By LYN DESMARAIS
BRANDON—Brian Jerome’s garden welcomes you with ten-foot-high deep-pink calla lilies in pots and planted in the ground.
Brian has been gardening since he was a child, taking care of his parents’ vegetable garden in upstate New York. He went to UVM, met his future wife, Stephanie, there, studied biology and became a high-school biology teacher. Stephanie’s job took them to Washington, D.C. He worked for National Geographic and could see the organization’s full-time gardener out his office window, so he got to see how he gardened.
“Stephanie and I bought a house in a shady neighborhood with lots of tall mature trees. It had no landscaping at all. I spent 7 years learning how to grow shade-loving plants and shrubs and have a rich, varied, and interesting landscape. I learned a lot,” said Brian. “And I believe I left the next owner a nice garden.”
A theme that runs through our entire conversation is taking the time to go to see other gardens that speak to you or that you just love. For Brian, that was all the parks in Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks in D.C., and Longwood Gardens in PA. For any gardener at any level, garden visits give us time to just look and not see our weeds! We get to see how other gardeners use a view, use existing plants, combine colors and textures, or solve a problem we might be having in our garden.
Twenty-five years ago, Brian and Stephanie moved back to Vermont. They found the house and land they wanted here in Brandon. They have built a business and raised their children here. And Brian resumed his gardening. He has left most of the existing trees, while taking down a few to bring in the morning sun and to open up the view of the Green Mountains. Brian estimates that he has about an acre of lawn with a flower border on all sides. He thinks he has about 250 feet of border that is 8 feet deep. He has lawn in front of the borders and a mowed path behind so that he can weed from both sides.
Brian chose to design this border garden so that they would have a large lawn. His garden pattern repeats itself at the ⅓ and ⅔ marks. Brian uses a lot of blues and lavenders in it at the moment, with anise hyssop taking a starring role. There’s a pop of pure deep red from the crocosmia Lucifer, a gorgeous Zone-5 flower that I have not had success with, but which is thriving in Brian’s garden. Brian has introduced the following plants to his border this year: Culvert’s root, New York iron weed, meadow rue, ornamental oregano, sea holly, and Helenium can can. To keep the borders looking great, he edges three times a year.
I don’t know if the photos can accurately show the drama of this garden, but the border drops off to a valley, there is intervening mist, then the mountains beyond.
We watch hummingbirds flit between the bee balm. I learned that Brian also is a master gardener. He is currently taking a 15-hour course certificate in landscape architecture, where he is learning a ton. It’s hard to imagine he has more to learn, as he appears to me to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of his flowers and shrubs, with their Latin name and cultivar name.
Brian is humbler than I think I would be with such knowledge. He says, “gardening is an evolution; the more I learn, the more I want to know about plants, what makes them look good, and what they need, so I read about it.”
Brian’s tips:
Visit Gardens
There are some great gardens right here in Vermont and New York State to visit.
Hildene in Manchester has crocosmia Lucifer in August.
Shelburne Farms’ garden on the lake has great peonies in June.
The King’s Garden, a large walled garden of vegetables and flowers, near Fort Ticonderoga.
Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park in Woodstock has a nice garden.
Brian also encourages gardeners is to drive around the Brandon area and take pictures of what you like. If it’s here, you know that it will grow here.
Buying Plants
He recommends stopping at Blue Seal, Virgil and Constance, and Miller Hill to look at what plants they currently have for sale. All of these nurseries have plants that should thrive in Brandon. Nurseries like Miller Hill have a garden display as well. Finally, there are specialty nurseries like Summer Sweet in East Hardwick, which is known for its phlox, and the Vermont Flower Farm in Marshfield for daylilies and hosta.
