The Hills Are Alive
18 ★ FTWeekend 2 May/3 May 2015 House Home perfect, natural columns of Ginkgo biloba“Menhir”. Pergolasandterraces,whichdripwith trumpet vine in summer, look down on standing stones and a massive “stone Returning to Innisfree after 15 years, Jane Owen henge”framingthelake. A grass dome, “possibly a chunk of mountain top or some such cast finds out whether this living work of art in down by the glacier that created the lake”, says Oliver, is echoed by clipped New York State retains its magic domes of Pyrus calleryana, the pear nativetoChina. Beyond the white pine woods, the path becomes boggy and narrow, criss- crossed with tree roots, moss and fungi. A covered wooden bridge reminds visi- torsthisisanall-Americanlandscape. Buteventheall-American,maplesyr- The hills up-supplying sugar maples here come with a twist. They are Acer saccharum “Monumentale” and, like the ginkgos, are naturally column-shaped. Innis- free’s American elms went years ago, are alive . victims of Dutch elm disease, but the Hemlocks are hanging on, with the help ofinsecticidetofightthewoollyadelgid. Larger garden pests include beavers, which have built a lodge 100m from the bout 90 miles west of the Iwillariseandgonow,andgoto bubble fountain, and deer. At least the thrumming heart of New Innisfree, . latter has a use, as part of a programme York City is a landscape Ihearlakewaterlappingwithlow of hunters donating food for those in that stirs my soul. I rate soundsbytheshore; need. So the dispossessed eat venison, it along with Villa Lante, WhileIstandontheroadway,oron albeitthetough,end-of-seasonsort. AThe Garden of Cosmic Speculation, thepavementsgrey, All is beautiful, but there’s one Liss Ard in Ireland, Little Sparta, Nin- Ihearitinthedeepheart’score.
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