Deep Roots at Bedrock Gardens

Jill Nooney and Bob Munger are supported by a paperbark maple and flanked by found-object sculptures in the Barn Garden. Photo by Morgan Karanasios

In the introduction of a new book about Jill Nooney and her husband Bob Munger’s remarkable garden in Lee, “Bedrock: The Making of a Public Garden,” Nooney writes that, in part, she “created the garden to indulge my artistic juices and my plant-collecting lust.” Perhaps referring to her indefatigable nature, she goes on to say that “the real reason I created the garden is to bring me some peace and soothe my soul.”

What began rather modestly in 1987 as one woman’s private sanctuary carved out of an abandoned dairy farm has, over four decades, evolved into a 30-acre public space nurtured by Nooney and Munger’s curious minds, hard work and patience. In 2014, on their fourth attempt, Friends of Bedrock Gardens was awarded nonprofit status. In 2021 alone, the garden had 14,000 visitors, and two years later, Nooney and Munger gifted the garden to the Friends of Bedrock Gardens to be enjoyed by all as a public garden.

In describing Bedrock Gardens, it’s impossible not to refer to it as a work of art. Twenty-eight different garden spaces, with names as relatable as Allée and as intriguing as Pate and Hives, fan out from the circa-1740 farmhouse that Nooney purchased in 1980.

Over the decades, Nooney, has been involved in multiple endeavors — often simultaneously — in addition to creating and tending her garden. She raised three sons, did her art and co-owned a company called Fine Garden Art and Ornaments. A licensed clinical psychologist who had a private practice for 42 years, she also graduated from Radcliffe’s renowned Seminars Program in Landscape Design. “For my final thesis,” she says, “I gave myself two years to find as many noteworthy New Hampshire gardens as possible that were designed before 1950 and whose important elements remained.” Final tally: 80, some in better shape than others.

There are recurring themes in Nooney’s personal history. “I’ve hung onto three passions my entire life: the human condition, art and plants,” she says. This trio of obsessions underlie how she creates her gardens. “I try to make areas unique unto themselves,” she explains. “I like to have different personalities, different feelings — some are more contemplative, some are more exciting, some are colorful, some are shades of green, some are shady, some are Asian-inspired, some are French-inspired.”

Woven through the property are numerous structural elements such as paths, an espaliered fence, an arborvitae hedge, architecturally interesting rocks and pergolas. There’s a pond, a tea house and a gothic arbor. The exceptional plant varieties in the beds, often started as seedlings, include many unusual specimens of perennials, trees and shrubs. “We plant about 2,000 annuals,” says Nooney. “When you’re a public garden, you need to have color in all seasons.”

Within this horticultural masterpiece, and a defining element to the gardens, is Nooney’s own art — 200 garden sculptures made from metal, wood and other materials she discovers in places like yard sales, flea markets and sometimes by knocking on a stranger’s door. Items from her collection of raw materials include horse hames, electrical insulators, cow stanchions, broken shovels, metal shoe lasts and disc harrows, to name a few.

One of her found-object sculptures, called “Gotta Go,” is in the shape of a girl (some say a waitress) with her legs crossed who has a torso made from the foot pedal of a treadle sewing machine and arms that were once footrests for a buckboard buggy; “Tanker” evolved out of a 275-gallon oil tank Nooney was gifted from a neighbor. “Finding raw materials is similar to plant hunting,” she says, clearly enjoying both pursuits.

In a note dated June 1953, Nooney’s nursery school teacher wrote to her parents: “Jill is our little flower girl. She brings flowers from home, takes them back again at noon along with the new ones she has just picked. She is always carrying flowers.” This prescient student evaluation illustrates Nooney’s innate nature-loving disposition. Bedrock
Gardens, you will learn from this book, is a testament to her blood, sweat and tears.

To find out how you can purchase a copy of Bedrock: The Making of a Public Garden,go to bedrockgardens.org/bedrock-book.