Letters from out President

Mud Shooting in All Directions

10/2/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

In my September newsletter, I shared a video of Timothy Tilghman touring our evolving Stumpery. We’ve made great progress since then: nearly all 150+ tree stumps have now been positioned. What’s more, they have been power-washed to remove the caked soil that was bound up in the roots. It was quite an operation. The gardeners wore Tyvek jumpsuits and goggles to protect them from the mud that was shooting out in all directions.

During the unrelenting September drought, the gardeners heroically kept the garden watered, ensuring a beautiful fall. The asters are now coming into their full glory along the cascades below the Temple of Love. The bees are drinking deeply of their nectar, which is a joy to watch.

By contrast, the summer’s abundant rain created a surfeit of water at the entrance to the Ornamental Vegetable Garden, which was plagued by runoff and required a new drainage system. In addition, the grass there was badly degraded and compacted due to the crowds of visitors. Voilà – a new project! See a photo of our high school interns laying down stone pavers for a new path, which adds a nice finish to this area.

Over the summer, the readership of this newsletter continued to grow, surpassing the 30,000 mark. I am pleased to say that it is opened by about 54% of its recipients, a very respectable number. Thank you all for your interest!

One of my favorite places in New York City is Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, with its magnificent architecture and landscaping. The history of the prominent people interred there is truly impressive. I give a tour there annually, picking one of three routes and always culminating in the Untermyer family tomb. It is one of the most fascinating burial places in America, with significant allusions to the garden here in Yonkers. My next tour will take place on Sunday, October 20, at 2:00 p.m. A special treat will be visiting the interior of the Harkness mausoleum, designed by James Gamble Rogers, which houses the family that was one of the main benefactors of Yale University.

Our Grand Holiday Illumination is fast approaching, and will be held from Saturday, December 7 through Wednesday, January 1. We are inviting community groups to volunteer for one night (from December 7 through January 1) to greet our visitors and serve hot chocolate. Watching the joy on our guests’ faces as they take in the whole experience can be very rewarding. Please sign up here if you would like to volunteer.

Kind regards,
Stephen F. Byrn, President

Record Visitation

8/22/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

We have seen more than our share of hot, humid, and rainy days this summer, but the weather gods have smiled on us intermittently. One such respite occurred on Sunday, August 11, when 4,420 visitors flocked to the garden—an all-time record! While parking is a challenge on such days, the garden’s scale enables it to absorb quite a crowd.

Our aquatics really flourish at this time of year, adding dramatic texture and color to the Walled Garden’s central and north pools and to the Temple of Love’s lower basin. The gardeners have been donning hip-waders as they minister to their needs. Note the floating buckets for weeds and cut-backs in the picture below. This year we introduced Victoria amazonica, the second largest species in the water lily family. Don’t they remind you of floating Frisbees?

Many people are unaware that there is a jewel of a garden below the Vista near the Old Croton Aqueduct entrance. This is the Ruin Garden, and it is well worth the trip. Set inside the vestiges of a gatehouse, the space is intimate and lush with a tapestry of plants. The interior walls retain some graffiti from the bad old days when the garden was vandalized, but it works well with the colorful plants that have transformed a derelict space into an enchanting retreat.
While inside the gatehouse, note the three ruined fireplaces; below one of them is a hole in the wall that would have held a potbelly stove from a kitchen long ago. The walkway is composed of fragments from the ruined building.

Behind the building is a mysterious alley with exotic plants growing in the cracks in the cement pavement. Buried in the hillside is an even more curious underground chamber whose original purpose is unknown; it has now been converted to a rustic grotto.

September will bring the final three performances in our Minnie Untermyer Concert Series. We are delighted to welcome back Lori Belilove & the Isadora Duncan Dancers, who will present a mix of historical and new dances on Sunday, September 1, at 5:30 p.m. (Rain date: Monday, September 2)

This will be followed by our most exotic concert yet as we welcome the world-renowned thereminist Armen Ra. In the 1930s, shortly after the instrument was invented, Untermyer Gardens was the site of one of the first theremin concerts in America. The instrument is hauntingly beautiful, and the concert, on Saturday, September 7, at 8:00 p.m., will take place in the evening—a first for us—with special colored lighting effects. This performance is not to be missed! (Rain date: Sunday, September 8)

The season will conclude with a trio of singers performing songs by Richard Rodgers and others in his circle. Taking place on Sunday, September 15, at 5:00 p.m., it’s a perfect way to enjoy the waning days of summer while the garden is still at its peak.

