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Fill up your cup at Innisfree Garden, part 1

December 9, 2021
in Home & Garden
Reading Time: 15 mins read
18 Stone steps wall Bent tree – TodayHeadline


December 08, 2021

01 Chairs Rock Tyrell Lake – TodayHeadline

“Pam, I hope you are planning a visit to Innisfree, the world’s greatest underrated and too little known garden.” So messaged James Golden of Federal Twist after I’d asked if I might visit his own increasingly well-known garden while on my Northeast road trip in October. As it happened, Innisfree was on my itinerary. And if not, I’d have added it on James’s recommendation alone.

Road trip map – TodayHeadline
My driving route, give or take a week’s ramble through the White Mountains

Even though I’d worked out a snaking sightseeing route from Maine through New Hampshire and Vermont to get here, I knew next to nothing about Innisfree Garden. Located near the charming village of Millbrook, New York, where David and I stopped for lunch, Innisfree is a former private estate and 60-year-old public garden somewhat refreshingly devoid of glamour or visitor amenities. You won’t find a grand old manor house here. It was torn down decades ago. You won’t find a gift shop or café either. Two porta-potty toilets, a ticket kiosk, and picnic tables are the only public-garden concessions on offer.

02 Tyrell Lake autumn grasses – TodayHeadline
Tyrell Lake, a glacier-carved lake overlooked by most of the garden

But you won’t miss those things. (Well, maybe real toilets.) What you will find is a contemplative, engaging strolling garden around a glacial lake, planted with sturdy native and well-adapted trees, shrubs, perennials, and grasses that don’t require a platoon of gardeners to maintain. You’ll also find, if you wander about, interesting and sometimes mysterious cup gardens — inward-focused gardens or vignettes inspired by scroll paintings of ancient Chinese gardens.

03 Bog garden Autumn trees – TodayHeadline
Bog garden

Innisfree’s founders, Walter and Marion Beck — he was the mystical artist with a passion for garden design; she was the money, a lumber baron heiress as well as an avid gardener — began working with landscape architect Lester Collins in 1938 to create the garden. For 20 years they collaborated, rejecting the original plan for an English-style garden to complement their newly built English-style house in favor of a Chinese-influenced strolling garden.

When the Becks died without heirs, Collins kept on with the garden as director of its foundation. Over the next 30 years he simplified the overall design for easier maintenance, extended a walking path around the lake to make a loop, and added other significant features. He also razed the Becks’ mansion, which was expensive to keep up and, in his view, didn’t suit the garden’s aesthetic. After his death, his wife, Petronella, took over and kept the garden going until 2017. Recently the garden’s significance as “a postmodern masterpiece” led to its listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Even so, as James Golden noted, the garden remains little known.

04 Tyrell Lake Dumpling Knoll – TodayHeadline

So let’s get to know it! We arrived at opening time on the morning of October 8th, after a two-hour drive from Bennington, Vermont (finding an affordable motel or hotel near Millbrook had proved challenging). From the parking area you walk down to the lake, where a broad view of water and wooded hills gives you a sense of leaving urban life far behind.

06 Lip Rock waterfall – TodayHeadline

The woodsy path leads along the base of a boulder-studded hill, and then you hear a dripping waterfall — one of the cup gardens. A beaded curtain of water hangs from the lip of a jutting rock at aptly named Lip Rock Waterfall.

05 Lip Rock waterfall – TodayHeadline

Unusually shaped and marked rocks stand upright here and there, like spirit guides.

07 Stone steps – TodayHeadline

Soon we found ourselves climbing shallow stone slabs to the top of a knoll.

– TodayHeadline

Trees turning autumn hues perch here too, their roots dug deep into rocky crevices.

09 Multi trunked autumn tree – TodayHeadline

A mossy glade makes a pretty canvas for falling leaves. It was hard to discern where the path was up here, and I worried we’d gone off-trail, but we soon picked it up again.

10 North Lawn berms trees – TodayHeadline

I’m skipping over an interesting cup garden in dappled shade at Tiptoe Rock that defied my picture-taking skill. We diverged from the lakeside trail to explore the North Lawn, where an interesting view opened up: lumpy, grassy berms with a backdrop of trees turning orange and gold.

14 Autumn grasses berms – TodayHeadline

The lawn looked like a green bedspread pulled over down pillows. We walked down the pillows — the path had vanished — and explored the “bed.”

