The Summer got a good start with a trip to Westport to tour the grounds of the Blau House. The tour was led by the son-in-law of the marketing magnate Barry Blau. There are many theme gardens nestled around the house and grounds.

Next was on to Oliver’s Garden Center in Fairfield for a demonstration and lecture on container planting by Lori Chips, known for her work with hypertufa and planting containers.

The next trip was to NYC for the Hi-Line Park. Many trained and cabbed to the Gansevoort Street entrance when we met with Barbara Rohdie, our docent tour guide. We toured the art, history, and landscape of the park to 30^th St., where we had some lunch.

After lunch we went to Little Island at Pier 55, an artificial island and a public park within the Hudson River Park. We were met there by the Landscape Architect for the park Signe Nielsen and the head Horticulturist Orrin Sheehan for a very informative tour of the tiny island.

The most recent tour was to two garden club members gardens. The first was the gardens of Marilyn Elsworth. A very sunny garden. The second was gardens of Pat Sabosik. A woodland shade garden. Both of these gardens had been selected for Garden Open Days of the Garden Conservancy.

How can you join these tours?

Take classes offered by the three Councils – Gardening, Environmental and Landscape Design. After completing 2 courses in any school you will become a provisional member of that council and are eligible for all the activities of the Tri-Council. Check out the upcoming class offerings https://ctgardenclubs.org/education/schools/

There are classes this Fall and Winter.

On August 5^th, 28 of us gathered for a bus trip to visit Massachusett’s two beautiful gardens in the Berkshires:  Naumkeag and The Mount.  Built during the “Gilded Age”, we were there to admire the beauty of the gardens, the architecture of the homes and learn history about this period in time.  Naumkeag and the Mount reflect the opulence of the era, but in very different ways.

Naumkeag was built as a compound for an active family that appreciated nature and enjoyed being outdoors. The planned gardens are less formal and meant to incorporate the natural beauty of the site and the long vistas of the Berkshire Mountains. There are formal elements in the plantings, such as an allée of trees, various pavilions and a staircase designed within a birch stand that is world famous today.  Whimsical elements lend a more relaxed feeling to the property.

The Mount (home to author, designer, and humanitarian Edith Wharton) is more formal and opulent.  As with Naumkeag, the house is located at the highest elevation in the property to enjoy views of a lake and the mountains beyond. A walled French and Italian Garden are laid out  below, on either side of the house, and connected by an allée of pleached Linden trees. They can be enjoyed from the terrace of the home, where we gathered for lunch, prior to our guided tour of the grand 47 room home.

The scale at The Mount was grander, but both properties were uniquely beautiful.  It inspired and energized us to get back to our own gardens and perhaps incorporate an element that particularly appealed to us.  For me, it’s a very scaled down version of a white astilbe garden, surrounded by a low boxwood hedge, with a white climbing hydrangea behind it, on my brick garage wall.  Does this sound familiar?  It was part of the Italian garden at the Mount.  We witnessed a moment in time.  While most of us cannot live in this style, it can affect how we design our own gardens and appreciate the natural beauty all around us.