A Photographer’s Garden
East entrance to the gardens at Juniper Hill Farm
Beginnings
The gardens at Juniper Hill Farm began about 25 years ago, designed around the original farmhouse, built in 1789 by Israel Balch, as a series of garden rooms that are reminiscent of the English arts and crafts style.
The Frog Pond in Autumn
A Diverse Landscape
Although the farm encompassed 600 acres in the 18th-century, today the property contains 30 acres of woodland, fields, and cultivated land. The ornamental gardens comprise about two acres. The gardens were designed so that more formal elements transition into “wilder” areas as you move further from the house. Areas that contain many Cultivated varieties of plants exist next to native species of meadow plants that are favored by pollinators. These areas, in turn, blend seamlessly into pastures beyond where sheep graze during the summer months. Since winters are long in New Hampshire, the garden was designed with strong architectural lines to provide winter interest.
The Red Hay Barn
A Garden Photographer’s Laboratory
“Designing, Building and maintaining a garden offers so many rewards in itself but, for anyone interested in garden photography, having your own garden can also serve as a proving ground for the sharpening of creative and artistic ideas.” ~Joseph Valentine
You can read about our garden in Yankee Magazine
The Woodland Temple and Frog Pond
The often written about Gardens at Juniper Hill Farm are occasionally open to the public through events such as the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days and by private arrangement with garden clubs and tour groups that, over the years, have hailed from as far away as the other side of the continent to the other side of the world.
There are 12 distinct areas, or rooms, that make up the garden including a courtyard garden, a formal lilac garden leading to a frog pool, a whimsical stumpery, a meadow garden, a tranquil Mediterranean-inspired “clipped green” garden, a pool house modeled after the garden pavilions at Hidcote, and a woodland temple inspired by Prince Charles’ temple at Highgrove. Because winter interest was an important consideration in the original layout of the garden, strong architectural lines have become an important design element.
Rooms with A View
The Gardens at Juniper Hill Farm surround an eighteenth-century saltbox house and farmstead that remain much as they were 200 years ago. The approximately two acres of gardens surrounding the farm might best be described as “country formal.”
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