The Lenox Garden Club, which has been been around for 99 years, is more than a group of ladies who like to grow flowers and wear big straw hats as they troop around one another's backyards. It's a philanthropic organization that supports all sorts of local horticultural, educational and civic beautification projects. "We helped found the Berkshire Botanical Garden," says president Mary Harrison, who notes that her group is the largest garden club in Berkshire Country. "We started the tour twenty years ago to restore Lilac Park. We put in $60,000 and we maintain the beds and the town maintains the green." The garden club has provided funds for the Chinese Garden at Naumkeag, the Berkshire Botanical Garden's horticultural Interns Program and Winter Lecture Series, along with Great Barrington Housatonic River Walk, Elm Watch, Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation, Hebert Arboretum at Springside Park, Ventfort Hall, Project Native, Habitat for Humanity, Bidwell House Museum, Lenox Library Association, Southern Berkshire Youth Association, Berkshire County Historical Society.
This year's tour is centered in Stockbridge, and it includes six gardens, two carriage barns and the first floors of four of the houses. One house dates back to 1750, and its current owners have decorated it with 18th and 19th century antiques; the gardens also have a period feel with an herb garden surrounded by boxwood and a secret garden that is partially surrounded by the remaining foundation walls of a barn. Some properties are from the turn-of-the-last century such as Broad Meadows, an original Berkshire "cottage," whose landscape has been meticulously restored since 1998 and now features nearly 100 specimen trees, a wild flower meadow, a vegetable garden, a cutting garden, a tennis court and a pool house. And there's the relatively new 20-year-old house that belongs to the owners of Windy Hill Farm. Constructed from lumber harvested on the property, the timber frame house is surrounded by fieldstone patios, extensive vegetable gardens as well as stunning views of Mounument Mountain, Beartown Mountain, and Butternut Basin. Lenox Garden Club House & Garden TourSaturday, July 10; 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Advance tickets ($35) are available at Campo de' Fiori in Sheffield, Hammertown Barn in Great Barrington, and the Mary Stuart Collections in Lenox. Day-of-tour tickers ($40) will be sold at the First Congegational Church of Stockbridge.
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