Thunder Lane: A Magical Garden

The drive down Thunder Lane will explain why it is so named should you unknowingly zip across its wondrous number of potholes – er, Nature’s speed bumps. So, take a tip: slow down to absorb the environment. It is worth the time.

And to take a tip from gardener/costume designer and manufacturer Lena Dun: “I’m more about the shape of the land than about tons of flowers. I love flowers but they’re not the main thing.”

Pass through two spiraling cement posts. Enter the garden at the metal arch. Follow the grass path between a meadow with an old apple orchard and a forest. Dwarf apple trees are dominant here and lend tantalizing light patterns and delicate structure to the garden.

Ahead, the path leads under a glass beaded arch and brings the visitor to a land of magic under the apples. A straw figure appears. Is it “Cousin It” or Asian protector?

Which way to go? Bear right to a gazebo in the wild flower meadow. Or follow the apples around to a lady forever preserved in glass gazing upon a bed of heart-leaved groundcover and an astral iron sculpture by Willie the Welder of Willow or maybe a colorful snake in the bushes.

In the open field, a cement sofa created by Dun welcomes the weary traveler. But beware – for you, too, may appear in glass next year. A heady circle of thyme and two tire planters like no others with canna, red perilla and glads complete the sofa bed. Its companion garden is new – a wet sun garden with pitcher plants, golden chain tree and chartreuse black locust.

Pass by another sculpture by Willie on your way to the pond where water hyacinth does its duty to remove excess nutrients so the snapping turtle can enjoy a clean home. Stop and reflect at the bench by the pond or follow the stone path between turtle and ironwork. Wooden steps rise to a cement platform where two Beijing lions guard the site of a future project.

Through tall grasses, beyond the Buddha in pine, enter the flower garden under black arbor next to purple beech on a diamond walk. Several flower gardens are packed with perennials, annuals, smokebush, weigela, incredibly colorful foliage and wide variegated grass interspersed with Dun’s cement sculptures, providing a memorable tapestry.

This is what one woman can do to a field of rubble and apple trees in ten years.

Dun designs and manufacturers Renaissance clothing and costumes which she sells at Renaissance Faires. Her gardens are all about ambience and mood, emotion and peace of mind and eye. Here, door hinges are important as are the pot holes that further the naming of Thunder Lane, the mirror girl frozen in time and space, a couch that mimics the aurora borealis, a feminine Buddha, an all-seeing cat and mouse, tea for two among lilies and glads and a checkerboard of plantings.

Do not miss the opportunity to see it on The Garden Conservancy Open Days.
Check here: www.opendaysprogram.org


**All photos by Mary Jasch except as noted.