Our annual Family Fun Day will take place on Sunday, September 29, for kids of all ages. It will feature old favorites like the magic show in the amphitheater, hayrides along the carriage trail, and kite flying on the lawn, plus fun new activities like a rubber ducky races, a scavenger hunt, and a once-a-year opportunity to picnic inside the Walled Garden. Experience the garden in a whole new way!

Kind regards,

Stephen F. Byrns
President

To Bee or Not to Bee

8/1/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

Our second seasonal cohort of Yonkers high school interns has done spectacular work; regrettably, their session is about to end. When I visited the ornamental vegetable garden last week, I thought it had never looked better. The garden has an aesthetic emphasis, and the food it yields tastes as good as it looks! The produce is shared with the Salvation Army, the Community Service Associates of Mount Vernon, the Eastchester Community Action Partnership, and the Yonkers YWCA, all of whom will distribute it to people in need. Huge thanks to the interns and especially the gardeners, John Jacono and Liz Dreeben, for their leadership of this important program, which receives critical support from the Thomas and Agnes Carvel Foundation, the St. Faith’s House Foundation, Con Edison, and CDBG/HUD.

A large stretch of North Broadway was coned off a few days ago for a flotilla of vehicles announcing a fashion shoot. Ralph Lauren has come to Yonkers! I have often said that our Persian Pool, originally the Untermyer family’s swimming pool, is one of the two finest pools in America, the other being William Randolph Hearst’s pool at San Simeon, California. I am pleased to see that Ralph agrees. The elegant model reclining in a deck chair (below) might have stepped out of the pages of The Great Gatsby.

As you may have noticed, this has been a banner year for hydrangeas. Our hydrangea borders flanking the perimeter of the Lower Terrace have never looked better. Forty-nine hydrangea varieties are artfully mixed with other herbaceous and woody plants, which creates a much more interesting vignette than a planting solely of hydrangeas. The showiest ones have been hybridized to have sterile flowers, which are not attractive to bees, unfortunately. However, those with a combination of small fertile flower clusters surrounded by larger sterile flowers are covered with bees. We have both types, so check them out yourself to observe the differences.

Timothy Tilghman, our head gardener extraordinaire, is offering a very special treat on Thursday, September 12, when he will lead a Sunset Tour of the garden and share his abundant knowledge about plants and his brilliant design talent. The horticultural world is now paying attention to Untermyer Gardens, and it is thanks to Timothy, who has guided the garden’s development over thirteen years and made it a sensation. His tour will conclude with refreshments at sunset, a rare opportunity to enjoy the garden after closing hours.

The City of Yonkers added a popular improvement to the garden this year: a water fountain/water bottle refill station just inside the Walled Garden. We considered selling bottled water, but it is so much more environmentally responsible to encourage people to use refillable bottles than disposable plastic ones.

Let me call attention to the two concerts taking place at our amphitheater in August. The first one will be this Sunday, August 4, and feature the outstanding Persian musicians Sahba Motallebi and Reza Mohsenipour with the theme Persian Music & Spiritual Health. Then, on Sunday, August 11, the Victor LaGamma Jazz Quartet returns for their tenth performance at the garden. They are sure to draw a large and enthusiastic crowd. Come enjoy the sounds of music as birds and butterflies flit about the paired columns, the sphinxes, and the north pool aquatics.

Here is a preview of our September concerts.

Kind Regards,

Stephen F. Byrns
President

Sacred Lotuses

7/11/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

Walking along one of the garden’s less traveled paths can yield some interesting surprises. There is an obscure track near the site of the former Sundial Garden, not far from the lower terminus of the Rock and Stream Garden, which bypasses a pile of stone remnants from an old terrace balustrade. To the side, some angelicas have self-sown here and there and grown quite enormous, nearly eight feet tall. My eyes opened wide when I saw them.

Our second cohort of Yonkers high school interns has begun their summer work experience. They helped the gardeners plant more than 3,000 annuals in a single day in the Walled Garden’s canal borders. The following day, they harvested the year’s third crop of vegetables, which was shared with the Salvation Army and a local soup kitchen. No sooner did they complete the harvest than they planted the next rotation of crops in the Ornamental Vegetable Garden. What a productive week they put in!

