The Irish Times – Saturday, January 19, 2013

The 25-acre private gardens and grounds of Malahide Castle have been part of a spectacular and extensive redevelopment, writes
FIONNUALA FALLON 

When the diplomat Lord Milo Talbot of Malahide Castle died suddenly, in 1973, at the age of 60, the avid plantsman left behind him the Talbot Botanical Gardens, a remarkable 25-acre private garden that was home to one of the finest, largest and most meticulously curated plant collections in Ireland.

Talbot began the collection around 1950, shortly after he succeeded to the title of Baron de Malahide. The collection highlighted his particular interest in plants of the southern hemisphere, honed throughout his lifetime by his extensive travels, as well as regular visits to his second home in Tasmania.

A dedicated plant collector, whenever an opportunity presented itself to acquire a rare, unusual, or what he called “a less common plant”, Talbot generally took it.

Just as importantly, from a garden history point of view, he carefully recorded each and every plant acquisition – not only its provenance but the date it was acquired, the method of propagation used, its location within the garden, and whether or not it flourished.

Many of the plants, such as the semihardy evergreen climber Berberidopsis corallina, had rarely been grown before in this country. Others – including Banksia serrata, a plant first collected by Sir Joseph Banks during Captain Cook’s voyages to the Pacific Ocean – are so tender that Talbot had to house them in a heated glasshouse specially constructed for the purpose.

When he died, the castle and its gardens passed into public ownership, acquired by Dublin Corporation from the Talbot family for the modest sum of £650,000. Since then, the corporation, and one of its later evolutions, Fingal County Council, have done a great job of caring for this wonderful garden, while successive generations of horticultural students, sent there on work experience, have enjoyed the unique opportunity to study its remarkable plant collection.

That said, the walled gardens were open to the public only one day a week during high season, something that often frustrated would-be visitors. More recently, the glasshouses and the hard landscaping of paths, lighting, and signage had also begun to look in need of a revamp. Cue one of the most extensive public-garden redevelopments in recent years, with a total of €10.5 million in funding for the project coming from Fingal County Council and Fáilte Ireland.

Work on the castle and its gardens began in early 2011 and continued throughout last year, with the formal reopening last November and the announcement that the site would be operated by Shannon Heritage on behalf of the council.

So what can visitors expect? For one, a spanking new interpretive centre, housed in what was once the castle’s old courtyard, now beautifully restored, extended and modernised. Along with a new commercial area that includes an Avoca cafe and shop, this airy, light-filled space is home to a first-rate interactive exhibition that highlights Talbot’s life as a modern-day planthunter.

The handsomely mounted displays of his plant collection, his handwritten records, his photographs and his garden tools are both moving and fascinating.

There’s also plenty for children to enjoy, including sensory displays of leaves and flowers that come with the invitation to touch and to smell, and computer screens that allow them to invent their own tree, flower, or shrub.

As for the gardens, they have, as Malahide Castle’s long-time head gardener Barbara Cunningham eloquently puts it, “been given a future, a wonderful opportunity to survive.” The seven glasshouses have been painstakingly repainted and reglazed where required. One (Talbot’s beloved Cambridge House) has even been rebuilt. Newly surfaced, wheelchair-accessible paths have replaced the old, ugly tarmacked ones, while modern lighting systems mean the gardens can be enjoyed for evening events. New plants (trees, shrubs, perennials, alpines, roses) have been sourced from specialist nurseries both in Ireland and abroad at a cost of €50,000.

Up to 40,000 spring- and summer-flowering bulbs (including heritage varieties of daffodils) have also been planted, both in the walled garden as well as in the nearby woodland areas, where large tracts of the scrubby undergrowth have been cleared to allow for the mass planting of shade-loving hellebores and other choice plants.

In short, I can’t wait to see it all burst into glorious growth this spring. As for the seventh baron, Malahide Castle is famous for its many ghosts but if Lord Milo Talbot is among them, my guess is he’s a happy one.

malahidecastleandgardens.ie

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY: 

Primrose Hill, Lucan, Co Dublin (open all of February, from 2pm until dusk, admission €6, tel: 01-628 0373), well-known for its collection of snowdrops and other spring bulbs

Crop by Crop Vegetable Growing with Organic Guru Jim Cronin gardening course, begins February 5th

(four evenings, €80, tel: 087-611 7538, email cc@carmencronin.ie

Design a Garden one-day course given by June Blake at Lavistown House (February 9th, 10am-5pm, €80, see
lavistownhouse.ie)

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How do you appreciate a Japanese garden? The typical temple visit — where you ponder a seemingly random assemblage of rocks and raked gravel or push your way through a throng of tourists jostling for camera angles — can leave one confused and underwhelmed.

Kyoto-based garden tour organizer Mark Hovane, 47, suggests that visitors first becalm themselves. He quotes master gardener Kinsaku Nakane’s advice that we view Japanese gardens “with a detached gaze, without preconceptions, and in a state of total receptivity.”

