We take the liberty of reprinting an article from The Berkshire Edge by Emily Edelman:

Berkshire Botanical Garden has received a gift of a world-class topiary garden, donated by Lucy and Nat Day of Greenwich, Connecticut.

The donated garden is considered one of the finest topiary collections in North America and includes 23 large, custom-designed topiaries in nine different vignettes including cavorting frogs; a hunting dog and pheasant; a yew wing chair and boxwood easy chair; and Jumbo the elephant, with his multi-ton root ball, howdah with glass ball finials, and water-spouting trunk.

“The donation of this beautiful, established, collection brings a wonderfully dynamic, sculptural element to the Garden,” said BBG board chairman and topiarist Matt Larkin of Grant Larkin design company in Richmond, “and its relocation nearly 100 miles to Stockbridge is unprecedented. Topiary gardens of this scope are quite rare, and to pick one up and move it is unheard of.”

Moving a topiary garden of this size has required a team effort at both locations. The topiaries were hand-dug by Dennis Gendron and a crew of 10 from Twin Brooks Gardens in Millbrook, New York. The pieces were removed with a crane operated by Thad Tomlinson of Berkshire Crane in Lanesborough. Once loaded into trucks, the topiaries were trucked more than three hours to BBG, off-loaded and temporarily housed on wooden pallets to await their planting.  Photo below by Robin Parow.