Photography by Joseph Valentine.
They had been searching for an antique home and the house at Juniper Hill Farm had been built in 1789, “the same year George Washington was elected president, so in our mind that qualified as antique,” says Valentine.
At a side entrance to the saltbox addition (built in the early 1800s), two boxwoods (Buxus ‘Green Mountain’) flank the gate to welcome visitors.
Two flowering crabapple trees (Malus sargentii ‘Tina’) stand at the corners of a courtyard garden just off the kitchen, the first garden “room” Valentine built.
At the time, I thought that this would be about the extent of our gardening at Juniper Hill,” says Valentine.
Feathery Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ lends a modern air (and an element of surprise) to the front garden.
A custom gate Valentine built has a bronze gate pull purchased at Campo de’ Fiori.
Twin antique iron birds sit atop the gate posts.
“If you are facing the front of the house, this section of the garden lies to the left, across the drive,” says Valentine.
The steps lead to what the Valentines call the “Lilac Garden,” which contains four pyramidal-shaped Buxus ‘Green Gem’ specimens in a circular area also containing four Syringa meyeri ‘Palibin’ standards.
Encased in ice, the Syringa meyeri ‘Palibin’ standards look like spun lace.
The farm’s original post-and-beam barn, built around 1830, currently houses animals and stores hay.
An arbor built of bent Rebar “is cloaked in Clematis ‘Duchess of Albany’ during summer months, says Valentine, who modeled the arbor’s custom gate (which makes an appearance in warm months) after a gate at Castle Drogo in Devon, England and painted it a bright periwinkle to match the fence.
Another clump of Miscanthus ‘Morning light’ “has a very delicate look during the summer with spectacular, almost metallic looking, purple seed heads in the autumn that then transform eventually into these wonderful fluffy and frothy white plumes,” says Valentine.
Behind a stand of Thuja occidentalis ‘Smaragd’ is a formal, fenced potager and in front of them, although separated by a little distance, is the swimming pool.
“Because the pool is not visible and you can’t actually see within most of the garden rooms from this view, the impression you get is one of layering, with the various elements of hedges and fences composing the layers,” says Valentine, who designed the trees to serve as a backdrop.
In 2009 Valentine built a pool house folly (at R), “my New England interpretation of one of the twin pavilions at Hidcote, in England, that sits at the top of the stairs at the end of Lawrence Johnston’s famous Red Border.
Located near the Hidcote folly, a standing granite stone is an ode to “The Granite State.” The sphere on top of the standing stone was purchased at Snug Harbor Farm in Kennebunk, Maine.
“I am a big fan of using crabapples in the garden, not just for their proper scale in smaller gardens, but also for their outstanding features throughout the gardening year,” says Valentine, who has planted more than a dozen of the trees at Juniper Hill Farm.