gardenscapes
to the Manchester Garden Club
for guidance. They were a fantastic
resource, she said, a repository of
knowledge on this new bioregion.
By the time they arrived at their
new 10-acre property, they were
well equipped to design and tend
their own gardens. While the
place came with a lovely English-
style border by Lena Pless of
Manchester, the Dickensons craved
more formality. Mr. Dickenson built
four “French-style” raised beds, one
of which is completely filled with
prolific Johnny jump-ups (Viola
tricolor) and bulb lilies (Lillium sp.)
that according to Mrs. Dickenson
are “very giving” and perpetually
multiplying. In other gardens, Mrs.
Dickenson applied, among other
perennials, cuttings of peonies and
hostas from the Marble House.
Additionally, they created a curious
alleé of crab apples alternated
with standing, marble slabs found
about the property. This had been
the suggestion of garden designer
Gordon Hayward who had earlier
laid out a series of crabapple trees
to fill the entire month of May in a
“fairyland” of bloom.
Interestingly, the Dickensons are also
the current stewards of an important
historical artifact, a famous artesian
spring. Seemingly modest in nature, the
feature is denoted only by a stone seat
and a simply inscribed plaque. This
marks the spot that Ethan Allen and
the Green Mountain Boys watered
their horses on the way to capture
Fort Ticonderoga.
Rogerland Garden Conservancy
For those prone to anthropomor-
phication, Rogerland might seem
like a garden of beasts. Green
beings loom large and small,
bringing a sense of personality and
protection to the place. According
to Mr. Roger Cooper, the garden’s
eponymous owner, the creature
quality is intentional and meaningful.
The plants are characters in vast
series of tales that represent his
personal story; they are its guards
and its narrators. As a collection, the
garden reads like a botanical diary, a
living memorial to his
life’s experiences. The Garden Conservancy is a member-
supported, nonprofit dedicated to the
continued conservation of outstanding
American gardens. It strives to make
them more accessible to the public, assist
with needed rehabilitation, and facilitate
conservation. Since 1995, the Conservancy
has been hosting an Open Days program
that organizes private garden tours across
the country, including Southern Vermont.
This is a volunteer-run, admission-based
program ($7) that is open to the public.
For more information on the Conservancy
or the Open Days directory, go to
www.gardenconservancy.org
Born out of nostalgia for a
traditional sunken English garden
and a love of golf and lawn bowls,
the garden’s roots like those of
Cooper, are a bit British. Indeed
it maintains a generally balanced
symmetrical rhythm, features
fountains, mixed borders, and an
eclectic assortment of garden
rooms–from Alice and Wonderland
to the Vineyards, or the Putting
Green to the Dry River Bed. The
devils, so they say, are in the details,
driven by Cooper’s diversity of
travel and the eccentricities of his
life’s work: chemistry research,
investment banking, anthropology,
and theatre directing. They emerge
in peculiar ways.
Take, for example, his represen-
tation of Quetzalcoatl. As a scholar
of Mesoamerican anthropology
and a former resident of Mexico,
Cooper became very familiar
68 manchester life | www.manchesterlifemagazine.com
with the omnipresent, Mayan
deity. It was, according to Cooper,
“part of the fiber” of Mexican
mythology, symbolically featured
everywhere on architecture,
textiles, and in art. By fashioning
a pair of “plumed serpents” out
of topiaried yellow cedars and
sinuous bodies of ornamental
grass, Cooper superimposed the
abstracted concept upon the
greener backdrop of Arlington,
Vermont. In addition to creating
this tribute to Quetzalcoatl, Cooper
commemorated his work in Mexico
and established two needed “guards”
for his otherwise lonely gazebo.
In honor of another Mesoamerican
myth, Cooper assembled the three
hearthstones of Maya. Understood
ritualistically as the foundation
of creation, the triad of “planted”
stones is symbolically surrounded
by fire and arranged to hold a
figurative griddle of frying corn.
In Cooper’s version, the stones are