This year’s Berkshire Botanical Garden annual spring field trip takes BBG to two gardens: one just coming into public life and one heading into the private sector. The day begins with a visit to Untermyer Garden in Yonkers, NY, once the private garden and estate of Samuel Untermyer. Beginning in 1899, Untermyer spent the next 40 years attempting to make his garden and greenhouse the most extraordinary private horticultural endeavor in the country. Since 2011, a conservancy, under the guidance of Marco Polo Stufano of Wave Hill fame, has been working along with the city of Yonkers to restore Untermyer Garden to its former glory. The tour will include the Indo-Persian-inspired Walled Garden; the Vista, modeled on a similar series of descending stairs at the Villa D’Este in Italy; the Temple of Love; and other gardens at various stages in the restoration process.
Following a picnic lunch on the grounds, the tour will travel north to Mt. Kisco to the much-loved Rocky Hills, pictured below, the 12-acre strolling garden that once belonged to Henriette and William Suhr. A Garden Conservancy Project Garden, Rocky Hills was to be turned into a public garden upon its owner’ s death, but for a variety of reasons, is now being sold privately with the proceeds being used to create a foundation to help support horticultural and environmental causes. This may be one of the last times this extraordinary garden, replete with it naturalistic water and rock gardens, azalea and rhododendron borders, and meadows and conifer collections, will be available for public viewing.
Bring a bag lunch and dress for the weather: comfortable, sturdy footwear and warm, waterproof outerwear, umbrella. Berkshire Botanical Garden members $100, nonmembers $120. Register online at https://berkshirebotanical.org/education/field-trips/
