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The Garden Conservancy, a legend
by Mary Jasch
The Garden Conservancy is a treasure of living art of exemplary horticulture and architecture, and historically significant gardens. They are canvases of English-style rooms and sweeping landscapes, mosaics of parterres, fish ponds and patte d’oie, floral, woodsy, succulent and serene, formal and not.
The Garden Conservancy exists to preserve special gardens and to provide for the open exhibit of fine private gardens “for the public’s education and enjoyment” (Open Days Directory 2004). It is a contemporary American legend. Frank Cabot, founder and man of passion and foresight, preserved the first garden in 1989 in California – Ruth Bancroft’s cacti and succulent garden. Now, 15 years later, his dedication has spread cross-country and is headquartered in Cold Spring, New York.
The Garden Conservancy accomplishes its mission in three arenas:
1. Preservation Projects Program
2. Preservation Assistance Center
3. Open Days Program, America’s only national garden visiting program
The Conservancy helps preserve gardens forever under its Preservation Projects Program. One or two gardens are accepted each year into the program by competitive selection for horticultural, aesthetic, historical and cultural significance. A feasibility study of each garden’s ability to survive as a public garden is done, then a working plan is established. Conservancy staff provides technical expertise in horticulture, fundraising, organization development and preservation. Eventually, the garden becomes public with its own management. The Program has helped preserve 12 gardens.
“We manage and hire staff. The Garden Conservancy does not contribute to staffing,” explains William Noble, director of preservation projects. “We work with the gardens to raise the money. Each garden has its own strategy for making the transition from private to non-profit or public ownership. We’re available to work in a partnership to work with owners or a group who will accept responsibility for managing the garden. We also work with partnerships and living gardeners who are setting up management, but who are not yet ready to turn the responsibility for gardening over. Our job is to work with them and with local advocates to form an organization, raise money to support the garden, to bring people in through tours, and to insure the garden’s continued maintenance and upkeep and restoration.”
Alcatraz is one of the Conservancy’s most recent projects among the 15 projects in the Program. Alcatraz gardens get over 1.3 million visitors a year. With Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the National Park Service (Golden Gate National Recreation Area) as partners, horticulture and volunteer crew are preparing and planning for restoration of the gardens.
“We have photos from the 1870s to the 1960s that show that the gardens followed national trends over a long period,” says Noble. “Some were residential gardens for military families and prison inmates. We still have many steps to sort through the basic information and to determine a philosophy of how we want to restore them.”
The Conservancy will decide which time period to restore the gardens to. “We’ll investigate all the time periods and relate the landscape’s interpretation to the rest of the island – to the story being told there and with the structures. We’ll look at what the evidence on the grounds can support – the plants and structures that are there and also not there. The guiding principles are the Secretary of the Interior’s standards for historic landscape restoration. It’s a planning process. We’ll pay very close attention. The standards help you think. We’ll develop a philosophy and determine treatments.”
The Preservation Assistance Center was developed about five years ago to respond easily to specific requests for Conservancy staff consulting expertise. The Center currently helps 18 gardens. Two years ago staff member Jennifer Hanna took the lead in organizing a report for Friends of Cross Estate for the Cross Estate Gardens in Bernardsville, New Jersey. “We were asked to look at a wide range of issues. The garden’s stewardship was entirely volunteers so the questions were: How do we recruit new volunteers? How do we make the transition from all volunteers to a part-time paid management staff?” The century-old garden includes a walled garden, woodland garden and mountain laurel alee.Opening private gardens to the public furthers the Garden Conservancy’s mission by sharing experiences that promote stewardship.
Gardens in the Conservancy’s Open Days Program are private gardens that meet horticultural, architectural, historic, and landscape criteria also. Garden owners enjoy sharing their gardens and experiences and often learn from visitors, and as Maxine Paetro, owner of Broccoli Hall in Amenia, New York, recently said, “It keeps you on your game.”
Visit a garden. Inspiration is just $5.00.
Look at two private gardens in the Open Days Program:
Broccoli Hall, an English country garden in Amenia, NY
The White Garden of Whimsy in Lewisboro, NY Open again on September 12.
Open Days run from April 24 to October 17, 2004. To get your Open Days Directory for a mere $5, or to become a member:
The Garden Conservancy
PO Box 219
Cold Spring, NY 10516
845-265-5384 or www.gardenconservancy.org
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published June 22, 2004
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