Mario Bautista
LORRAINE AND FRAN Paquette’s garden in West Cornwall.
Wasn’t Addison County a beautiful place this past summer? Certainly the colorful and interesting gardens cultivated by local residents added to the appeal of this place.
Every year, the Middlebury Garden Club gives awards to public and private gardens in Addison County.
The club recently announced four winners of its 2024 Roadside Attractions awards. The awards recognize beautiful gardens around Addison County in both residential and commercial settings that are visible from roadways. Each of this year’s winners is unique and stunning.
The awards went to Lorraine and Fran Paquette in West Cornwall, Abi Sessions in Weybridge, Brad Koehler of Windfall Orchard in Cornwall, and the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op. Here are some photos and information about each winner.
The Garden of Lorraine and Fran Paquette in West Cornwall
Lorraine and Fran have lived on a quiet dirt road in West Cornwall since 1983. There they raised four children and lots of veggies. The vegetable garden helped sustain the family throughout the year.
Lorraine started by adding flowers to the vegetable garden, and then she added a separate garden just for flowers. When her health forced her to leave the workplace, she doubled the size of the flower garden.
“I enjoyed the work, which at times was a challenge, but even more felt fulfilled when the flowers bloomed,” she said. “What a feeling of happiness and accomplishment. I continue to grow, reshape, experiment and enjoy my gardens.”
A long list of vegetables and a vast array of flowers grow throughout the spring, summer and fall. Vegetables include asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, radishes, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, corn cucumbers, kohlrabi, beets, celery, onions, peas, pumpkins and squash.
The spectacular flowers include angels breath, hostas, daisies, echinacea, yarrow, black-eyed susan, lily, iris, peonies, bleeding hearts, dahlias, sweet William, hibiscus, trumpet vine, lupines, delphiniums, lavender, and a favorite, two long beds of zinnias that Lorraine and Fran grow from seeds saved from the previous summer’s crop.
ABI SESSIONS’S GARDEN in Weybridge.
The Garden of Abi Sessions in Weybridge
Abi’s flower garden is planted to show color all year, from crocus in March to red-stemmed dogwood all through the winter. She likes a combination of shrubs and perennials, so the front garden has a fringe bush, a dwarf gingko tree, three Itea (sweetspire), two junipers and a new baby evergreen among the perennials. Elderberries not only feed the birds, but also provide a year-round privacy screen.
Abi says that since she planted native plants, each one “has been trying to take over the world.”
At the height of summer the front garden is a battleground among echinacea, rudbeckia, bee balm and phlox. Abi notes that she was fortunate to inherit excellent soil when she and her husband, Bill, bought their house six years ago, and it makes her happy when people walking the sidewalk enjoy the garden.
The Garden of Brad Koehler of Windfall Orchard, Cornwall
Brad Koehler, orchardist and proprietor of Windfall Orchard on Route 30, has been tending his flower and vegetable gardens for 22 years. The apple orchard, formerly belonging to well-known Middlebury surgeon Dr. Ray Collins, was rejuvenated by Brad, who has nurtured almost two dozen varieties of apples on the property.
With a great interest in the biodiversity of plants and natural pollinators including various types of bumblebees, Brad said that “flowers are my obsession.”
Driving by in the spring, you will see masses of tulips, and dozens of varieties of daffodils, alliums and glory-of-the-snow, so called because it blooms early enough that its flowers sometimes poke right out of the snow. Some of these flowers are sold at the farmstand in May. They are followed in summer by daylilies, zinnias and snapdragons.
“The flowers are mostly for our enjoyment — other than the tulips and daffodils, which I sell at my stand in May. We keep a lot of cut flowers in our house this time of year.”
Almost all of the fruit grown at Windfall is sold either at the farmstand, through accounts with restaurants, or to hard cider makers. Some of it is used to press Windfall Orchard’s own fresh sweet cider.
BRAD KOEHLER’S GARDEN at Windfall Orchard in Cornwall.
The Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op
Sebastian Miska and Kate Corrigan from North Branch Farm and Gardens have been doing the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op’s landscaping work for the past several years. The gardens in the front and along the side of the Co-op contain a variety of interesting and attractive plants and flowers to greet members and visitors as they arrive at the store off Washington Street in Middlebury. Notable this year is a diminutive pineapple plant.
Middlebury Garden Club
One of the oldest garden clubs in Vermont, the Middlebury Garden Club was founded in 1933 to stimulate an interest in gardening, as well as to undertake and encourage projects to make Middlebury and surrounding areas more attractive. Among other projects, the Garden Club maintains the gardens at the Sheldon Museum.
The Garden Club plans an active calendar of events, tours, and activities. To learn more, visit middleburygardenclub.org.
Story and photos provided by Elizabeth Karnes Keefe and Barbara Greenwood.
