Eco-Tour – Flying Trillium Gardens and Preserve

Flying Trillium Gardens and Preserve is located in the southern Catskill Mountains in Sullivan County, NY. (Please note the tour location is not in Tarrytown.) The gardens are an ongoing work by author, teacher, and landscape designer, Carolyn Summers. Throughout her career, Carolyn has been acutely aware of the need for clients, DIY homeowners, and designers to be able to see how lovely native plants are when used in garden settings.

The Catskills – mostly in a Zone 5 climate – makes an excellent test for fitness and hardiness. In addition to managed gardens, large areas of the property are preserved to protect native flora in their natural habitats, along with the wildlife that depend on them. The meadows at Flying Trillium include successional hayfields to which Carolyn has opportunistically added native wildflowers, as well as those similar to the Eastern lupine meadow, where she was able to seed onto bare ground.  These areas of the meadow are considered “augmented” and “designed.”

Flying Trillium Gardens and Preserve includes over 300 trees and shrubs native to the northeast, including unusual cultivated varieties, hybrids and over 75 dwarf selections of our native conifers. Since 2000, a complete collection of trees native to the greater Catskills region is being assembled. Tour the demonstration gardens to see how to integrate plants into your landscape.

Join us for this guided tour to experience the beauty, diversity and sustainability of our native flora for yourself. Carolyn’s goal is for you to leave inspired to plant more of the same.

Carolyn Summers is the author of Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East. After completing her BSLA (Landscape Architecture) at CCNY, she began an atypical career with the Trust for Public Land, producing the Harbor Herons Project  that guided an urban wildlife refuge on Staten Island. Carolyn continued environmental work with New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection as the agency’s first Director of Natural Resources, continuing work on restoration projects. She then worked at the Natural Resources Defense Council, initiating a regional project to preserve and restore wildlife habitat and public access in the New York-New Jersey Bight. Carolyn  is currently an adjunct professor for Go Native U, a joint project of Westchester Community College’s Continuing Ed Program and The Native Plant Center (based at Westchester Community College). Most recently, she and her husband have opened their country home, Flying Trillium Gardens and Preserve to public tours. By sharing the beauty of native plants in both garden and natural settings, Carolyn hopes to inspire designers, gardeners, and homeowners to expand the use of native plants in their own projects.