Autumn Splendor at Stonecrop
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Stonecrop Gardens has become a destination for gardeners and students of landscape design since it opened to the public in 1992. I have visited several times in different seasons, and find it particularly striking in the fall.
Its founder was Frank Cabot, a financier and self-taught horticulturalist who began gardening to relieve the pressures of venture capitalism and ended up creating two of the most celebrated gardens in North America—Stonecrop in New York, and Les Quatre Vents in Quebec. He also founded the Garden Conservancy, and served as chairman of the New York Botanical Garden and advisor to botanic gardens in Brooklyn and Ontario.
the gravel garden with alpines and dwarf conifers
Stonecrop began as a private garden in 1958, when Frank and his wife, Anne, built their home on 60 acres in the Hudson Highlands at an elevation of 1,100 feet. They began to garden on the rocky site and soon developed a passion for alpine plants. Since choice alpines were hard to come by, they started their own alpine mail-order nursery. Although the nursery no longer operates, you will see many alpines in Stonecrop’s gardens and greenhouses, that available for sale.
Tufa troughs with alpines and dwarf conifers
Over the years the Cabots’ garden grew to 12. In the mid-1980s, they began planning for Stonecrop to become a public garden that would inspire and educate other gardeners. They engaged English horticulturist Caroline Burgess, who had studied at Kew Gardens and worked for Rosemary Verey. Under Caroline’s direction, Stonecrop’s gardens have expanded in scope and diversity and now contain an encyclopedic collection of plants. Caroline continues to serve Stonecrop as its director today.
Caroline Burgess in the systematic garden
A visit to Stonecrop is a serious immersion in plants and design ideas. Plan to spend several hours with a plant list in hand. Some of the highlights include a cliff rock garden, woodland, and water gardens, an enclosed English-style flower garden, and systematic order beds representing over 50 plant families.
Asters, dahlias and persicaria in bloom in the flower garden
The flower garden is an english-style cottage garden with color-themed beds
Inspiration may be found in all seasons, from the spring show of bulbs and the explosion of color on the cliff ledge, to summer’s profusion in the flower garden and the subtleties of fall foliage and fruit in the woodland. In late September when I visited, the flower garden was bursting with tall dahlias, asters, love-lies-a-bleeding, persicarias and other perennials and annuals.
The rock ledge was built from stone on the property as well as blasted rock from a road construction project. A lovely stone bridge lies across the pond, which is surrounded by weeping katsuras and cherries and a grove of metasequoias. Rock crevices are planted with dianthus, dwarf Lady’s Mantle, bergenia and sedums. A wisteria-covered pergola offers beautiful views of the pond and woodland.
The woodlands are carpeted with ferns, hostas, Goat’s Beard, Solomon’s Seal and sedges. In autumn, the acteas are lovely. Rodgersia frames a second pond with a 2,000-square-foot conservatory housing tender specimens, and display greenhouses of alpines, tropicals, and succulents.
Stonecrop, 81 Stonecrop Ln., Cold Spring, NY 10516 (845) 265-2000 www.stonecrop.org
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