Lotuses are one of the classic plants in an Indo-Persian garden, and I asked the gardeners to plant more of them this year. I am happy to report that these stunning aquatics are making quite a statement in the center of the Walled Garden at the junction of the four canals and in the north pool near the amphitheater. There are lotus festivals in India and elsewhere at this time of year, so take a moment to appreciate a flower that is sacred to both Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the path to spiritual enlightenment. For Christians, it evokes the apostle Thomas’s travels in India. For Muslims, it is compared to the pure soul, reinforcing the multicultural nature of Untermyer Gardens. The gorgeous mosaic in the amphitheater also features a stylized lotus, so architecture and horticulture echo each other beautifully.

Visitation seems to keep growing at the garden. A few weeks ago, the confluence of Father’s Day and Eid Al-Adha drew 4,306 people here, the largest number on one day since the legendary time of Samuel Untermyer, back in the 1930s.
Our Minnie Untermyer Concert Series continues with a performance by a chamber ensemble from the Westchester Philharmonic, featuring a solo clarinetist, on Sunday, July 21. It will also honor the memory of our beloved volunteer Chris Kenney O’Rourke, who gave so much of herself to this garden over many years. A brief reception will follow the concert.

On Sunday, August 4, we will present our second concert of Persian music this year in response to popular demand. Making their Untermyer debut are a duo of tar virtuosos, Sahba Motallebi, a Grammy award winner and a vocalist, and Reza Mohsenipour, who were born and trained in Iran and now live in California. We are thrilled to welcome them to New York for a performance exploring the theme “Persian music and spiritual health.” Could there be a more idyllic setting?

Head Gardener Timothy Tilghman has made the following video about the new emerging meadow.

Kind regards,
Stephen F. Byrns, President

Bad Hair Day

6/21/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

As I write, the summer solstice will arrive in a few hours, not on tiptoe but heralded by blazing sun and blue skies. The garden is ready to greet it. Dozens of trees and shrubs have been planted around the parking lot and in the emerging Stumpery, which gives me such a boost. Trees are a great harbinger of a bright future, and I love to observe their growth from year to year.

The mosaic floor featuring a portrait of Medusa at the Temple of the Sky is now complete. It is an exact match of the original, but without the many humps, cracks, pock marks, missing tiles, and deteriorating substrate. With systematic maintenance, we hope to keep it in good shape for decades to come. Our good friend Joyce Cowin made the leadership gift that made it possible, for which we are enormously grateful.

One of the tasks for the gardeners at this time of year is trimming the fastigiate beech trees along the canals. We are trying our best to keep them protected against various beech diseases, which involves stimulating them with rich nutrients. The result was a shockingly wild and unruly eruption of new growth, which required some serious pruning. It was like a horticultural bad hair day!

Last year, the garden entrance by the Cola Center was exuberantly planted, largely with native plants that are resistant to deer browsing. We call it the Crescent Garden because of its long, curved shape. It has really taken off and makes quite a statement in a central spot that previously provided an exceptionally dull welcome to visitors.

I would like to call your attention to two Minnie Untermyer concerts taking place in July. The first is the return of Ana Vidovic, the classical guitarist extraordinaire, in a virtuoso performance on Sunday, July 7, at 5:00 p.m. Then a chamber ensemble and a solo clarinetist of the Westchester Philharmonic will follow on Sunday, July 21, at 5:00 p.m. Their performance is dedicated to the loving memory of our devoted volunteer and friend, Chris Kenney O’Rourke, with a simple reception to follow.

Kind regards,
Stephen F. Byrns, President

Line-for-Line Beauty

5/30/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

The weeping beeches have leafed out splendidly and are a sight to behold. “Awesome” is a pretty trite word these days, but I am a sucker for true awe, and this is the real thing.

After their excellent work on the Persian Pool last year, the folks at Miotto Mosaic Art Studios are back to install the new Medusa mosaics at the Temple of the Sky. The detail matches the original, line for line, but the colors are even more vibrant. In a few weeks, the entire mosaic floor will be completed. We certainly hope it will last into the next century, thanks to a special concrete substrate and critical expansion joints.

For many years, we would plant thousands of tulip bulbs every fall for a spectacular spring display. Much to our dismay, a tulip blight developed, which disfigured the plants and contaminated the soil. There is no effective treatment for the blight, so the gardeners decided to line the canals with a longer-lasting display of cool-season annuals. This year the plants are lettuce, cabbage, snapdragon, lobelia, African daisy, sedge, nemesia, pansy, and Irish moss, which make for a strikingly sharp combination of colors and textures. Come judge for yourself!

