Valley Gardens: Northampton garden tour features a bit of sunny Provence

By Cheryl Wilson

Published on June 15, 2007

Northampton may not have a climate like Provence, but one couple has created a Mediterranean-style garden that should inspire many who take Saturday's Northampton Garden Tour. The garden of Carolyn Hicks and Frank Marotta is one of eight on the annual tour sponsored by the Friends of the Forbes Library.

Hicks designed her Mediterranean garden while looking down from a second-story screened porch. Initially it was in the form of a butterfly, with stone-edged beds representing the thorax and the wings, but she has expanded over the years and the design is less obvious now.

"She played around with a lot of ideas. It just grew from there," said her husband.

During travels to the south of France, the couple fell in love with the fields of lavender. "It's extraordinary there," Marotta said. "Our puny little lavender plants are just starting to grow," Hicks added.

She is accustomed to trying to grow plants from another climate since she grew up in Tennessee. When she first started gardening here, she was unaware of our harsh New England climate. "A lot of the things I bought didn't come back the next year," she said. Now, growing plants that are marginally hardy is a challenge and a goal.

Marotta commented that perennials may take years to establish. "Roses, for instance, need time to make the robust performance they are capable of," he said. "Another 10 years and it will look mature."

Actually, it's pretty impressive right now. In the southeast-facing Mediterranean garden, cobblestones delineate the beds, some of which are enclosed by low boxwood hedges. Bellflowers, sweet William, lady's mantle and pinks will be in bloom for the tour as well as roses. In addition, annuals are arrayed in pots of blue ceramic, terra cotta or gray stone.

Attractive stonework

The Mediterranean garden is less than 10 years old and was created on the site of an asphalt parking lot. "The asphalt was offensive in every possible way," Marotta said. They hired a contractor to remove the eyesore and a stone mason to build stairs to the garden level from a new, attractive cobblestone parking area beside the house.

Marotta was fascinated by the stone mason's work and watched carefully to understand his techniques. He then taught himself to build the low Goshen stone walls that border the new parking area. His latest project was almost complete last week: a wide staircase of Goshen stone on the west side of the house.

"It's Carolyn who got me interested in gardening," Marotta said. "She has more a sense of design." When they started 20 years ago, he said he didn't even know the names of plants.

Hicks grew up in a family of gardeners. "My mother and my aunt belonged to a garden club that is 75 years old," she said. Her first garden venture in Northampton was recreating a circular garden bed like the one her grandmother had. "As a child I used to play in the peonies in my grandmother's garden," she said. Her circular garden is edged with three flat tiers of cobblestones, a gift from a friend. It holds a bird bath, one of many in her gardens, ringed with peonies, iris, lady's mantle, penstemons and pinks.

This side of the house features a long line of lilacs. "We enjoy the aroma from the porch," Hicks said. Climbing hydrangea is beginning to cover a fence and there is a magnificent specimen of Japanese snowbell (Styrax japonicus). The couple purchased this and several other trees and shrubs at a greenhouse sale at Smith College many years ago. "It looked like a stick, this big," she said, indicating a foot-tall plant. On the other side of the house are two magnolias, also purchased at Smith. "I wish they would hold another sale," Hicks said.

The Mediterranean garden features paths of crushed terra cotta-colored gravel. Marotta said he tends to think in straight lines but his wife convinces him to curve some of the hardscape. "Curves help," he said.

A pair of Sky Rocket' junipers, very narrow pyramidal evergreens with silvery green foliage, marks the entrance to the Mediterranean garden. They have had to be replanted because of ravages by one of Northampton's resident bears. "One day I looked out and saw a bear holding a juniper in his paws and scratching his back with it!" Marotta said. The damaged evergreen is now recovering in another area of the garden.

Near the entrance is an unusual birdbath, a small irregular bowl atop a dramatic plinth of crow's- foot Ashfield schist. Another example of the stone, with its curious bird markings, is a polished boulder near the parking area.

In the center of the Mediterranean garden is a wisteria, trained as a tree by Marotta, who built a metal support structure for it. The flowers are gone now, but the carefully pruned tree with its distinctive foliage is still attractive. Just beyond is an arbor covered with pink New Dawn' and White Dawn' climbing roses. The adjacent bed includes pinky-red Knockout' shrub roses and a lovely pink David Austin rose with quartered centers.

Variegated plants are a special interest of Marotta and Hicks. Variegated hydrangeas and red-twig dogwood occupy a bed near the Mediterranean garden.

Their signature plant is Color Guard' yucca with white-and-green-striped foliage. There are several specimens in the Mediterranean garden as well as many in another garden bed near the parking area. Yucca is also known as Adam's needle and is a plant of the deserts and sand dunes. It seems to thrive in Northampton, and many plants will display their towering blooms for the tour.

Perennials and trees

Low Goshen stone walls edge the cobblestone parking area with its pleasing circular design. Corydalis lutea abounds along the walls here and cascades down the stone staircase to the Mediterranean garden. A wide array of perennials thrives in the sun and semi-shade, including salvia and roses.

There is a separate area for blueberries and raspberries, which can be covered with netting to prevent predations from birds. Recently Marotta used a heavy-duty dolly to lug some large flat stones under the grape arbor to create a new sitting area.

Along the southern property line are mature maples with underplantings of hostas and ostrich fern. "I was buying a lot of [hostas] at Bay State and I was impressed by the young woman who told me all the names - like 'Fried Bananas'," he recalled. That is a gold-leafed variety.

Hicks and Marotta said they purchase their plants all over. They are especially fond of Windy Hill Nursery in Great Barrington and Bayberry Nursery in Truro on Cape Cod, but they frequent local nurseries as well. They cited Wanczyk Nursery, Bay State Perennial Farm, Hadley Garden Center and Annie's Garden & Gift Store "for pots," as favorites.

Although the couple does get help from Cynthia Lawton-Singer in maintaining their gardens, the design is their own. "We are good collaborators," Marotta said. "We are very much a team."

The team approach certainly works well for them. They have created gardens that feature outstanding stonework by Marotta and delightful design by Hicks with well-cared-for plants, from unusual trees and shrubs to perennials spilling over the stonework. Hicks is an amateur painter whose color sense is evident in the gardens.

"One of the deepest pleasures we have is gardening," Marotta said.

The Northampton Garden Tour will be held, rain or shine, Saturday, June 16, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets on the day of the tour are $15 at Forbes Library. Friday they are available for $10 at State Street Fruit Store, Cooper's Corner, Bay State Perennials and Hadley Garden Center as well as the library. Raffle tickets for compost, a stone bench or a copper trellis are also available at the library. Other gardens include a dwarf conifer garden, one with two ponds, an enormous berry and vegetable garden on a hill, an informal garden with meandering paths and a garden along the Mill River on terraces.

Cheryl Wilson can be reached at valleygardens@comcast.net.