This playful garden simulates the entrance and exit through the arches (with upright trained larches) simulating the “rabbit hole” and entering “Wonderland”. It is so named for the central chess board and topiaries of knights. The four corner trees are amur maackia (maackia amurensis). These are rare in this part of the world as amur maackia is native to “the Amur region” of Manchuria (northeastern China and Korea). It is named for Richard Karlovich Maack, a 19th century Russian naturalist.

The Chess pieces are made of teak hand-carved in Bali, Indonesia. The black squares are “ubatuba” granite from Africa and the white granite is from Vermont. The cupboard with cedar doors, to the rear of the chessboard is for winter storage of the chess pieces. Other interesting plants in the beds on either side of the gazebo (with equipped kitchen) are the red tipped Crimson Fans (mukdenia rossii ‘crimson fans’), Alice & Rabbit and Paper-bark Maples (acer griseum).

Of note are the beds nearest the vineyard (symmetrical on the other side). With a background in Mesoamerican archaeology, the owner wanted to incorporate certain important myths in the history of those peoples. One of these is the story of the plumed serpent – Quetzalcoatl (Aztec) or Kukulkan (Mayan). The plumed serpent can be seen in these beds made from wavy blue grasses, the golden plumes in cedar and the central green head.

The grassy area at the rear of the property in front of the barn (where equipment is stored) is an 15 X 125 Lawn Bowling Green. This game is very popular in England, Canada and throughout the old British Empire, but is one of the few greens in this country. The game is similar to bocce ball. Lawn Bowls differs, however, as the playing balls are not round and are weighted.

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