The Minnie Untermyer Concert Series is upon us! Next weekend, on Saturday, June 8, is our popular annual concert of Persian music, featuring delicious treats. Then, on Saturday, June 15, Tom Gold Dance returns, fusing a modern sensibility with a classical dance background. They were featured prominently in The New Yorker when they first performed here a few years ago.

The observations I share about the garden in this newsletter often stimulate a lively response from readers. Now, we invite you to tell us about your experiences at Untermyer Gardens and how the garden affects you in ways big and small. Please click here to share your thoughts.

Kind regards,

Stephen F. Byrns
President

Welcome to the Sewer Department

5/9/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

While the glory of spring surrounds us, concrete and dirt are keeping us grounded. The new concrete slab for the floor of the Temple of the Sky has been poured, nicely reinforced with a honeycomb of steel and fiber. It will make a sturdy base for the new Medusa mosaic when it arrives in two weeks.

Across the property, next to the hoop house and service yard, a concrete slab was poured by City of Yonkers parks workers for a new, prefab garage; it’s being installed as I write. The new facility will become the gardeners’ base of operations and provide storage for utility vehicles and equipment. Moreover, it will allow us to transform the old garage in the Cola Center into a multipurpose space that will serve as a classroom for our growing education program.

We continue to make progress deciphering the ancient drainage system for the carriage trail. The City of Yonkers DPW has a marvelous truck that can suck out sewer lines and inject water at high velocity to unclog blocked pipes. Here are photos showing the water jet process, me getting splattered with mud, and the merry crew. When I became soiled, one of the workers said, “Welcome to the Sewer Department!”

On a more aesthetic note, perhaps these lovely pictures will entice you to visit the garden on Mother’s Day, one of our most popular times, and enjoy its spring beauty.

The Minnie Untermyer Concert Series in the amphitheater will soon get under way with two presentations by returning artists: the Saba Ensemble, a Persian instrumental group with singers and a dancer (along with tasty Persian treats) on Saturday, June 8, and Tom Gold Dance on Saturday, June 15. Don’t delay to buy your tickets for these fine performances in an unrivaled setting overlooking the Walled Garden.

Kind regards,

Stephen F. Byrns
President

Temporary Remorse

4/18/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

When we began the exhilarating process of restoring the Vista in 2015, I recall feeling an unexpected sense of loss at the removal of the many invasive trees that detracted from the monumental feature’s beauty and obscured the view of the Hudson River. Someone once told me that a rose is a weed if it’s in a cornfield, and these weed trees lacked the rose’s positive attributes, so out they went, allowing us to plant the now majestic allée of Cryptomeria and its underplanting of Hakonechloa. We feel a similar if temporary remorse at the removal of the mosaic floor portrait of Medusa at the Temple of the Sky, which was fatally compromised by a crumbling substructure and years of vandalism and storm damage. We tried patching, sealing, and filling voids over the past 13 years, but each year it got worse and more hazardous.

So the sound of jackhammering filled the air of our tranquil garden as the old mosaic floor was lifted and its underlying slab demolished to make way for a much-improved substrate. The new slab is built to last and, crucially, will allow for proper expansion and contraction with the changing seasons. Such will also be the case for the new mosaic floor, an exact replica of the original, crafted by the same mosaicists in Italy who fabricated the gorgeous mosaics in the Persian Pool. We hope to dedicate the new mosaic at our Sunset Soirée gala on June 18.

Our horticulture crew now totals ten energetic and skilled gardeners, and they are in full-on spring preparation mode. They have cleared all the beds and planted thousands of cool-season annuals, which now line the canals in the Walled Garden. The cherries in the Cherry Bowl are coming into their full glory, teaming up with the underlying daffodils to put on quite a show. Everywhere you look delicate shoots and buds are emerging—it is invigorating.

Thinking ahead to summer, I am pleased to announce that the Minnie Untermyer Concert Series will take place in our amphitheater overlooking the magnificent sweep of the Walled Garden—it’s hard to imagine a more dramatic performance space. The series is as varied as ever, with the exciting introduction of the amazing Armen Ra, one of the world’s leading exponents of the theremin, a pioneering instrument that made one of its first appearances at Untermyer Gardens back in the 1930s. I encourage you to attend one or many of these concerts alongside the birds, butterflies, and flowers.

Timothy Tilghman, our head gardener, is back with some observations about the garden’s water features.

