r;^ MEMBER PROFILE 



THE GREEN THUMB 

 OF NORTH HAVERHILL- 

 a Peaceable Kingdom 



The Green Thumb of North 

 Haverhill began in 1981, 

 when Priscilla Brown, dis- 

 satisfied with the selection 

 of plants offered at her employer's 

 floral shop in Woodsville, left to 

 begin growing plants herself. She 

 and her family — her husband Alden 

 and sons Clinton and Scott — put up 

 a 25'x44' double-poly quonset-style 

 house that fall "I really didn't know 

 if this would work out or not," but a 

 crop was ready for sale on Mother's 

 Day, 1982. "1 grew everything — gera- 

 niums, petunias...! overgrew — 1 had 

 a lot of things in cold frames" 

 People came, and, that fall, a sec- 

 ond house — a 14'x72' double poly — 

 was put up to the right of the first. 

 In 1985, a third house was put up 

 to the left and, later, a fourth was 

 put up behind it. 



Today, a line of structures sits 

 parallel to the road Beside the 

 greenhouses is a 22'x24' garden 

 shop. Beside this (although slightly 

 further back| is a gazebo. Both of 

 these were put up maybe six years 

 ago. Beyond that is a 10'x44' 

 wooden lath house in three sec- 

 tions forming a crescent. The lath 

 house replaces an earlier one made 

 of telephone poles that collapsed 

 in a wind storm two years ago. Both 

 the gazebo and lath house are of 

 pressure-treated wood 



Behind this line, the land slopes 

 downward (the gazebo and lath 

 house are built on fill) to Granny 

 Clark's Brook, then rises slightly to 



woods and — eventually and more 

 steeply — to Black Mountain Five 

 acres were cut and stumped. A few 

 trees — maples in the open areas, 

 hemlocks and birch by the brook — 

 were left standing Two areas of 

 marsh were left as well and cattails 

 planted. 



A lawn was created — by both 

 hydroseeding and hand-sowing. 

 This is not mown field, but 

 trimmed, green lawn and its unex- 

 pectedness contrasting with the 

 woods and marshes around it 

 makes it dramatic. Mass plantings — 

 potentilla, spirea, a hedge of high- 

 bush blueberry — are used around 

 trees and as backdrops for gar- 

 dens — perennial, shade, "vegetable, 

 cutting, and dried flower" — set into 

 the lawn. 



■'I like the twisted, the gnarled," 

 and an "ODDesy garden" highlights 

 unusual material — weeping pine, 

 weeping crab apple, Harry Lauder's 

 walking stick — plants not normally 

 found in North Haverhill gardens. 



A garden of native plants is 

 planned, but many natives are al- 

 ready here. Steeplebush {Spirea 

 tomentosa) grows in the marshes and 

 along the stream "There's no reason 

 why this shouldn't be in people's gar- 

 dens," Priscilla says, and, alongside 

 the commercially available varieties 

 of spirea, it seems to fit in well. 



Mountain ash (Pyrus amerkana] is 

 offered in the nursery display area, 

 but she wonders why striped maple 

 (Acer pensylvankum), a small tree 



with conspicuously striped bark, 

 isn't. Another plant that grows along 

 the stream is the purple flowering 

 raspberry [Rubus odoratus). Its maple- 

 shaped leaves and rose-like blos- 

 soms add to the August landscape. 

 The wild and the commercial seem 

 to blend comfortably here in a 

 Peaceable Kingdom of plant life. 



Water is everywhere — its sound 

 is an important element. "The 

 whole place is infested with 

 springs. An old man in his eighties 

 water-witched for us and found 

 three springs below the spot where 

 the gazebo was built. We dug and 

 found water just below the surface. 

 We've enclosed them with tile and 

 capped them. One is piped to the 

 house and another to the green- 

 houses and nursery; the third is a 

 reserve." 



Two spring-fed ponds have been 

 created. The Trout Pond, a 125'x 

 200' body of water on one side of 

 the display area (the Browns' home 

 looks down onto it), is a major focal 

 point. There's a small beach of 

 sand on one end, but it's twelve 

 feet deep on the other; stairs lead 

 down from the lawn below the 

 house to a small deck where 

 people stand to feed the fish — 

 some very prosperous-looking 

 brook trout. Otter, beaver, and 

 mink sometimes take up resi- 

 dence — and are removed, but most 

 of the time, these trout definitely 

 lead the good life. 



The Frog Pond, maybe half the 



IE PLANTSMAN 



