Photo by Joseph Valentine
No matter the weather, Joe Valentine and Paula Hunter each make time for a daily half-hour woodland loop around their property.
Joe Valentine knew he needed to temper winter’s bite. New Hampshire’s Monadnock Region is serene, unspoiled, and achingly beautiful during the cold months, but cabin fever is a constant threat in an area often buried in a few feet of snow. Not long after moving to Juniper Hill Farm, Joe saw a path toward bringing the forgotten season into the fore.
Photo by Joseph Valentine
A dusting of snow etches the rim of a pedestal urn while lilacs serve as “furnishings” that define the space.
Joe and his wife, Paula Hunter, had been searching for a snowbelt weekend home in the late 1990s to serve as a getaway from suburban Boston. They were renting a historic log cabin in Concord, Massachusetts, and wanted to purchase a property with equally deep roots. Finally, after years spent looking in Vermont, they turned to New Hampshire and stumbled on a house built in 1789 that ticked all the boxes, including its proximity to a small town.
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Photo by Joseph Valentine
When they first began planting the landscape, Joe installed a series of ‘Donald Wyman’ crabapples. In summer, they’re pretty; in winter, they’re poignant.
Photo by Joseph Valentine
A grey squirrel steals goodies from a tray bird feeder.
Photo by Joseph Valentine
Native sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina) becomes artwork when half-buried in snow.
The couple’s love affair with both the landscape and the region’s highly defined seasons deepened, so four years later, Joe and Paula adopted the place as their permanent residence and set about building on the farm persona. While they used the fields to raise heritage breed livestock, they were unsure of what to do with the land closer to the house. Always keen to gather influences from travels, the couple spent their next vacation touring British manors. In the world-class landscapes surrounding those houses, they discovered inspiration for creating their own garden. And once back in the States, they attended a tour by Vermont garden designer Gordon Hayward to garner even more inspiration. There, they saw a pathway for translating a garden into their own vernacular.
Photo by Joseph Valentine
In the Zen garden, an undulating yew hedge backs a serene granite bench.
Joe and Paula invited Gordon for a consultation, and that was the beginning of the transformation of Juniper Hill Farm from a no-nonsense farm into an intricate series of spaces, each with a nod to its agricultural roots paired with the enduring beauty of antique elements. The couple situated the garden tightly around the house at first, mainly striving to uplift the space outside the kitchen. But then the area in the back called to them. Ultimately, the planting momentum morphed into 10 years of consistent gardening as Joe honed his design skills. In a part of the country where more than half the year might be buried in frost and snow, he needed to factor in strong, defining lines and beauty beyond blossoms. Plants were selected based on their rock-solid hardiness and the role each would play in the outdoor “floorplan.”
Photo by Joseph Valentine
The classic statue greeting visitors to the garden was dubbed “Miss Hospitality.”
Softened in shrubs, etched with tree limbs, circumscribed by fences, and screened by hedges, the garden continues to be a hardworking landscape. “We embrace winter,” Paula says. “And the season is not just admired through the windows.” She and Joe often venture farther afield. Snowshoeing is the couple’s favorite outdoor sport, creating paths that allow their Corgi, Christina, to follow behind, hopping like a rabbit between drifts. And when they return from those long, frigid treks, the landscape around their home welcomes them back in its embrace of gates, hedges, and pillows of snow.
Photo by Joseph Valentine
To create a room-like partition between the Zen garden and the path, Joe crafted a windowpane divider.
“I think of our garden as a little house where we are always adding ‘rooms,’ ” Joe says. He explains that each room is “furnished” with shrubs, often clipped into topiary forms. Beyond those shapes, every space is delineated by walls composed of shrubs or picket fencing. “We needed to create transitions between the rooms,” he says. “That’s where the various hedges come into play.” Within those partitions, granite posts and agricultural relics stand out, especially when profiled in the sparsity of winter with its ice-accented twigs and snow-lined blades. Birds find cover in the rhododendrons and arborvitae, pecking at the seedheads left standing and feasting on the crabapples and winterberries that look like holiday ornaments.
Photo by Joseph Valentine
At the end of the pool, Joe built a folly modeled after its match at England's Hidcote Manor.
Meanwhile, the snow is given a hero’s welcome for the insulation it provides the perennials slumbering below. In winter, the garden might be stark, but there’s serenity in its simplicity. And as Paula says, “It requires no maintenance in the cold months. We can just sit back and admire the beauty.”
