired palette of yew, fescue, beech, and Annabelle.

II.I. THE BRIEF

The brief

The garden had been built in 1948. The original drawings were in the homeowner's grandfather's attic. The brief was straightforward: restore the bones, replace what was beyond saving, and plant to the original logic without copying it line-for-line.

III.II. THE SITE

The site

Two and three-tenths acres at the south edge of Stockbridge. The walls were granite, set in 1948, shifted but mostly intact. The garden had gone to grass over twenty years. A row of forty-year maples on the eastern boundary was the only mature woody planting that had survived.

Annabelle bloom — PLATE 13.B · Annabelle along the south wall

IV.III. THE INTERVENTION

III

The intervention

The walls were repaired by a stone mason we'd worked with twice before. The lawn was relifted; the original parterre lines were re-cut from the 1948 drawings. We replaced the central feature (a pool basin that had cracked) with a simpler stone bowl. The maple row stayed.

V.IV. THE PLANTING

The planting

Yew hedges (Taxus × media) frame the parterre, set to the 1948 lines. The lawn inside the parterre is festuca, not Kentucky bluegrass — drought-resilient, no chemicals. A run of Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' along the south wall, where the original drawings called for hydrangea. Carex sedge replaces the boxwood in the side beds (boxwood blight risk).

VI.V. MAINTENANCE PLAN

Maintenance plan

Year-round Stewardship. Yew hedges trimmed three times a year — June, August, October. Annabelle cut to ground each March. Lawn mown weekly through summer. Walls re-pointed by the same mason every fifth year; first re-point scheduled 2029.

VII.MATERIALS · PLANT SCHEDULE

4 MATERIALS · 5 SPECIES

MATERIALS