Hoosick
Blooms
Garden & Farm Tour
a self guided driving tour of private gardens
in beautiful Upstate New York
WHAT
driving tour of private gardens and farms in historic Hoosick Falls and surrounding rolling hills of Upstate NY
WHEN
July 2026 (exact dates TBD)
WHERE
Wood Block building at 1-5 Main Street in historic Hoosick Falls and surrounding rolling hills of Upstate New York
PURPOSE
The Hoosick Blooms Garden Tour is held every two years in support of the Civic & Cultural Restoration Corporation’s (CiviCure) restoration of the Wood Block Opera House. Learn more here or follow CiviCure on social media.
2024 Hoosick Blooms Gardens
Hoosick Community Garden
Sarah Lyn Gorgas, founder
Kaila Schmigel, local contact
Sarah Lyn Gorgas had a garden on the 2019 Hoosick Blooms Tour where she said, “This is my flag to the world that you can grow good food in a limited space. I want to inspire others to eliminate lawn and grow something good to eat.”
In 2024 that vision has found a new expression in a community garden and a shared collective knowledge on how to grow food and build without waste. Inspired by that enthusiasm the Village of Hoosick Falls made this land available. Then local business people and generous donors pitched in with tools, an irrigation system, milled lumber for raised bed construction, and an array of plant material. Locust poles were sourced locally for sturdy fencing, a farmer helped set the posts, and a team of high-schoolers came to install dozens of rolls of metal mesh for the impressive protective enclosure. Multiple raised beds are available for community members to help realize the mission. There is a small orchard; also, a tilled strip for a berry patch and an asparagus bed. The school in Hoosick Falls is involved, bringing in the agriculture education students and the Future Farmers of America Club to use the garden as a laboratory for learning and experimentation. There are also plans for visits from the Head Start kids next door. To watch all of them grow check out their Facebook page at hoosickcommunitygarden.
North Slope Farm
Diana and Ari Gradus
Diana and Ari Gradus purchased North Slope Farm nearly two decades ago as a getaway from their hectic lives in Brooklyn. The historic house (1821), in its very special setting overlooking the Hoosick Valley has been an ongoing project in restoration, garden development and animal husbandry ever since, each facet contributing to the others.
The lower pond at the front of the house is home to several varieties of domestic duck as well as a gazebo surrounded by plantings.
A colorful selection of perennials along a flagstone path marks the front entry-way garden which includes containers of eye-catching annuals and a bird feeder combo that attracts many species throughout the seasons. A bluestone terrace on the north side of the house takes advantage of breathtaking views and gives plenty of space for beds of astilbe and phlox, as well as urns and pots adorned with grasses and blooming annuals. A cultivated thicket of raspberry canes is tucked out of the way behind the house.
Alongside the drive, a graceful, shady rock garden features hostas and ferns and sweet memorials to beloved pets. A line of bluebird houses crosses a meadow next to a hedgerow, designed to offer protection for them and also the sparrows that are their rivals, every other post. The barns and coops and specialized enclosures house waterfowl and chickens, as well as a few entertaining and rambunctious goats. There is so much activity in a beautiful pastoral setting, every garden at risk of being dug, or plundered or littered, and every being at risk of becoming someone’s dinner.
Ari Gradus, a noted artist, welcomes visitors to his rustic studio. Some of his pieces will be available for sale to benefit CiviCure’s Wood Block opera house restoration.
The Vallone Garden
Tom and JoAnn Vallone
Please park at the top of the single lane drive and only on the marked areas of the lawn.
One of Hoosick Blooms’ first gardens, on the tour in 2018, Tom and JoAnn Vallone’s historic farmstead offers several new points of interest for visitors.
The house is one of the oldest in the Hoosick Valley, dating to the Revolutionary War period. Although many of the outbuildings are now gone, an early corn crib still serves as a tool shed. JoAnn’s perennial garden lines the upper drive. Flowering foundation plantings around the house lend graceful beauty, including a mature clematis climber, Duchesse of Albany. More clematis climb on the corn crib in a bed also featuring daylilies and dahlias.
Behind the house a kitchen garden of raised beds is a home for herbs, beans, and cherry tomatoes and is the summer vacation spot for houseplants in pots. Up the hill an electric fence protects a group of berry plantings, also guarded by an innovative netting system to fend off pesky birds.
The main vegetable garden provides ample space for corn, squash, onions and garlic, peppers, tomatoes and broccoli. A new feature is a tidy greenhouse for seed-starting and hardening-off of young plants. This first year the greenhouse rewarded Tom and JoAnn with a harvest of cherry tomatoes in April!
Groveside Garden
ONLY OPEN ON SATURDAY
Tom Riley and Kristee Iacobucci
Follow parking signs carefully for exiting.
Over thirty years Tom (a certified master gardener) and Kristee have transformed a hay field into a productive patchwork of vegetable, fruit and flower gardens
Several garden rooms surround the main house containing a variety of edible and ornamental plantings. The east-facing dooryard garden features perennial flowers and shrubs such as hosta, lilies, false indigo, bee balm and crocosmia. A rustic cedar arbor leads to a stone-walled perennial garden with espaliered apple trees, boxwood and culinary lavender lined beds, heirloom hydrangeas and fig and other ornamental trees.
