Every year, I visit a garden in town, and its gardener, for a narrated tour to feature in our newspaper. Given that Covid 19 precluded those meanderings through private gardens, I decided to take this opportunity to describe Hampton’s public garden – the garden at Fletcher Memorial Library.
When the library was faced with the necessity of facilitating an accessible entrance and increased parking, board member and landscape designer Anne Christie developed a plan to bridge the library and the parking lots with a garden filled with native plants to attract butterflies. The miraculous result was a communal effort: Selectman Mike Chapel coordinated the installation of paths and plants with the assistance of the town crew, community members purchased selected trees, shrubs and flowers, benches were donated, board member Stan Crawford built a trellis and most recently, a water garden was installed, the generous contribution of patron Roma Dupuis. Opening to the public in 2013, this Certified Butterfly Garden earned distinction the following year from the American Society of Landscape Architects in the educational category for its instructiveness in planting for winged wildlife, yet with its aesthetic appeal, the garden is a paradise not only for birds, bees and butterflies, but also for patrons.
The garden welcomes approach from the front entrance and lawn, and from the parking lot and rear entrance, a plant-lined walkway inviting visitors. Inkberry hedges partially enclose the area, providing a garden “room”. A gravel path circles the original garden, a tribute to former librarian, Eunice Fuller. Remnants of her flowers remain – in the hosta fringing the porch, the spring bulbs carpeting the lawn, the extensive lily collection, and the native plants she protected to nourish the butterflies. The path branches around an island of flowers and to the field stones leading to a water garden. The library itself, lined with foliar interest, serves as the southern wall and to the north, a row of purple-black ninebark; a berm rises to the west where a tapestry of seasonal foliage includes red-twig dogwood, inkberry holly, Korean lilac, western arborvitae, amsonia and spirea, and the east spills to the library’s terraced slope.
Spring begins with the pearly umbrella of a weeping cherry at the garden’s entrance, honeybees abundant amidst the delicate, cascading flowers. In the lawn which sweeps to the garden, an assortment of squill, chinodoxa and glory-of-the-snow is scattered beneath the pink, rose and white bowers of crab apples. Purplish-pink blossoms of redbud and ivory bracts of dogwood also usher in the season, and racemes of the lilac “Miss Kim”, deep purple buds opening to lavender flowers, perfume the air. The pale blue stars of amsonia and the indigo wands of baptisia partner, their foliage contributing textural contrasts throughout the season coupled with the slender, silvery blades of the ornamental grass, “Little Bluestem”. A few stalks of pink, purple and white “dame’s rocket” bloom, reminiscent of Mrs. Fuller’s meadow which hosted a sea of hesperis.
As spring progresses, catmint blooms in the center garden, a billowy border of lavender clouds, a sea of the fluorescent, lemon-yellow plates of “Moonshine” yarrow lights the floral island, and the ninebark appears coppery, dusted with beige-pink flower clusters. these blossoms provide a bee haven, visitors surrounded with their symphony. In summer, Mrs. Fuller’s exquisite lily collection glows along the bronzed ninebark – trumpets of pumpkin and apricot, scarlet and lemon, marmalade and watermelon, ivory and rust. Shasta daisies cheer the garden, and bottle-brushes of purple liatris rise above bright orange clusters of butterfly weed, yellow blossoms of hypericum, and echinacea’s contrasting petals of lemon-lime and dark cranberry. Scarlet and crimson annual zinnias invigorate the garden, while gentle notes are contributed by pastel crests of pink and purple phlox and grape-colored blossoms dangling along stalks of lady’s bells. The garden path is infused with the honey-scented “summersweet’s” delicate, white flowers, and enlivened with cushions of golden rudbeckia, which will linger well into fall. Along the library wall, a clump of cardinal flower sprouts from a carpet of marbled heucherra, where a bench is backed by a trellis of the “pipevine” which provides larval food for the swallowtail.
As autumn approaches, the bronze fronds of fennel sport their mustard-colored umbels. Mauve tufts of towering Joe Pye weed float in the island, along with bushels of the vibrant purple blossoms of “ironweed” and sprays of butterfly bush’s magenta racemes. Mounds of plum-purple New England asters rim the path, and saucers of sedum “Autumn Joy” adorn the center garden, beginning pale pink and maturing to raspberry and eventually their winter brick to surround the “winterberry”, its sparkling crimson fruits the garden’s focal point in winter. Berries, and the evergreen foliage of laurel and arborvitae, provide interest in winter, as well as the variety of trees and shrubs whose shapes gain significance with their winter silhouettes – the frosted fountain of weeping cherry, the ruby branches of shrub dogwood, the twiggy brooms of blueberry, their stems flushing crimson in earliest spring.
The newest element is an intimate cove where water gently trickles along mossy rocks and spills into a small pool. Water lilies float on the surface, hosting flowers of cream and pale yellow flushed pink, and frogs plunge from the falls and nudge their faces through the camouflaging, aquatic plants. Field stones lead to the water garden and an iron bench, where one can read in solitude in the shelter of oak leaf hydrangeas, their panicles of ivory flowers opening in late summer, their foliage igniting in autumn with burgundy, rust, amber, orange and scarlet leaves. It’s the perfect place to read on a fall afternoon, with the music of falling water, and the butterflies that validate the garden’s promise with their presence.
This gem is nestled in our village amid the surrounding gardens of our neighbors and our nature preserves. With plenty of public spaces to appreciate, as well as our own backyards, birds and bees and butterflies, untouched by this virus, benefitted from our devotion, and wildlife, from bunny rabbits to bears, ventured more frequently into our lawns. And Fletcher Memorial continued to enrich us, its garden providing a space to gather for lawn concerts, and a quiet sanctuary.
Dayna McDermott