Bird Haven Farm: The Story of an Original American Garden

A four-season photographic exploration of one of America’s great contemporary private gardens. A fixture on The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days tours, the historic 100-acre farm has been shepherded into the modern era and given a modern sensibility by the vision of its owner, Janet Mavec, also the book’s author.

Preserving and enhancing a property rich in narrative and natural beauty has been a twenty-year obsession for this property’s owner. Mavec has called upon a host of well-known garden luminaries to help preserve what began as a farm with a solitary stone house originally owned by the publisher of the Nancy Drew mysteries while making it functional, productive, and beautiful for the twenty-first century. Today, a series of individual gardens rest within a natural hollow surrounded by native woodland, including a broad gathering space defined by whimsical cloud-pruned boxwood hedges, groves of lilacs, and dogwoods and hellebores that entice visitors into early-season walks with delicate color each spring, a stone-walled vegetable and flower garden whose geometry is inspired by medieval monasteries, winding perennial-lined paths, orchards that produce over five hundred pounds of apples each fall, a natural pond brimming with aquatic plants, and an elliptical hillside meadow farmed for hay. All lead intuitively back to the “town square,” an open area tucked among the dwelling spaces featuring a broad ground-level fountain that clearly identifies it as the true heart of the farm.

With plenty of inspiration and encouragement on what it means to steward land in an ecologically appropriate way while still fully enjoying its bounty, the volume also includes seasonal menus featuring ingredients grown on the farm or sourced locally. All is artistically documented by photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo in full-color photographs that draw the reader through every area of the garden and celebrate its scenic vistas as well as its loveliest small details.