Pepe Maynard’s Garden in Winter
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- January
- 24
For years I’ve wanted to see Pepe Maynard’s great garden in Bedford. When I heard she was giving a lecture on her 8-acre garden as part of the Wave Hill horticultural lectures, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to pay a visit.
I’ve got an article in today’s paper on the way she and her husband, John, have transformed a very difficult site into a four-season garden that really glows in winter.
One thing I forgot to mention is that she and her friend and fellow garden designer Page Dickey founded the Open Days progam more than a decade ago. It’s a great way to see some of the best private gardens in the country.
We’ve got good photos by Mark Vergari in the paper today, and I thought I’d share some of mine from from my visit with the Maynards last week. They couldn’t have been lovelier.
Just up from the driveway, espaliered pear trees on a stone wall.
Yellow-twig dogwood.
And red-twig dogwood.
Lots and lots of rhodies and other broad-leafed evergreens. And yes, the whole property is deer-fenced.
Stewartia tree, near their bedroom. Great bark in winter.
They’ve got beautiful stonework everywhere.
A view of the house from the pool area. See the octagon-shaped room that extends out from the main house into their garden? That’s their bedroom—what a great idea.
Chairs near the pool.
Wow, they must have their masons on retainer. Pepe likes natural-looking walls with mortar hidden inside.
Beautiful stone pathways through the hillside.
All of the fieldstone came from the site.
A pair of ‘Edith Bogue’ magnolias frames the steps up to the pool area.
That’s Mark Vergari at the top of the steps, shooting video for an upcoming tv segment on the garden (I’ll post a link when it’s up.)
The walled vegetable garden. Beautiful winter light on the stone.
A pair of hawthorn ‘Winter King’ trees near the vegetable garden.
Berries against the blue sky.
Closeup of the berries.
This hawthorn has great bark, too. I like this tree a lot.
Canopy of old oaks over the garden.
More of the terracing.
Umbrella pine.
A little closer.
This tree’s a keeper, too.
One of many stone step vignettes in the garden.
Lots of retaining walls, too.
Beautiful work by their masons, a pair of brothers from Italy.
Top of the wall.
Pepe devised this trick with stone to protect the young trees.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 1:23 pm by Bill Cary.
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Bill Cary grew up in Louisville, Ky. His gardening was limited to growing parsley and impatiens on the windowsill of Manhattan walkups until the mid-1990s when he bought a rundown old chicken farm on 8 acres in the Hudson Valley. Now he spends his weekends chasing deer, hacking away at invasive shrubs and vines and wondering why he doesn`t have more meadow and less lawn.
What an interesting post – with great photos!