COLD SPRING, NY: On Saturday, May 21th, visit four private gardens and two public gardens, open to the public for self-guided tours through the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program in Amenia, Dover Plains, Millbrook, and Wappingers Falls, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission to each private garden is $7, benefitting the Garden Conservancy, Innisfree Gardens, and the Amenia Free Library; children 12 and under are free. Open Days are rain or shine, and no reservations are required. Call 1-888-842-2442, or visit www.opendaysprogram.org for more information.
Private gardens open on May 21st Open Day include the following:
- Broccoli Hall – Maxine Paetro, 23 Flint Hill Road, Amenia – an English cottage-style, including a secret teddy bear’s picnic, an apple tunnel, lavish spring bulbs, and a koi pond.
- Mead Farm House Garden; 224 Perry’s Corners Road, Amenia – a 250-year-old farmyard, rocky outcrops, bog garden, interesting trees, and long views of the surrounding landscape.
- Copperheads, 1249 Route 343, Dover Plains – home grown plants for sale, plus a boxwood parterre of vegetables and cutting flowers, a frog pond, a perennial garden enclosed by tall hedges, and an extensive woodland garden, all on a challenging sloping terrain.
- Garden of Anne Spiegel, 299 Maloney Road, Wappingers Falls – an award-winning, dramatic natural rock garden with stepped ledges, screes, sand beds, tufas, and crevice beds, enhanced by stone walls.
Public gardens open on this date include:
- Innisfree Gardens, 362 Tyrell Road, Millbrook – a distinctly American stroll garden with compositions of rock, water, wood, and sky.
- Wethersfield, 214 Pugsley Hill Road, Amenia – offering discounted admission to Open Days visitors, and guided tours at 11 a.m. and 2:15 p.m.
Additional area Open Days will take place on June 18 in Amenia; June 25 in Poughkeepsie; July 3 in Pawling; July 9 in Amenia; July 30 in Millbrook and Millerton; August 6 in Rhinebeck and Tivoli; September 24 in Clinton Corners, Millbrook, and Stanfordville; and October 15 in Pawling.
All Open Days gardens are featured in the 2016 Open Days Directory; a soft-cover book that includes detailed driving directions and vivid garden descriptions written by their owners. The directory includes garden listings in eighteen states and costs $25.95 including shipping. Visit www.opendaysprogram.orgor call the Garden Conservancy toll-free at 1-888-842-2442 to order with a Visa, MasterCard or American Express, or send a check or money order to: the Garden Conservancy, P.O. Box 219, Cold Spring, NY 10516. Discount admission tickets are available as well through advanced mail order.
The Garden Conservancy created the Open Days program in 1995 as a means of introducing the public to gardening, providing easy access to outstanding examples of design and horticultural practice, and proving that exceptional American gardens are still being created. Its mission to share American gardens with the public is achieved each season, through the work of hundreds of private garden hosts and volunteers nationwide. Digging Deeper, a new series of Open Days programming, is designed to offer a deeper look into the gardening world through immersive experiences with artists, designers, gardeners, authors and other creative professionals. The Open Days program is America’s only national private garden-visiting program. For information and a complete schedule of Open Days visit the Garden Conservancy online at www.opendaysprogram.org.