Stonecrop Gardens — Attraction in Town of Philipstown

From a photographers standpoint it a beautiful garden, it was clearly laid out by someone that had artistic taste. They put up walls or tall bushes to keep each garden isolated, using hills and low points to create a surprise garden. The location has a magical feel, like Gandalf was going to pop out of the bushes and pressure me in having a quest of some kind. And you will have an adventure.

Why? Because the paths are not clearly marked, we almost missed a garden, and we could have gotten hurt in one area. Even now I'm not sure if we should have gone down the rocky path in the gravel garden. There was a stunning hobbit like gazebo in one pond. But the only way to go down, was to traverse a rocky slope, that unless you were nimble and well balanced, its the only way to get down it. If it were damp, it would be a lot more dangerous. If you have a person with a cane, a limp, a hurt leg, a child, etc, they will fall off of this and drown. There are no railings - and I'm still not sure if we were supposed to go down it or not. The building was opening at the bottom, so it must have been a path. If your listening Stone crop garden - PUT IN RAILS! and an alternate path to get down or up.

Because we did want to risk that climb again, we wanted to find a different way out. We ended up walking in circles, until we found a very steep grassy hill. This would have been a perfect spot for a stair case. We got to the top and headed toward a building that was under construction. The guy said we couldn't go through, he said go down the road and make a left. So we did, we ended up walking a very long distance, stupidly we crossed over the section of the road that was meant to stop deer. It was a 15ft span of metal pipes spaced 10" apart, that we got across a step at a time. There was no safe way for a human to cross it in an emergency. Looking at the GPS, I saw that we were headed back for the long road going into the place. Deciding this is the wrong direction, we went back over that grating, and finally found the road the guy was talking about - it was not marked.

So go, if you like gardens that have a fantasy theme, I recommend when the wisteria was out (it wasn't when we went in middle June). Its a higher elevation and it seems the peonies were all still strong, they were dead where I lived at near sea level. The irises were fading when we got there, So I would say this is probably a...

So we got here about 40 mins before closing ( hour drive plus being a parent can sometimes run you behind but besides the point ) The grounds themselves were nice however I’ve gone to other botanical gardens/ arboretums for less than what they charge, $20 dollars for two adults to see what we saw I wasn’t to impressed , we were not handed a map and I even asked from the VERY beginning where this one gazebo was so we were looking for one particular area we saw online and had a hard time finding it, the staff told us it wasn’t accessible with a baby stroller but we were determined to see this one particular area ( one of the main reasons for going here ) so we searched all over and they didn’t bother to tell us it was right behind the main entrance! we had to ask other patrons there to find it and guess what we did fine getting our child there - if they would have shared where this one gazebo was right from the start it would have saved us 15 + minutes walking around clueless , it was a nice place but I will not be taking my business here again because of the staff and their constant need to rush us off and not care that we had a baby with us and drove an hour away we were in our car trying to pull up the directions to go back home and the one lady was rushing us out of the parking lot ( we weren’t even in the main garden area anymore ) meanwhile there was still another person with two kids still inside the actual gardens and we just felt this cold rushed attitude it was literally 10 mins after and we were already in our car I am so disappointed I’ve worked in customer service and had plenty of jobs where I’ve gone over my time by a few mins to help customers etc - on mother’s day weekend none the less as a mother to a small baby I don’t appreciate being rushed to that extent and no friendly good byes thank you for your business etc nothing ! These people need a lesson in customer...

I was expecting more. I've worked in the Green Industry, and have been to many botanic gardens, and they are usually meticulously maintained. I was here in late September, and the one area (can't remember the name) with the plants in raised beds grouped by plant families was very overgrown, not groomed or weeded, in a state of decline. In my opinion, this area should be roped off till it is improved. We got a map when we arrived, but there was little to no signage to help get from one area to another, and it was confusing. Getting around the wooded area with the ponds was hard to navigate, and some of the footing was tenuous - slippery rocks, tree roots, etc. No warning that this would be a tricky area. Even leaving the parking area wasn't marked so we wound up leaving the back way, which turned into gravel. On the upside, the troughs were beautiful, and I enjoyed perusing the sales area. The best part was the perennial beds garden, which were filled with towering, well maintained, showy plants. The pond area by the conservatory was pretty, but the conservatory was almost empty. We are members of another botanic garden so we used the AHS reciprocal program for free entry. Glad we didn't...