Find Inspiration with Our Garden Tours this Season
Join us this season for a series of area garden tours in New York and Connecticut. The gardens feature both native plants and an exploration of gardens designed by Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959), a pioneering landscape architect and garden designer.
Liz Stein, the Program & Native Garden Chair says “Bedford Audubon has offered bird walks for many years, but this year we are branching out into garden tours, because many gardeners are interested in using native plants but may not be sure how to incorporate them into their own gardens. We will explore a range of garden styles and settings, town and country, natural and formal, and see how native plants can enrich our gardens while supporting birds.”
Beatrix Farrand was one of the eleven founding members, and only woman, of the American Society of Landscape Architects. She was an early advocate of using native plants and her gardens style tended toward the billowing, tapestried, textural effect, sometimes naturalistic, sometimes more restrained, but always a celebration of plants and setting.
While Ferrand’s gardens in Acadia National Park in Maine and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C. are perhaps her most famous remaining works, we’re lucky to have several of her gardens in our area, restored to their original beauty.
Wednesday, June 21, 9am-1pm, Garden Tour: New York Botanical Garden. At the very height of rose season, we’ll tour the Rose Garden, another garden designed by Beatrix Farrand, as well as the Native Plant and Azalea Gardens. Timed to coincide with the Dale Chihuly installation– an experience not to be missed! Level of physical difficulty: Easy to moderate. Depart Bylane Farm at 9am. Program fee: $10, admission: $20, please bring cash. Register with Susan at info@bedfordaudubon.org or 914.302.9713.
Wednesday, July 12, 9am-1pm, Garden Tour: Hollister House in Litchfield Hills, Connecticut. Hollister House “a classic garden in the English manner, with a loosely formal structure, informally planted in generous abundance.” It is a private garden, and we’ll tour it with either the head gardener or the designer himself as guide. Level of physical difficulty: Easy to moderate. Depart Bylane Farm at 9am. Program fee: $10, admission: $10, please bring cash. Register with Susan at info@bedfordaudubon.org or 914.302.9713.
Saturday, July 22, 8am-1pm, Garden Tour: Innisfree Garden in Millbrook, New York. At Innisfree we’ll focus on design, in a garden that drew from Japanese and Chinese gardens to create “a distinctly American stroll garden—a sublime composition of rock, water, wood, and sky,” very different from the Farrand gardens we have been exploring. Level of physical difficulty: Easy to moderate. Depart Bylane Farm at 8am. Program fee: $10, admission, $8. Register with Susan at info@bedfordaudubon.org or 914.302.9713.
Wednesday, September 6, 9am-12pm, Garden Tour: Bartlett Arboretum in Stamford, Connecticut. We’ll have a guided tour to see late-summer abundance, in the native plant collection of the Red Maple Wetlands and the wildlife that it sustains. Bring your binoculars! Level of physical difficulty: Easy to moderate. Depart Bylane Farm at 9am. Program fee: $10, donation to Bartlett additional, please bring cash. Register with Susan at info@bedfordaudubon.org or 914.302.9713.
Have questions? Contact us: info@bedfordaudubon.org