On a recent midwinter day, Hovane explained the history and design of two gardens in the Daitokuji Temple complex in northern Kyoto. It is a prime destination for his tailored tours, Kyoto Garden Experience, which take no more than four visitors at a time to intimate but historically and aesthetically noteworthy gardens.

He displays effortless erudition and a passion for his topic, achieved through a 23-year residence in Kyoto. In his tours, he said, “I try to provide clients with a set of tools to interpret what they see, so they can experience gardens in a deeper way.” Today, he also provides this writer with an extra pair of wool socks, which become increasingly appreciated as we linger on an open-air temple veranda.

We have entered Daitokuji, a Rinzai-shu Zen complex of 22 subtemples that was originally built in the late 14th century, through a large stone gate — a framing device, Hovane said, that both separates us from the bustle of adjacent Imadegawa Street and accentuates our entrance into sacred space.

We soon reach the subtemple Obaiin, founded in 1562 at the order of the warlord Oda Nobunaga. Obaiin contains a dry landscape garden designed by the great 16th-century tea master Sen no Rikyu as well as the front garden before us, now blanketed with golden moss. Although this garden draws crowds to view its maple leaves in autumn, Hovane likes viewing it in midwinter: “Once the leaves have dropped and you are no longer taken with their autumn beauty, the bare form of the garden reveals itself,” he says.

We continue to Ryogenin, originally built in 1502, whose five gardens include a fine example of kare sansui, or dry rock gardens. Hovane explains that raked gravel gardens offer both symbolic meaning and practical utility. Many were first constructed during the Muromachi Period (1337-1573), when much of Kyoto, including the Daitokuji complex, was decimated by the decade-long Onin War (1467-77) and subsequent factional warfare, disrupting water supplies. Stone gardens needed no water, making them an excellent landscaping choice (and ideal today for arid locales like Hovane’s native Australia).

In Ryogenin’s dry garden, observed from the veranda of the former abbot’s home, the rocks are raked in raised, parallel rows to suggest waves, to imply a sea of humanity beset by turbulence. Interspersed are islands, groupings of vertical or horizontal rocks. The main grouping here signifies Mount Horai, a mythical land in Chinese mythology where the immortals live; to the left and right is an auspicious pairing of vertical rocks representing a crane and horizontal rocks in a round bed of moss representing a tortoise, both symbolizing longevity.

Hovane adds: “The thick clay walls surrounding the garden play an important role in bounding the garden, as a picture frame bounds and defines space. This frees our minds to travel into the microcosmic world of the garden. Since we can’t physically enter dry rock gardens, we must enter them cerebrally, with our imaginations.” The monochromatic hues of kare sansui gardens also allude to the black-and-white Chinese landscape paintings that have greatly influenced Japanese landscape design.

Different types of gardens emerged over the many centuries of garden design in this country, Hovane explains, depending on function and then-current influences. Many Zen temple gardens are intended as aids in contemplation, but not meditation, as is commonly believed, since Zen monks typically meditate in an inner, enclosed space.

“The spirituality of temple gardens is actually experienced through the maintenance of the gardens,” he says. Before entering a kare sansui garden to rake the gravel, for example, you must center yourself, or you risk producing a messy combination of storm-tossed and becalmed seas.

Some gardens were designed for strolling and entertaining for the nobility, such as the villa gardens at Katsura Rikyu and Shugakuin Rikyu in Kyoto. Then there are the roji, or gardens adjacent to tea rooms, spaces whose main function is to receive guests and foster the proper ambiance for the tea ceremony.

Hovane first learned of Japanese design in elementary school in Perth, in Western Australia. Struck by its simplicity, he decided that he was “destined to live in Kyoto.” After graduating from the University of Western Australia with a humanities degree in 1988, he arrived in Kyoto in 1989 on a working holiday visa.

He had hoped to secure an apprenticeship to a master gardener, but when that proved problematic, he began teaching English. He later became a lecturer at several local universities, among them Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Kansai University and Kyoto Prefectural University.

On weekends Hovane read about and visited as many of Kyoto’s 1,600 temple gardens as time allowed, and he traveled overseas, visiting gardens in Europe and China for comparative study.

He has also studied ikebana, calligraphy and the tea ceremony, and he notes that these arts share many aesthetic principles with traditional garden design. The positioning of rocks in the garden, for instance, he finds akin to calligraphic compositions, and both arts foster an appreciation of yohaku no bi, or “the beauty of paucity, referring to the unexpressed portion of a work.” He notes that all of these arts hold in high regard seasonality and “the spirit of hospitality.”

Coming from a land blessed with 300 days of summer a year, Hovane’s first experience of autumn leaves in Japan was a revelation. “Colored leaves — wow! Autumn became my favorite season, but I soon wanted to see how the gardens change at different times of the day and the year,” he said. “In Australia one’s eye is undisciplined because we have boundless outdoor space. But in Japanese gardens everything is compressed, with an economy of design. You start to appreciate fine nuances despite an apparent simplicity. My training here has been from the development of my eye.”

