Cambridge -- Shady Hill Square Garden, The

Shady Hill Square Garden follows the spirit of the City-Garden movement of the early 20th century promoted by Frederick Law Olmsted, with no fences facing the grassy common and uniform height and density of planting. The mature garden surrounds the circa 1915 Colonial Revival house on four sides in a rectangular lot of one-twelfth acre, purchased in 1971. There are large beech, oak and walnut in the neighborhood that provide shade. The front garden follows the symmetrical lines of the house itself with clipped boxwood, bare trunk European hornbeam, flower borders, and grass pathways to brick terraces on either side of the house. The terraces, used for social gatherings, are surrounded by garden beds planted with andromeda, spirea, rhododendron, and dogwood, with some privacy from the street. The shady side of the house has a low hedge, hellebores, astilbes, and Spanish bluebells, utilities, and the borrowed view of the neighbor's garden. The sunny beds outside the kitchen include colorful tulips and fritillaria in spring, followed by staked pink and red peonies, iris, and violet clematis with deutzia edging. In the sunny garden dark reds and purples contrast with green and white from white tulips, white bleeding heart, hosta and variegated dogwood elsewhere. There is a shed with an espaliered pear, a concealing wooden arbor, and a screened porch. Parts of the property that were used for play by young children have been redesigned into ornamental features. A central plot has a variegated weeping willow that was grafted onto an upright-growing willow trunk, surrounded by blue flowers in spring. American hornbeam is used around the periphery of the property with understory flowering perennials. Boxwood hedging, hosta understory, trimmed variegated dogwood and the primarily white and green palette in most parts of the garden are this garden's unifying formal structure. Persons associated with the garden's design: Michael Clement, gardener (2013-2023).