August: Nancy Kilson and Marting Klotz's Garden
My husband Martin and I purchased our home in West Tisbury in June 2012. That first summer and fall, we planted a few Oriental lily bulbs and many daffodils and began dreaming. The next season we started work on creating a better screen between our property and Indian Hill Road. Soon we were planting many viburnums and evergreens, and pulling out lots of invasive Russian olives and bull briar. Nancy planted many perennials above the stone wall in the backyard, where once there were only a few yellow coreopsis.
A year or two later we met Carly Look through a Polly Hill garden tour. She guided us in our initial plantings of Hinoki chamaecyparis and Cryptomeria japonica as we developed our first woodland and screening gardens. Every fall we plant a few more trilliums in this area, which also holds many rhododendrons, calycanthus, hollies, anemones and hostas. We edged part of our driveway with a row of redbud trees and Japanese maples. Then we put in a bed where Nancy planted 15 or 20 peonies surrounded by lily bulbs. Then came the rose garden. Then the tree peony bed. Then an improved front walk garden. And the beginnings of a collection of daylilies from specialty growers Nancy found after joining the American Hemerocallis Society. All of this is possible thanks to an 8 foot deer fence that Mitch and Ned Posin built for us a few years ago, after we found out about what happens to exposed rhododendrons over the winter.
In 2019 we again collaborated with Carly to create a second woodland garden out of what was once a mess of scrub, brush and bull briar in between our main and guest houses. The old ‘muddle in the middle’ is now a beautiful shady expanse full of Hinokis, oak leaf hydrangeas, rhododendrons, aronia, hollies, multiple types of viburnums and other trees and shrubs, blooming sequentially throughout the spring and summer. Delightful!
Most sections of the garden feature something to see in spring, summer and fall, and we get to be here for those seasons. That has not stopped us from planting things that bloom in winter and early spring, with dreams of years to come! Above, we have posted a few snapshots of our bearded iris collection, our peonies in bloom, and the colorful edges of our rose garden, all of which had gone by for this year when we made our late July 2020 video.
We welcome visits from members of the Garden Club of Martha’s Vineyard!
A year or two later we met Carly Look through a Polly Hill garden tour. She guided us in our initial plantings of Hinoki chamaecyparis and Cryptomeria japonica as we developed our first woodland and screening gardens. Every fall we plant a few more trilliums in this area, which also holds many rhododendrons, calycanthus, hollies, anemones and hostas. We edged part of our driveway with a row of redbud trees and Japanese maples. Then we put in a bed where Nancy planted 15 or 20 peonies surrounded by lily bulbs. Then came the rose garden. Then the tree peony bed. Then an improved front walk garden. And the beginnings of a collection of daylilies from specialty growers Nancy found after joining the American Hemerocallis Society. All of this is possible thanks to an 8 foot deer fence that Mitch and Ned Posin built for us a few years ago, after we found out about what happens to exposed rhododendrons over the winter.
In 2019 we again collaborated with Carly to create a second woodland garden out of what was once a mess of scrub, brush and bull briar in between our main and guest houses. The old ‘muddle in the middle’ is now a beautiful shady expanse full of Hinokis, oak leaf hydrangeas, rhododendrons, aronia, hollies, multiple types of viburnums and other trees and shrubs, blooming sequentially throughout the spring and summer. Delightful!
Most sections of the garden feature something to see in spring, summer and fall, and we get to be here for those seasons. That has not stopped us from planting things that bloom in winter and early spring, with dreams of years to come! Above, we have posted a few snapshots of our bearded iris collection, our peonies in bloom, and the colorful edges of our rose garden, all of which had gone by for this year when we made our late July 2020 video.
We welcome visits from members of the Garden Club of Martha’s Vineyard!