Project Description

Garden of the Seasons

Middlebury, Vermont

Garden of the Seasons is located on a main pathway of the Middlebury College quad next to the new college library. A sculpted granite bench along the pathway serves as a boundary to the garden. The Garden of the Seasons engages visitors within a multi-sensory space of sound, light, color, texture and fragrance. The garden is a semi-sheltered contemplative place to enjoy the air and light of Vermont, socialize, meet a friend, read and view the landscape and the quad in all seasons.

At the threshold of the garden a warm season Water Wall transforms to a winter Ice Wall. Depending on the temperature, the surface of the Ice Wall slowly grows vertical ice sheets or the ice melts away revealing a pattern of steel and aluminum lattice. In the spring and summer the water wall has the ambient sound of slowly flowing water punctuated by the sound of insects and birds within the garden.

The garden opens to a small semi-circular plaza of sculpted concrete pavers and a curving granite bench with views to distant mountains. A sunken garden chamber set at different elevations functions as a gravitational stormwater runoff treatment system under the plantings. A long naturalized bioswale enfolds the garden with wildflowers and grasses. All the plantings of the garden are indigenous ground covers, wildflowers, shrubs and vines. Many of the plants have winterberries and summer blooms that provide habitat for birds and butterflies.