Fête des Fleurs Invites Guests to "Enter Lucy's Garden"
The Berkshire Botanical Garden's topiary collection officially opened at the annual garden party.
The Berkshire Botanical Garden's topiary collection officially opened at the annual garden party.
Lucy Day with Matt Larkin, BBG board chairman and creator of 23 of the topiaries in the Days' collection.
Back in late October, on that rainy-snowy day when I visited the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge, Mass. to watch the donated topiaries get moved into place, I had an inkling what the theme would be for this year’s Fête des Fleurs. “Enter Lucy’s Garden” honored Lucy and Nat Day, who gifted the topiaries, and invited supporters to enter the whimsical world of this new permanent exhibition. On Saturday, June 8, the Fête des Fleurs was rich with experiences — the chance to climb aboard Jumbo the elephant’s howdah, to sit for a caricature, listen to Boston-based swing band The Late Risers, and enjoy a buffet catered by Main Street Hospitality Group. At the ribbon cutting, Matt Larkin presented Lucy Day, fairy godmother of the new garden collection, with a bracelet sporting charms in the shape of some of the topiaries. Letting go of the collection was a supremely generous gift, and I wondered if Lucy Day was sad the topiaries no longer lived outside her door. But amid the profuse thanks from the guests, she was ever gracious. “They’re where they belong,” she said, definitively.









Matteline deVries-Dilling, founder of Lite Brite Neon, one of the evening's honoree of this year's Upstate Benefit adresses the gala from the Caboose's caboose.
- Karen Pearson. Courtesy Art Omi.
Olana senior vice president and landscape curatorMark Prezorski, president Sean Sawyer, The evenings honoree Kristin Gamble and New York State Assemblymember Didi Barrett.
- Oxygen House Photo