Some gardens seem always to have been there. The gardens that Linda and Geoff Post have created around their home in Florence have that feel. This is in part because of the stately mature trees that grace their acre-and-a-half property, including silver maples and a wonderful European beech. But it’s also because of the artfully naturalistic plantings.
“We plan what we’re going to do,” said Geoff. “We have architecturally nice gardens, but they’re loose and natural.”
The garden is one of six featured in the Forbes Library Northampton Garden Tour, now in its 32nd year.
It should come as no surprise that their garden is so aesthetically pleasing. The Posts have long been fixtures on the Northampton arts scene. They founded the Paradise City Arts Festival in 1995 and ran it until last year. Linda is a highly acclaimed painter whose work has been shown at many galleries including R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton and also appears in the collections of the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, Boston Public Library and other venues. Geoff was a clothing designer with his own studio, working mostly for private clients, but gave this up when the festival began to take too much of his time. Stepping down from the festival has given the Posts time to prepare their extensive gardens for the tour.
“Honestly, creativity never retires,” said Linda. “It’s been great for me having more studio time to paint and for Geoff to spend more time working in the garden. As always for both of us, new ideas and projects are constantly percolating. And it was a real pleasure to attend the Memorial Day weekend show as ‘civilians!’”
The Posts’ garden is one that’s not just looked at but lived in. In the backyard, four towering maple trees provide shade for a Goshen stone terrace where the couple spends a lot of time. Geoff speculates that the maples were planted in the mid-1950s, around the time the house was built. A maple in front of the house was formerly home to an extensive treehouse built by Geoff for the couple’s nieces and nephews. A large fire pit at the far end of the garden that Geoff created during the COVID-19 pandemic still provides a gathering space for visitors.
“We’ve tried to create a private spot, separated from the rest of the world. We entertain a lot, so it’s nice to have outdoor space for that,” said Geoff.
The white clapboard house, which the couple has added onto a couple of times, has the look of a farmhouse; it sits unobtrusively in the surrounding landscape. Climbing hydrangea graces the back of the house, anchoring the structure to the garden. Edging the terrace, a low sweep of Russian cypress hugs the base of a towering silver maple.
“We got good at shade gardening,” said Linda. “It’s very soothing.”
Shady areas are home to many shade-loving plants, including hellebores, ferns and more than 20 varieties of hosta.
Farther from the house are a couple of lily ponds that Geoff dug between two maple trees. Yellow flag iris and an unusual variegated yellow and green bamboo edge the water. He admitted that the bamboo requires a fair amount of wrangling to keep in check, but it’s worth the effort. Joining the ponds is a huge Goshen stone slab that looks like a bridge over a single body of water. Water spouts from the mouth of a stone fountain shaped like a face that would look at home in Ancient Rome. It’s one of the many garden decorations the couple has collected over the years, from the festival and elsewhere.
Originally the ponds contained fish, but these were soon gobbled up by hungry birds of prey. Now the ponds are inhabited by frogs that disappear in winter into the trees, where they hibernate in deep cracks and leaf litter. These remarkable creatures survive the freezing temperatures by creating their own biological antifreeze, a mixture of glucose and glycerol that prevents the water inside their cells from freezing. Every spring, they come down from trees and erupt into loud chirping.
“It’s deafening!” said Linda.
It’s clear that Linda and Geoff take great pleasure in sharing their garden with local fauna. In a further mixed bed of shrubs, including hydrangeas and a variety of perennials, they’ve planted a stand of high-bush blueberries that birds feast on later in the summer. Huge purple panicles of butterfly bushes will be flocked with butterflies.
“We like to use plants that are easy to grow, nothing fussy,” said Linda.
For example, she has had great success with Knock-out roses, eschewing the more finicky varieties such as David Austin roses.
As artists, the Posts appreciate the value of views within a garden. Strategically placed seating areas offer diverse perspectives of the various beds and borders whose blooming period lasts from spring through the fall. One such seat is a handsome cement bench with classical scrolls at either end that sits at the edge of the lily ponds. The couple found it in an antique store in Pennsylvania, but it was too big for their car and they had to make a special trip to pick it up.
Large garden sculptures provide dazzling focal points throughout the garden. Many of these, including the iconic American Dog and Bubble Bird, both created by metal sculptor Dale Rogers, came from the Paradise City Arts Festival, as did a huge ceramic pot by Brattleboro-based ceramicist Stephen Proctor. Inventive birdbaths and birdhouses punctuate the plantings.
The centerpiece of the backyard is the rectangular potager, or French kitchen garden, whose ends are defined by two rows of 9-foot-tall wooden posts stained terracotta topped by whimsical birdhouses, presently occupied by a variety of birds including wrens and bluebirds. These posts lend a sense of open, airy architecture, like the remains of an ancient temple. Within the potager are long rectangular beds edged with concrete curbstones. Geoff explained that he used these to replace redwood edgers that had rotted out.
“The curbstones come in different lengths and can be linked together,” he said.
Linda’s love of cooking is evident in the rows of Japanese eggplant and many different kinds of tomatoes, carefully labelled so that she can remember which ones were particularly successful. In one corner is a small fenced area for beans to climb and a voluptuous herb garden brimming with perennials such as winter savory, tarragon and thyme, and newly planted annuals like rosemary and parsley. Also tucked into the potager are a charming tete-a-tete bench by Durand Van Doren and a harvest goddess sculpture.
Beautiful stonework ties the entire garden together. Broad Goshen stone paths and terraces define and connect the spaces.
“I love stone,” said Geoff.
He has salvaged large stones from building sites to edge garden beds. Huge boulders that he collected from a dug-up farm field make a sturdy retaining wall for a bed of hostas and spirea. Geoff did all the stonework himself, with help and instruction from Vermont-based stoneworker and sculptor Louis Pomerantz.
In the front of the house are the quadrant perennial beds that the couple built in memory of their mothers. At the center is a large pink Dale Rogers sculpture called “Lola’s Dress” honoring Geoff’s mother, who died of breast cancer. Beyond these beds are cornfields and meadows that are in permanent conservation, what Linda and Geoff call the “firefly fields.” Linda explained that in June they sit out in Adirondack chairs and watch the incredible yearly firefly display.
“It’s like looking at the Milky Way,” she said. “It’s a light show, an explosion of lights.”
Although the garden gives the sense that it’s been there forever, that’s not so. When Linda and Geoff moved into the house in 1991, there was nothing on the property but a swampy space and some “scrubby little evergreens.” Over the years they have created their stunning masterwork, but it’s still in progress.
“I like the sense of being in a beautiful room,” said Geoff.
It’s the perfect description of a visit to the garden, moving from one beautiful room to the next, and the next.
The Garden Tour will take place on June 13, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., rain or shine. Tickets are $20 in advance, available at Bay State Perennial Farm in Whately, Cooper’s Corner in Florence, State Street Fruit Store in Northampton, Sugarloaf Gardens in Sunderland and the Forbes Library. Day-of-tour tickets are $25, available only at the Forbes Library from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
There will be a raffle, whose prizes include a beautiful garden bench, planting urns, a garden-themed quilted throw, organic compost and many other garden-related items.
All proceeds from the tour and raffle benefit the Friends of Forbes Library to support library programs, events and projects that could not otherwise be funded.
For more details, visit friends.forbeslibrary.org/events/garden-tour or the Forbes Library Facebook page.
Mickey Rathbun is an Amherst-based writer. Her latest book, The Real Gatsby: George Gordon Moore, A Granddaughter’s Memoir, was published in 2024 by White River Press.
