Tour a Historic Connecticut Farm by Janice Parker

"What you don’t design is as important as what you do.” Such is the restrained ethos of Janice Parker, approaching the grounds of a 1790s working farm in Connecticut with a clear eye toward what defined it. First, a humble white farmhouse, “the kind that even strangers have a great affection for;” stately old sugar maple trees; an apple orchard; and two breeds of cattle. Wisely, she left them all in place, removing only a big pool and ornamental plantings. “Any untrue gestures felt like clichés here,” she says. “My mission was to move the true elements of this New England landscape forward, into their next chapter.”

janice parker connecticut farm hydrangea

Little Lime hydrangea flanks the back door.

NEIL LANDINO

To do so, she abided by the patterns of farmers past, who’d shaped agrarian grids that move harmoniously up the hillsides. Each farm pasture area is ribboned together with the same rustic flat-board post and rail fencing, while each garden area—from the shade garden to the pergola and the great lawn—is marked by a hardscaping mix of local granite, reclaimed granite, and fieldstone.

“I love the restraint here, the farming vernacular. It’s the right landscape for a rural property. It doesn't distract from nature.” —Peter Lyden, president of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA)

A tree swing along the flat-board post and rail fence encircling the 14-acre property.
NEIL LANDINO

As for the plants, “only the hardiest souls survive the nibbling deer and these frigid Northwestern Connecticut winds,” notes Parker, who supplemented existing New England mainstays like Gala and Honeycrisp apple trees, Green Mountain sugar maples, and lilac with flowering chestnut trees, hydrangea, and fern. “This does not want to be a grand European garden,” says Parker. “To me, it’s a very American, a very patriotic landscape.”