Kind regards,

Stephen F. Byrns
President

Ancient Drainage

3/28/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

Bit by bit, we are uncovering components of the ancient drainage system along our mile-long carriage trail and deciphering their purpose. Over many years, before the Conservancy was established, the trail became overgrown, dilapidated, and disused, its deterioration compounded by unchecked storm water damage. In my previous newsletter, I showed a section of new piping, which is part of our strategy to remedy the situation. Herewith is a picture of the accompanying detention ponds, which will help capture the overflow.

Farther down the hill we have uncovered some catch basins, most of them inoperable. One that works, however, feeds a broken pipe directly under a beautiful tulip tree that anchors our future stumpery. Every time it rains, a flood emanates from the base of the tree, a pattern that will erode this important future garden. Rather than remove or damage it, we will bypass the tree by creating another series of detention ponds in a different location. They might become rain gardens, featuring plants that grow in moist soil. Sometimes it’s as if we’re performing heart surgery on the garden!

Our first group of high school interns has started working in the garden on weekends. They have been pricking out seedlings in the hoop house and planting them in small pots for future planting. Recently, they were down in the vegetable garden, where a crop of rye grass was sown last fall to enrich the soil. They turned the grass over to add more nutrients for vegetable crops, which will draw nourishment from the soil as they grow.

We have seen a gradual progression of daffodils bursting into bloom, and Daffodil Hill, below the Temple of Love, is putting on a stunning, once-a-year display. While there, look down at the developing stumpery area, which will see a lot of improvements over the next few years. Weather permitting, the water will be turned on in the cascades and the canals by April 13, always a joyful time.

Kind regards,

Stephen F. Byrns
President
P.S. There are many ways to volunteer at the garden and we are most grateful for our expanding volunteer community. For more information, please click this link.

The Humanity of Flowers

1/30/2024

Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,

The results are in, and they tell a compelling story of growth here at Untermyer Gardens: we welcomed 175,000 visitors in 2023, up from 150,000 in 2022. Our calculations are based on a combination of factors, including clicker counts taken by our volunteers on weekends and during the Illumination, the quantity of brochures used throughout the year, and registrations for tours and programs. It’s a real treat to know that the garden brings joy to so many!

Just before the harsh winter weather set in, we completed a beautiful 200-foot-long stone retaining wall along the carriage trail below Daffodil Hill. The original wall had largely collapsed, compounding the impact of storm damage to the adjacent carriage trail and the slope below. This urgent repair dovetails with our project to make major improvements throughout the mile-long trail. It will take years, but the result will be a properly drained road, free of ruts and rocks, that traverses the more natural portions of the garden and woodland, greatly increasing their accessibility.

I attended two ballets over the past year; one was Romeo and Juliet, the other an assortment of short modern pieces. I admit to being a bit old-fashioned, so I tend to prefer a narrative ballet that tells a story. This put me in mind of Untermyer Gardens, whose architecture and structure are so strong, they lead one in a carefully choreographed passage throughout the landscape.

Ginny Keim, one of our longtime Board members, maintains a cherished garden at her home and is also something of a poet. Here is a poem of Ginny’s that has particular resonance for garden lovers as we await the spring.

Do the zinnias know their bright blossoms
Continue to lift in a crushing world?
Do they say their own silent “thank you” for the last frost
(Not knowing what it portends)?
Do they know the joy they bring to our garden and table?

Do the dahlias know their late summer blooms sing for the bees?
Do they know our promise to dig them up,
To keep them safe for next Spring’s planting
Keeps our hearts safe—planning for
Another bright Spring?

The humanity of flowers lifts me up--
In this world—so stark, so inhuman.
Do the flowers know they are symbols of hope
For next year’s garden bounty,
For next year’s quiet beauty?
A haven for the swallowtails and monarchs, and bees
And for my hopeful heart.
Please take advantage of this year’s Winter Symposium on the subject of vegetable gardens, as well as our winter classes.

Join us on Saturday, February 24 for our annual Volunteer Season Kickoff. Learn about our volunteer programs, meet experienced volunteers, and tour the gardens (weather permitting). Please contact Maura May at [email protected] for more information or to RSVP.

Timothy Tilghman, our head gardener, is back with a video about his preparation for this year’s vegetable garden.

Kind regards,

Stephen F. Byrns
President

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Mud Shooting in All Directions

Record Visitation

To Bee or Not to Bee

Sacred Lotuses

Bad Hair Day

Line-for-Line Beauty

Welcome to the Sewer Department

Temporary Remorse

Ancient Drainage

The Humanity of Flowers

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