Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,
A huge amount of work, in both the garden and the office, went into organizing our Sunset Soirée gala three weeks ago. It was a great success! The garden looked more beautiful than ever, and the event was well attended by an enthusiastic crowd. We unveiled the fabulous new rendering of the future Color Gardens (see my previous newsletter), which took people’s breath away. We hoped to raise $400,000, and we actually took in $512,000! Enormous thanks go to our many generous supporters!
A huge amount of work, in both the garden and the office, went into organizing our Sunset Soirée gala three weeks ago. It was a great success! The garden looked more beautiful than ever, and the event was well attended by an enthusiastic crowd. We unveiled the fabulous new rendering of the future Color Gardens (see my previous newsletter), which took people’s breath away. We hoped to raise $400,000, and we actually took in $512,000! Enormous thanks go to our many generous supporters!
No sooner had we unveiled our plans for the Color Gardens than a mini-twister hit that very area a few days later. The top half of a gigantic oak tree fell, thankfully missing the nearby vegetable garden and Vista. But it landed squarely on the retaining wall of the lowest Color Garden, damaging it and ruining a memorial bench and tree. All in all, it could have been worse, but Mother Nature does have a way of keeping us on our toes.
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The Lower Terrace of the Walled Garden is looking particularly fine this year. Despite the brutally cold winter, our hydrangeas are performing miraculously well. Often, they are the first plants to suffer, but perhaps they were protected by the persistent snow cover. And thankfully there wasn’t a late frost. In addition, the loggia is resplendent with a bold asymmetrical display of pots on the wide stairs. The tropical display–called Drewtopia after our assistant head gardener, Drew Schuyler, whose idea it was–is a lush and exotic fantasy surrounding the Apollo Belvedere.
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Not to be outdone, the lower cascades at the Temple of Love are awash in early flowers, many of them blue, among which the self-seeding larkspur are outstanding. I was worried about the marginally hardy bananas nearby after the tough winter, but they seem to have survived and are slowly making a wonderful tropical appearance.
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The next Minnie Untermyer concert will be a performance by the Westchester Philharmonic Quartet on Sunday, July 12, at 6:00 p.m. Dedicated in loving memory of our dear friend and volunteer Chris Kenney O’Rourke, it will feature the music of Mozart, Stravinsky, and Crusell, on clarinet, violin, viola, and cello.
Every year, our aquatics display gets bigger and better, and this year it is a real tour de force. Credit goes to our gardener Mario Irigoyen, who is here to describe them in this video:
Warm regards,
SFB
SFB
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