THE GARDEN CONSERVANCY

Our Preservation Work

Preserving the stories gardens tellThe Garden Conservancy’s documentation program seeks to capture the essence of something that is largely experiential: the beauty of a garden and the many stories it embodies. Our documentation program uses words and pictures, letters and notebooks, drawings and plant lists, along with the stories, sounds, and experiences that have inspired each garden’s creators. Our program’s goal is to bring gardens to life through an online educational tool that will continue to provide important insights for years to come.

Protecting important gardens for future generationsAt the Elizabeth Lawrence House and Garden in Charlotte, NC, we hold a conservation easement to protect in perpetuity the home and garden of one of our most celebrated Southern garden writers. A conservation easement is a legal instrument used in preservation. It identifies what is significant about a property (its “conservation values”) and restricts or prohibits activities that might endanger them or degrade the property. Elizabeth Lawrence (1904 – 1985) used her own garden as a “living laboratory” for her writing; preserving it also preserves her legacy.

Preserving horticultural collectionsIn Hempstead, TX, Peckerwood Garden has a unique collection of more than 3,000 species of rare, drought-tolerant plants native to the southern United States and the remote mountains of Mexico and Asia. The Garden Conservancy helped form the Peckerwood Garden Conservation Foundation, guided strategic planning and collections management initiatives, and holds a conservation easement designed to preserve the garden in perpetuity.

Supporting networking and educationIn addition to our direct preservation assistance services, we support networking and educational opportunities for professionals involved with small public gardens. In 2002, we formed a collective of small public gardens, botanic gardens, city parks and plant societies, now known as the Garden Conservancy Northwest Network (GCNN), to promote resource-sharing, networking, and professional education for members throughout Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia.

Responding to disastersThe historic Cummer Museum gardens in Jacksonville, FL, suffered significant damage from Hurricane Irma in 2017. The gardens, the work of some of the most important twentieth-century American landscape designers and horticulturists, are more than 100 years old and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2018, the Garden Conservancy donated $20,000 to help with restoration efforts after the storm.

All gardens are a form of autobiography.

— Robert Dash, artist, creator of Madoo

Our Preservation WorkSince 1989, the Garden Conservancy has helped to preserve more than 80 gardens in 26 states and two Canadian provinces, in advancing our mission to “save and share outstanding American gardens for the education and inspiration of the public.” We assist garden owners, managers, and community organizations across the country to address a wide range of challenges from historic rehabilitation and organizational development to collections management and documentation. Here are a few examples of our preservation work:

Reviving Gilded Age beautyWe are partnering with Bard College to rehabilitate Blithewood Garden, a beautiful, Italianate sunken garden designed by Francis Hoppin, circa 1903. Together with the college and the Friends of Blithewood Garden we are raising visibility for the project, conducting research, advising on treatment options for the garden’s decaying architectural elements, and establishing a rehabilitation plan so that future generations can enjoy this Beaux Arts gem on the college campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Celebrating the legacy of American designersLord & Schryver, the first all-female landscape architecture firm in the Pacific Northwest, designed more than 250 landscapes throughout the region in the first half of the twentieth century, adapting European and East Coast landscape styles to the region. The Garden Conservancy helped establish the Lord & Schryver Conservancy. We assisted with its organizational development and advised on a multiyear restoration plan, a cultural landscape report, and a marketing plan to preserve Gaiety Hollow, the historic home and office of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver in Salem, OR.

Speaking out for gardensAs an advocate for garden preservation, the Garden Conservancy takes a public stand to protect at-risk gardens. Recent examples include letters of support for the preservation of the Russell Page garden at the Frick Collection in New York City; Powell Garden, in Kingsville, MO; Stoneleigh in Villanova, PA, and Clermont Lee’s garden at the Girl Scouts USA headquarters in Savannah, GA.

Across the fifty states, gardeners create, preserve, and restore. Gardens beautify, nourish, and memorialize.

— Marta McDowell, author, All the Presidents’ Gardens

Preserving the stories gardens tell

Preserving plant collections

Protecting gardens in perpetuity

A garden is more than just a physical place. It’s a representation of community and a living, breathing thing. The best gardens can even change your life. — Craig Bergmann, landscape architect

Managing historic rehabilitation

Supporting organizational development, networking, and education

Responding to disasters

Speaking out for gardens

PRESERVATION IN ACTIONPreserving a garden begins with recognizing that landscapes are living works of art and nature. Rather than attempting to freeze a garden in time, our preservation work centers around planning, adapting to current environmental and program-ming needs, and telling a garden’s story in a way that will be meaningful for generations to come.

Garden Conservancy preservation assistance is tailored to the specific goals and needs of each garden partner, using a collaborative approach that has proven successful for nearly 30 years. We honor and supplement the skills and experience of a garden’s local team and work with them to produce creative, practical solutions for the challenges they face.

Our preservation staff has a passion for gardens and working with the people who build them, care for them, and visit them. We have decades of experience in public horticulture, nonprofit management, garden design, historic preservation, and cultural resource management. The images at left show some of our garden preservation work in action.

FROM TOP LEFT: Easement monitoring at Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek, CA

Quercus sartorii at Peckerwood Garden, Hempstead, TX; photo by Adam Black

Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985) at the gate of her garden, Charlotte, NC; photo from the Charlotte Observer Collection at the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room

Education and Visitor Center at the Ruth Bancroft Garden; architect’s rendering by Robert Becker, IDF Global

FROM BOTTOM LEFT: Documentation at Rocky Hills, Mount Kisco, NYGarden Conservancy Northwest Network workshop at Dunn Gardens, Seattle, WA

Garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985) at the gate of her garden; see credits above

Stoneleigh Garden, Villanova, PA, saved from encroachment in 2018)

Hurricane Irma devastating the historic gardens at the Cummer Museum, Jacksonville, FL

THE GARDEN CONSERVANCY I 20 Nazareth Way I PO Box 608 I Garrison, NY 10524845.424.6500 TEL I 845.424.6501 FAX I www.gardenconservancy.org

Above: Original blueprint elevation by Francis Hoppin for Blithewood Garden, Annandale-on-Hudson, circa 1913. Front page: Sunset at Blithewood Garden, 2018

For more information about the preservation work of the Garden Conservancy, please visit

www.gardenconservancy.org/preservation.

OUR MISSION

The mission of the Garden Conservancy is to preserve, share, and celebrate America's gardens and diverse gardening traditions for the

education and inspiration of the public.The Garden Conservancy works to:

Preserve gardens by partnering with gardeners, communities, horticulturists, garden designers, and historians

Share distinctive gardens and ideas with the public through Open Days, tours, and other educational programs

Champion the vital role gardens play in our culture, our history, and our quality of life

www.gardenconservancy.org