On Mother’s Day we went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum so I could revisit the Monks Garden , newly designed by Michael VanValkenburg in 2013. I wanted to see how it was filling out, and if it really went ‘crazy with hellebores” in the spring. This is where we entered on the graceful curving path.

Visitors to the Museum can also enter the Monks Garden from one of the galleries. The trees are indeed filling out.

Hellebores are very modest plants and it’s hard to see them going crazy, but the garden is certainly crazy with varieties of white daffodils that really stand out among other ground covers, and plants that will come into bloom later in the season.

Because I am thinking how to create my own stroll garden I was paying particular to  the way the paths curved and split and joined again, embracing the beds of trees and flowers that provided so much privacy for the visitors.

The oldest tree in the garden is the ancient Katsura. All the shagbark maples, birches, stewartias and conifers are new.

Of course, there are many beautiful flowers and trees in the famous interior courtyard. And the new museum rule is that photos  are  allowed in the courtyard, and in the Monks Garden. Hooray!

A beautiful celebration for a hot Mother’s Day.