Beyond a vintage garden gate, raised beds produce vegetables and dozens of herbs within steps of the kitchen. A large multi-garden complex is centered on a seed-starting greenhouse built by the owner from recycled windows. Nearby, a whimsical garden shed provides a bright workspace and houses the owner’s collection of garden tools and objects. A more formal, stone terraced raised-bed garden with a cedar gate and symmetrical design is the main production garden for a three-season rotation of vegetables and includes a specimen 10-year-old 4 o’clock plant the owners grew from seed. A collection of fruits and vegetables including asparagus, raspberries and blueberries in the lower field surround a post and beam writing studio built by the owner. In peak season Kristee and Tom harvest two pounds of asparagus per day!
Historic Barns of Nipmoose
ONLY OPEN ON SUNDAY
The Persistence Foundation: Connie Kheel, President; Howard Smith, Gardener
Follow parking signs. Do not park along the entry road. A golf cart is available for the mobility challenged.
This property is home to four classic informal gardens, stunning panoramic views of a working agricultural landscape, and a cluster of historic buildings
The country-style Nipmoose gardens include common perennial varieties such as phlox, bee balm, day lilies, aster, columbine and cranesbill. While all the gardens share a common theme, each has a distinctive style. The German Barn garden (the largest of the gardens) sits atop a notable 12-foot high dry laid stone wall. The earth tones of the stones, the wood barns and the farm fields are complemented by the varied colors of the bed plantings.
All four gardens were created by horticulturist Howard Smith who has been gardening for more than three decades. He holds a degree in Organic Ornamental Landscaping from the University of Vermont.
The unique wooden buildings on the farm include three historic barns with timber frame construction dating from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s. Fully restored, these beautiful barns provide an insight into a bygone era of craftsmanship.
The mission of The Persistence Foundation (a non-profit organization) is to promote awareness of the need for land conservation and preservation of agricultural heritage. The site is used for weddings and special events.
Garden at Craven House
Myra and David Craven, both originally Canadians, moved to New York City for their careers, David in the arts and Myra in the sciences. Their retreat in the hills of the Hoosick Valley eventually became the centerpiece of their creative expression and their shared love of the landscape. Although the farmhouse dates to the early 19th century, the spacious Victorian barn provided studio space for David’s large-scale works. Around both buildings the curvy hillside provided the contours for another canvas – broad sweeps of perennials in a changing colorscape throughout the seasons.
A terrace at the front of the house boasts long views to the south, across the Hoosick Valley. The foundation plantings of mature hydrangeas provide a sense of enclosure and container plantings give bursts of color. Monarda, Queen of the Prairie, ligularia, and rudbekia fill open beds to support pollinators and delight the human eye, as well as the birds and bees.
A shadier spot on the east side of the house features hostas and ferns, with soaring goat’s beard for a punch of vertical interest. An old climbing hydrangea softens the edges of the garage. Shade continues in the dramatic back hillside where a large water feature allows interesting grasses and boggy plants. The water tumbles down between hillocks and rocks, drawing attention to the various textures, as well as the cheerful blooms of the flowering varieties. Specimen trees, including a decorative sumac anchor broad beds of phlox, lilies, echinacea, and black-eyed Susans.
Bump Kelleher Garden
Richard Bump and Bud Kelleher
Parking entrance is marked at the corner of Rt 59 and Wright Road. There is a small reserved parking area up the hill for the mobility-challenged.
When these hosts first started looking for property in the area back in 2000, this particular farmstead was daunting for its proximity to the busy county road. The front entrance to the mid-nineteenth century house was only a few feet to the pavement. But the views! To the south, a sweeping hay field foregrounded curving farm fields beyond and an open view all the way to the Helderberg Mountains. Sinuous lines of hedgerow curved in parallel with country roads. The field was a blank canvas for the artistic pair to imagine and create a garden running down the slope to a perfect pond, with stone terraces and staircases framing colorful beds of perennials and the occasional grouping of flowering trees.
Hostas (of many varieties), bluebells and forget-me-nots dance in the shady spots. Paths of crushed stone between granite cobbles give an effect of having been there for generations. Sculptural orbs and antique planters attest to the owners’ eye for the quirky but beautiful detail. A custom iron gate has a witty crow atop the stone post.
A complete renovation changed the orientation of the house so that the front of the house became a sunny kitchen and dining area, next to a wide sunporch that helps tender flowering plants overwinter and bring beauty year-round in our changing climate. The challenging topography of the sunny, southerly slope influences plant selection – drought resistant, deer resistant, and erosion-preventing plantings are required. A huge remaining stump of a once-grand maple tree centers a stone patio outside the “garden house,” a studio barn for a seasonal get-away.
Visitors are invited to bring a sandwich to enjoy at one of several “resting places” throughout the garden.
Beloved Farm
Bill Badgley’s Beloved Farm has undergone a remarkable transformation over the years, evolving into an enchanting landscape of timber-framed buildings and stone walls, and a showcase of beautiful plantings in bloom from spring to fall. A large blueberry patch adjoins the clearly marked parking area across the road from the house and barn.
While Bill has owned the property since 1981, it wasn’t until he married Christa Caron, a landscape artist in 2008 that the masterful vision for the garden began to take shape. Bill himself created the garden’s signature stone walls, more than 1500 feet of reclaimed and rebuilt wall serving as a foundation backdrop to over 5,000 square feet of perennial gardens, complementing six acres of lush lawn and a picturesque gazebo, often the site of wedding vows. The featured plantings include daylilies and hydrangeas, but also hostas and other shade lovers.
The property also includes a timber-framed barn with bell tower constructed with lumber milled on site. It is available for private gatherings and performances.
Can't make CiviCure's Hoosick Blooms Garden Tour but want to support our mission of restoring the Wood Block Opera House? Donations are welcome!
