Gardening is the most ephemeral art. A garden is in constant flux, season to season and moment to moment.

— Will & Ariel Durant

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I visited the most lovely ephemeral art gallery this weekend, Bedrock Gardens in Lee, NH. It’s a private garden, owned and loved since 1987 by Jill Nooney and Bob Munger, sculptors and gardeners. It’s open to the public on the third Saturday and Sunday of each month from May through October, and if you are within 2 or 3 hours, it’s well worth the visit. There are 20 acres of gardens on 37 acres of land, but it feels like more, because of the level of detail, in the plants, hardscaping, water, and sculpture. It was about 86F degrees when I was there, which was wonderful, in the sun, by the water bodies, and in the plenteous shade.

There’s a map of the garden, and many docents available to help you find what you’re looking for. The owners were on hand to answer questions. Visitors can buy a salad or sandwich for lunch, or bring a picnic to eat anywhere on the grounds.

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We strolled, taking our time, through the gardens twice in about 2.5 hours, the second time along the outer woodsy loop behind most of the garden plantings, where debris is gathered. I took about 360 photos and kept 200, all of which I’d like to post but I’ll spare you. Eventually they’ll all be available via my Flickr account.

For now, here’s a mini tour, with as accurate labelling as I could manage. You really have to visit.

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The House Area

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The Parterre Garden, enclosed with a yew hedge

 

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Straight & Narrow Garden, Funnel Gardens

 

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Swaleway

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Spiral Garden: “Twirling roof ventilators on spiral poles emphasize the Fibonacci based paving laid in a moss floor.”

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Baxis: “Three sinusoidal beds (Fountain Grass, Smokebush, and Winterberry) flank the Baxis. The path runs through a high pergola in the shape of a double triangle.”

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The Dark Woods

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The Pond and Termi. Pond constructed in 1991 and filled with rainwater. Termi offers two thrones for rest. 

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Petit Pond, with entrance framed by the tall sculpture The Acrobats, holds waterfalls, rocks, ponds, hostas and other shade plants, a tea house with a bed. A lot to see in a small space.

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Conetown — “A pineturn, of fifty or so dwarf and standard conifers” — and The Pate — “Undulating sculpted privet hedges tonsure a balding prominence”

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The Wiggle Waggle: “A two hundred foot water channel, planted with lotus and lilies, wiggles between the Spring House and the CopTop.”

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 Garish Garden, clashes of flower, paint, sculpture colour:

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GrassAcre: “Red, green, and blue grasses (Switchgrass, Hanoke Grass, and Little Blue Stem) read as an abstract painting from the barn. SyncoPeaks, a sculpture of layered scrims, evokes distant mountain horizons.”

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Belgian Fence/Espalier Apple: “Several types of apple trees are espaliered in the diamond-shaped Belgian style to form a hundred-foot fence. A solid wall of Arborvitae ‘Emerald Green’ tops  the ‘HaHa Wall'”

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The Outer-Woods Path

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And everything else!

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Hope you enjoyed the photos, but if you’re nearby, do yourself a favour and visit. And make a donation to the Friends of the Garden, to protect the future of this whimsical work of living art. (As the owners say: “‘The Garden Dies When the Gardener Dies’ – a truism always on our mind, since our combined age is 135 years.”)

More on the art and artist, and information about some of the sculptures, here.

More information on the garden at Wikipedia, in the Boston Globe (May 2014), and on Jill Nooney at Avant Gardens’ Garden Foreplay.

A great article in Garden Design Magazine about Nooney’s five suggestions for the placement of art in the garden.

A brief Aug. 2013 YouTube video of the gardens gives a sense of the mood and rhythm of the place.