Stroll through Bunny Mellon’s Virginia Garden

An exclusive look inside one of the South’s most fabulous secret gardens

Throughout her fascinating life, Rachel “Bunny” Mellon collected art, traveled widely, and befriended presidents and royalty. But nothing inspired the wealthy tastemaker and arts patron, who died in 2014 at age 103, more than time spent in her gardens. Long tucked behind private fences, Mellon’s greenspaces included the Rose Garden she designed at the White House, her family properties in Nantucket and Antigua, and her beloved sprawling horse-country estate, Oak Spring, in Upperville, Virginia. For the first time ever, a new coffee-table book, The Gardens of Bunny Mellon, takes readers behind the gates to learn more about Mellon’s deeply rooted love of gardening. Here, a selection of images capture her Commonwealth estate, which is now maintained by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation.

October 22, 2018

1 of 13

Bunny Mellon prunes a crab apple tree at her Oak Spring garden and farm in Upperville, Virginia.

Photo: courtesy of Sotheby’s

2 of 13

A view of the axial path descending through terraces and on to the formal greenhouse.

Photo: Roger Foley

3 of 13

A millstone is embedded in the steps leading down from the kitchen patio to the upper terrace.

Photo: Roger Foley

4 of 13

Flower beds burst with blooms.

Photo: Roger Foley

5 of 13

The formal garden, as seen from the main house.

Photo: Roger Foley

6 of 13

An espaliered hawthorn tree.

Photo: Roger Foley

7 of 13

The axial path in the formal garden extends from the patio outside the kitchen through three terraces.

Photo: Roger Foley

8 of 13

Trompe l’oeil murals by artist Fernand Renard cover the central pavilion in the greenhouse. Doors open to reveal a storage cupboard and potting counter.

Photo: Roger Foley

9 of 13

An assortment of vessels on display in the Basket House.

Photo: Roger Foley

10 of 13

Apple trees in the Oak Spring Farm orchard.

Photo: Roger Foley

11 of 13

The allée in its autumn glory.

Photo: Roger Foley

12 of 13

Mellon walking through the allée toward the formal garden.

Photo: courtesy of Sotheby’s

13 of 13

The Gardens of Bunny Mellon. Photos courtesy of Vendome Press.

CJ Lotz Diego is a Garden & Gun deputy editor. A staffer since 2013, she wrote G&G’s bestselling Bless Your Heart trivia game, edits the Due South travel section, and covers gardens, books, and art. Originally from Eureka, Missouri, she graduated from Indiana University and now lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where she tends a downtown pocket garden with her florist husband, Max.