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Innisfree Garden to host annual Spring Community Day

MILLBROOK — Innisfree Garden is set to welcome northeast Dutchess residents for its annual Spring Community Day.

The beloved community event returns Saturday, May 23 — with free admission for residents of Millerton, North East, Amenia, Wassaic, Pine Plains, Clinton Corners, Dover Plains, Pleasant Valley, Stanford, Wingdale, Washington, and of course, Millbrook. Visitors seeking free admission must present identification showing residency in one of the listed towns or hamlets.

There’s a day of programming in store, too. The garden opens at 10 a.m., then Qigong exercise lessons with Cris Caivano kick off at 10:30 a.m. Discounted tickets for the day’s events are available to Dutchess County residents, who are invited to “stretch like a tiger, twist like a dragon,” through guided stretching and acupressure exercises.

Then at 2:30 p.m., visitors are invited along on The Great Pollinator Ramble. Part scavenger hunt, part live theater, the Ramble features larger-than-life pollinator puppets spread across Innisfree’s 185 acres. Nature lovers can use the provided habitat map to find and identify 10 key pollinators that frequent the garden.

“We’re always looking for ways we can introduce the arts into Innisfree,” said Innisfree Executive Director Laura Palmer. “It’s a celebration of the natural environment and all the richness of the natural world.”

Birds, butterflies, beetles and other pollinators will be represented through the oversized puppets, which were designed by Processional Arts Workshop, a Red Hook-based collective led by co-directors Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles.

The concept dates back five years, when the COVID pandemic challenged Processional Arts to develop outdoor programming that could activate public spaces.

“The idea was, if you set loose pollinator puppets in a natural environment, you can encourage people to look deeper at their surroundings,” Kahn said. “It becomes a kind of hide and seek with these species.”

After successful rambles at Catskill’s Thomas Cole House, Hudson’s Olana State Historic Site, and Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Kahn and Michahelles are bringing their pollinators to Innisfree.

The puppeteers are instructed to be elusive and shy, hiding in the garden’s remote corners — as their real-life counterparts might. In that way, visitors are encouraged to investigate parts of the grounds they might bypass.

Spring Community Day is in its sixth year at Innisfree. It serves as the kickoff to the garden’s warm-weather programming season, which includes guided nature walks, wellness workshops, calligraphy classes and live music. A full calendar is available at innisfreegarden.org/events

Graham Corrigan
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