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Hudson Valley Garden Tour Afterward

by DIG-IT

On Wednesday, September 13, the Rollin' Garden Party Bus rolled out of Scranton, PA, to visit Innisfree Garden, a magnificent 150-acre public garden in Millbrook, NY, nearby Junto Farm and Catskill Native Nursery.

After an hour and a half guided tour at Innisfree, we picniced on the shady banks of its glacial lake. Innisfree is a modernized version of ancient Chinese and Japanese paintings of nature and gardens. The lake was its inspiration for the "cup garden," a Chinese and Japanese concept. Here, cup gardens range from the sizeable lake to tiny cup gardens, such as flowers surrounding a moss-covered rock or ferns surrounding a boulder covered in lichens.

Next stop: Junto Farm, a 200-acre mountaintop private residence overlooking the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River. We had a guided tour of some of its 40-acre cultivated landscape, including a green roof that covered the second story of the very modern house of mahogany and glass.

Lastly, we stopped and shopped at Catskill Native Nursery. Even the bus driver looked for ferns! It's an amazing garden and plant source run by extraordinary people and their two Icelandic Sheep Dogs!

**All photos by Mary Jasch

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