Books & Blooms Garden Weekend Returns to Cornwall

Friday–Saturday, June 19–20 | Cornwall, CT

The Cornwall Library's annual Books & Blooms Garden Weekend runs June 19 and 20, pairing a Friday evening literary talk with a Saturday self-guided tour of four private gardens across town.

The Friday program begins at 5pm at Cornwall Town Hall, where Jonathan Galassi—chairman and executive editor of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and the author of four poetry collections as well as acclaimed translations of Giacomo Leopardi, Primo Levi, and Eugenio Montale—gives a talk on writing about place and living with a garden. Galassi has edited some of the most significant literary figures of the past half century at FSG, and his own writing life has long been intertwined with his engagement with landscape and the Italian literary tradition. A cocktail reception follows at the Cornwall Library next door, with live music by the Crownback Funk Trio.

Saturday's garden tour runs from 10am to 4pm and covers four properties representing distinct approaches to garden-making. The descriptions are deliberately spare: exuberant plantings in a village setting; a landscape arranged for a postmodernist icon; a traditional garden blending into the natural landscape; and a contemporary ravine garden with sculptural drama.

Tickets for the talk and reception are $40; garden tours are also $40; a combined ticket for both is $70. Maps and tickets for the garden tour can be picked up at the Library on Friday between noon and 5pm, at the talk or reception, or at the first garden on Saturday morning from 10am onward.

The Cornwall Library, 26 Pine St., Cornwall, CT. Tickets at cornwalllibrary.org.