12 North Lawn standing stone – TodayHeadline

A large standing stone near another berm attracts the eye.

11 Lotus pond – TodayHeadline

Tucked amid the berms, a lotus pond bog garden was going orange and yellow.

13 North Lawn autumn grasses trees – TodayHeadline

More beautiful fall color

15 Cobblestone bridge trees – TodayHeadline

A cobblestone bridge arch surrounded by golden trees caught my eye and we wandered over.

16 Stone steps Bent tree – TodayHeadline

Another stone stair appeared, curving uphill under a gracefully bent tree.

17 Tree bark leaves – TodayHeadline

Bark and leaves

18 Stone steps wall Bent tree – TodayHeadline

As we reached the top we looked left…

19 Fastigiate ginkgos – TodayHeadline

…and saw another interesting scene, a bosque of fastigiate trees with mist rising behind them.

20 Fastigiate ginkgos – TodayHeadline

Fastigiate ginkgos!

21 Fastigiate ginkgos – TodayHeadline
Ginkgo Grove

Just imagine how they must look in their golden glory a little later in October.

22 Buddha Cave waterfall – TodayHeadline

Another trickling water curtain drew us to the edge of a wooded hillside, where we found Buddha Cave, a rocky grotto.

23 Red water sculpture Lawn – TodayHeadline

Opposite, a contemporary water sculpture shoots a vaporized jet of water skyward. The red column stands alone in a shallow bermed circle.

24 Red water sculpture Rainbow – TodayHeadline

From certain angles, the mist makes a rainbow.

25 Brick terrace Yellow bench – TodayHeadline

A brick terrace offers shady seating under a vine-draped arbor. The yellow bench must make a wonderful color echo with the nearby ginkgos when they turn.

26 Etched dragon stone – TodayHeadline

I read somewhere that this terrace is all that remains of the Becks’ inappropriately English house. Inset stones depict Chinese imagery that suits this garden.

27 Yellow chair terrace Water sculpture – TodayHeadline

Beyond the yellow bench, the arbor frames a view of the red water sculpture.

28 Lotus pool Circular Grotto – TodayHeadline

We soon came across another lotus pool with a small waterfall. Just beyond, an arched stone wall contains the Circular Grotto.

29 Circular Grotto stones – TodayHeadline
Circular Grotto

Angled stones, vaguely animal shaped, seem ready to battle, the left one with outstretched arms, the other with a gaping maw? Or do you see something different?

30 Japanese maple Stone wall – TodayHeadline

A rusty-leaved Japanese maple points the way to the Middle Terrace.

31 Weeping mulberry – TodayHeadline

I can never resist peeking under the skirt of a weeping tree. They always remind me of a child’s secret hideaway.

32 Weeping trees terrace – TodayHeadline

Other weeping trees, like so many hunching figures, can be seen on the lawn.

33 Weeping trees terrace – TodayHeadline

Don’t they give a melancholy appearance? Maybe they miss the house, or its former occupants.

34 Wooden Stepping Down Bridge – TodayHeadline

Below the terrace wall, a piered wooden bridge crosses a stream. Stepping stones then trail off in the lawn.

35 Japanese maples autumn – TodayHeadline

But let’s explore the rest of the Middle Terrace, with its collection of Japanese maples and weeping trees. Here, as everywhere at Innisfree, rock forms the structure and focal points.

36 Terrace path Weeping trees – TodayHeadline

Romantic, melancholy weeping trees along a stone path

37 Terrace path Weeping trees – TodayHeadline

The walls look as if they could be the old home’s foundation, but perhaps they’re just made to look that way.

38 Etched Chinese figures stone wall – TodayHeadline

One wall is etched with Chinese-style figures. I wonder what story is being told.

41 Stone wall doorway – TodayHeadline

A cave-like room under the wall was open, so we popped inside to look. It seemed to be an old storage space.

40 Interior blue tile window – TodayHeadline

A Chinese tile window offered a little light.

39 Blue tile window – TodayHeadline

On the outside, the blue tile window and vine-draped stone walls give the place a fairy-tale vibe.

Up next: Part 2 of my stroll at Innisfree, including a wish tree, oxbow stream, and lakeside views. For a look back at the Green Mountains of Vermont in brilliant fall color, click here.

I welcome your comments; please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading this in a subscription email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post.

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All material © 2021 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

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