Community Day at Innisfree Garden Includes Early Morning Light, Curator's Tour and More

Celebrate the peak of spring in the Hudson Valley this holiday weekend with family and friends at Innisfree. Come for the sunrise, stay for the day. It is magical!

Innisfree Garden is a powerful icon of mid-20th-century design; it is recognized as one of the world’s 10 best gardens and is listed at the highest level — exceptional national significance — on the National Register of Historic Places.

Below is Innisfree's schedule of events for its Spring Community Day on May 25.

Click here to purchase tickets for any or all of these events.

• Early Morning Light: Innisfree opens at 4:30 am for those intrepid souls who are willing to get up early (or stay up very late) to experience the sun's golden light dramatically flooding the garden. As the morning mist clears, spring greens will be doubled in reflections on the lake. Best. Date. Ever! Equally great as a solo adventure or one with family and friends. Come early with your camera, easel, or birding binoculars. Bring a picnic breakfast or lunch. Grab a novel and stay all day! Japanese primroses, yellow foxgloves, and peonies should be in bloom.

• Curator's Tour: At 10:30 a.m., join Innisfree's Landscape Curator, Kate Kerin, for a 1.5-hour guided tour through the garden, learning about the people and ideas that shaped this living landmark.

• Swimming Dragon Qigong for Longevity and Vitality: At 3 p.m., Cris Caivano hosts this session. Qigong’s venerable Swimming Dragon exercise is reputed to be the best way to promote health, longevity, and youthful vitality. (The legacy holder who taught the form to Cris’s teacher was 106 years old!). Qigong is a traditional Chinese mind-body-spirit health practice that has evolved over more than four millennia. The flowing, unforced exercises of Qigong are based on observations of how water, plants, and animals move. This all-ages program, part of Innisfree’s ongoing Roots of Inspiration Series, is beginner friendly. Participants should wear comfortable shoes and clothing that allows for easy movement.

• Note: Thanks to a generous grant from the Northeast Dutchess Fund of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Innisfree is delighted to offer discounted garden admission on Community Day to residents of these Northeast Dutchess County communities: Amenia, Clinton Corners, Dover Plains, Millbrook, Millerton, North East, Pine Plains, Stanford, Washington, Wassaic, Wingdale and their hamlets. To take advantage of this perfect stay-cation, Northeast Dutchess residents must present proof of residency upon arrival.