Filios Garden

For decades, Candy and Achilles Filios have been creating their own Greek paradise overlooking Cayuga Lake. The gardens are anchored by beautiful stone walls and outbuildings, including a potting shed that will make you drool with envy, all built by Achilles in the style of his native Greece. The gardens include many flowers and ornamental plantings but also have a strong focus on food production. Candy’s vegetable garden displays her passion for heirloom pumpkins and an heirloom tomato collection featuring more than 30 varieties.

A unique feature of this garden are the “figgeries,” based on a technique for growing fig trees that Candy and Achilles observed in an English garden. Ten-foot-deep recessed chambers are lined with stone walls to retain the heat and the top is open during the frost-free months. In winter, the chambers are covered with layers of plastic and the fig trees have thrived despite two very extreme winters in the Northeast. The couple also cultivate grapevines, an apple orchard, chestnut trees (which provide them with abundant fruit and nuts each fall), and chickens in a special stone-lined run adjacent to one of the figgeries.

Open Days 2021: Saturday, July 10
Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.