October 25, 2016
Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens:
As I write this, we are reluctantly removing the tropical plants from the Walled Garden for safekeeping during the cold weather. The fallen caramel-scented katsura leaves have inaugurated the autumnal loss of leaves, but the Palisades is now approaching its peak colors. Untermyer Gardens is opposite the highest point of the Palisades (about 300 feet high), so the view is majestic indeed. By next year, the foreground in the photograph below will be enriched with beautiful plants and a new pavement pattern.
Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens:
As I write this, we are reluctantly removing the tropical plants from the Walled Garden for safekeeping during the cold weather. The fallen caramel-scented katsura leaves have inaugurated the autumnal loss of leaves, but the Palisades is now approaching its peak colors. Untermyer Gardens is opposite the highest point of the Palisades (about 300 feet high), so the view is majestic indeed. By next year, the foreground in the photograph below will be enriched with beautiful plants and a new pavement pattern.
Not since Samuel Untermyer's death 76 years ago has this place looked so lovely. Led by Head Gardener Timothy Tilghman, we now have a crew of six gardeners (10% of Untermyer's crew). It is a thrill to walk around the property and see whole new worlds being carved out of the brush and ruination.
It was on a stroll around our future wildflower meadow that I spied this amazing mushroom, one of several. Hopefully, its size suggests how well our future plantings will do in this spot at the upper switchback of the carriage trail, within view of the Walled Garden. A gigantic growth of Japanese knotweed farther west will have to come down in order to accomplish the full vision.
October has been a month of tree planting for us, including a new arborvitae hedge along our north border, where a formal garden will be planted. It will have the advantage of being visible from the lowest Color Garden, and it is complemented by newly revealed columns and stairs. Surprisingly, there are some circular flower beds defined by long-concealed steel edging. The garden might not take shape for years, but we must get trees in place now to protect and define our views.
So come see what we are finding. It's exciting to imagine how this place will develop over the next decade. While we all enjoy seeing magnificent gardens in their prime, full of polished horticulture, there is a kind of visceral pleasure in the exploration of the unknown (or barely known), with the hope that true greatness lies within our reach.
Kind regards,
Stephen F. Byrns
President, Untermyer Gardens Conservancy
Kind regards,
Stephen F. Byrns
President, Untermyer Gardens Conservancy
RSS Feed