NOT GRAND, BUT STILL GREAT

New Hampshire’s Fuller Gardens proves an estate needn’t be enormous to delight

- GREG COPPA

OVER THE YEARS I have visited many “estate gardens” in the United States and abroad. I have always been intrigued with the concept of a garden where the owner can act on any whim and proceed to collect, study, cultivate, hybridize or propagate whatever interests him or her, be it roses, tulips, orchids or apple trees. Usually these owners are well heeled, sometimes even deriving income from a royal allowance that can allow for the dimensions of their estates to be measured in acres, if not miles.

Some French estate gardens (think Versailles) are exceptionally symmetrical and manicured, with trees and shrubs trimmed and shaped to perfection. There are English floral gardens with elements designed to be viewed from the upper levels of a grand manor. Italian gardens may contain classical statuary and water features, as well as some topiary and charming paths. Spanish gardens can incorporate an assortment of components borrowed from Greco-Roman, Moorish or Persian designs, such as grottoes, scaled-down temples or carved stone columns, the latter sometimes purposely made to look ravaged by time.

Unsurprisingly, many of these formal gardens were designed specifically to impress visitors. Often they required legions of gardeners, helpers or even enslaved people to plant, grow, prune, sculpt and generally look after some very demanding specimens.