Garden of Sculptures

Fellow bloggers, did you ever have a post you started working on, put aside and then forgot about it for one reason or another? This one was like that. It's not that we didn't find it a fun day trip, but that we saw so much!

In late spring, we took a 45-minute trip from Nashua to Lee, NH to visit a public garden, which wasn't always a garden. That's because, what's now home to an amazing garden of plants and unique sculptures was once a 37-acre dairy farm that had been abandoned for about 40 years. 

These fields, where cows freely grazed, is now home to a public garden where whimsical metal sculptures like these above capture the imagination and they were everywhere we looked.

Jill Nooney & Bob Munger

Bedrock Gardens is a 20-acre garden situated on a former dairy farm that dates to the 1700s. In 1980, the land was  purchased by husband and wife, Jill Nooney and Bob Munger who started planning and planting their garden vision in 1985. Nooney is a clinical social worker, sculptor designer and metal fabricator with an extensive knowledge of gardens. Munger is a retired doctor and a self-described tinkerer who designed many of the gardens walkways and water features. They designed, created and maintained the garden for over 25 years and designed the landscapes to showcase Nooney’s very unusual sculptures. The gardens showcase over 1,000 varying plant species, many in perennial beds that are arranged by texture, color, and size. 

Former farm house (Internet source)

The former dairy farm included a farm house, circa 1740, historic barn, 3-hole outhouse and 37-acre of scrub forest. Over the next two decades, 20-acres were developed into a large ornamental garden. The first years were spent clearing out acres of poison ivy. The scrub growth and grown-in fields were cleared, access roads were established, and woods were thinned, trimmed, and managed under forester and arborist advice. Wooded areas were lumbered to create a trail system. In 1991, a wildlife pond was built, and work started on perennial and shrub beds. Walls, paths, water features, structures, and topographical improvements, have been added over the years. Currently, two-thirds of the property is garden.

In 2013, the Friends of Bedrock Gardens was formed as a non-profit foundation. Its goal is to promote and support the gardens and operate it as a public garden. All board members are volunteers. The gardens are financed by admissions, donations, grants and memberships.

This year was the first season that Bedrock Gardens operated as a nonprofit public garden. Our admission passes were obtained through the Nashua Public Library website where the Friends of the NPL provide funding for library patrons to visit museums, science centers and other attractions within NH and Boston at reduced costs.

Bedrock Gardens includes botanical specimens and unique sculptures into a landscape journey. Scattered throughout the 20-developed acres are small and large pieces of sculpture created by co-founder Nooney. Many of the sculptures consist of old agricultural tools.

Exploring the gardens is designed as a journey along a three-quarter mile path through distinct garden areas accented by pools, fountains, seating areas, pergolas, long vistas, and quiet spaces. Unusual plants collected and nurtured by the co-founders are found throughout the gardens, along with benches, chairs, and tables available to rest or enjoy a picnic lunch.

The gardens contain many different features, all linked with pathways. There’s a spiral garden, perennial beds, a small garden with a pond and fountain, and the barn garden, lined with a towering hedge, and a wall of 26 small sculptured metal creations made from old farm tools.

The Wiggle Waggle (below) is a 200-foot water channel planted with lotus and lilies. Throughout the gardens are examples of Nooney’s sculptures and artwork.

Not to be outdone by his partner, Munger has his own special sculpture ↓ hanging in the gardens. In case you were wondering what it was in life, it's a complete horse skeleton.

The day we visited, the gardens were relatively uncrowded with no limit on time spent exploring. While a printed guide was available, we mostly enjoyed just wandering around. One of the paths led to this Buddha statue ↓ placed under a giant metal halo suspended from tree branches.

One area within the gardens houses a large collection of metal parts of varying sizes and shapes (below). Most likely some of these will eventually be used to create more one-of-a-kind sculptures. This is recycling in a major way.

Bedrock Gardens was a place we will most likely revisit one day. There was so much beauty in the garden itself, and it was even more fun seeing the metal sculptures dispersed throughout.