Garden Experience tours began in January 2010 and he has led more than 100 clients to date. Hovane says that his clientele tends to be older; many are artists, designers, architects or retired academics, and most are from the United States, Australia or Europe. With the hope of returning to Australia someday to lecture and do consultancy work about Japanese gardens, he is now writing a regular blog and working on a garden book that will focus on seasonality, links with other Japanese arts, and trees and shrubs suitable for planting in them.

For visitors wishing to have their own garden experience, Hovane gives some timely advice: to avoid the crowds, select temples not listed in tourist guides and visit just after the gates open or just before closing. Also, try visiting during the off-season, he added. “In May and October you can enjoy irises, hydrangea and other flowers, yet hardly anyone is here. Also, Kyoto’s gardens are best if you see them just after it’s rained. The greens of the garden become more vivid and the wet rocks come to life as their colors are revealed. The moss looks especially beautiful.”

When asked to suggest favorite Kyoto gardens Hovane mentions but three:

Katsura Imperial Villas (Katsura Rikyu): No expense was spared to construct and maintain this “fantastic compendium of design,” Hovane says. This 16th-century palace in western Kyoto incorporates both Shinto and Buddhist design concepts, and the gardens contain four teahouses. Visits are by appointment with the Imperial Household Agency.

Saihoji: Also called the Kokedera, or “moss temple,” Saihoji requires advance permission and compels visitors to first hand-copy a Buddhist sutra or join in chanting before being allowed into the celebrated moss gardens, with their amazing interplay of dark and shadow. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is at its best in June and July.

Entsuji: Off the beaten track in suburban Iwakura, this temple is “a small masterpiece of design, featuring the borrowed scenery (‘shakkei’) of Mount Hiei in the distance. The mountain background is cleverly incorporated into the garden by the bridging device of Japanese cedar trees in the middle ground, linking the distant scenery and the foreground of the garden, thereby framing the viewer’s perceptions.”

MIAMI – During the summer, the kudzu and air potato vines came creeping back, threatening to reclaim the ground that dozens of volunteers had cleared only months earlier.

By October, the vines were snaking up oak and magnolia trees, some more than a century old, that had once been the subject of federal research programs but had been overgrown by invaders. The volunteers launched a late-fall counteroffensive, cut back the new runners, then set to work uncovering more trees. They sawed through the sturdy vines, slowly peeled them back like a carpet from the trees they had taken over, used crowbars to pry their roots from the soil. Then they planned more workdays to fight the invaders.

In the midst of all this greenery, the tangle of desirable and the undesirable, stands the former home of Henry Nehrling, a botanist who nearly a century ago tested and introduced to Florida some of the plants that are now staples in landscaping throughout the state.

The historic Central Florida property is on the National Register of Historic Sites and has been certified as a Florida Historic Landmark. It is the headquarters of the nonprofit Nehrling Garden Society, which is rescuing and restoring the home and grounds.

But whether it is the invasive vines that keep returning, financing that vanishes just as it is on the verge of landing in the bank, or a compromise with the wary neighbors, the society’s efforts often sound more like a battle than simple conservation.

“We are doing it foot by foot, yard by yard,” said Theresa Schretzmann-Myers, the society’s vice president and volunteer coordinator.

On the grounds is a sago palm that was already more than 100 years old when Nehrling planted it a century ago. Enormous magnolias he hybridized. A tall eucalyptus that Nehrling planted and that has been dead for 30 years but is home to giant pileated woodpeckers. A huge golden bamboo with lime-green trunks and gold leaves, masses of amaryllis and caladium, towering bunya pine and bay laurel.

“It’s just such a treasure,” said Angela Withers, the society’s president. “It’s rare to find a place with such a combination of elements … the history, the science, the beauty – a site where a man who was really quite extraordinary did his work. It was an amazing passion and he grew these amazing plants. There are plants here that are over 100 years old. It’s a living laboratory.”

The property is a house of dreams. In an architectural rendering, the run-amok greenery has been curbed and neatly organized into a palm collection, a bromeliad collection, demonstration gardens. Walk the grounds with Withers and Schretzmann-Myers and they will point out the Nehrling Society’s ambitious vision. In addition to reclaiming the garden and the house, they want to turn the garage – added in the 1980s – into an education wing, build a gazebo, plant a palm allee, build a lakeside observation boardwalk and add Henry’s Bookshed, a small library.

“For me it’s been an unbelievable journey,” said Richard Nehrling, Henry’s great-grandson and a volunteer and advocate for the garden. “It’s really sad for me, knowing how important this garden was. David Fairchild was on plant-collecting trips all over the world and he was sending samples back to my great-grandfather to test. He tested over 3,000 species.

“As I look at that in 2012, I think how sad that nobody even knows about this garden, that it doesn’t have a place in our history. That story got lost for 70 years.”

Like the other society members, Nehrling wants his great-grandfather’s story known, his homestead to be a public garden again, a place for plant research.

But the society’s dreams are tempered by the cost. It needs to raise money to pay off the mortgage – right now, there’s only income to cover the interest – as well as to hire staff, renovate parts of the house, launch an educational program. Right now, all the work is being done by volunteers; the only person being paid is a fund-raising consultant.

It’s all part of the legacy of a man whose passion for tropical plants made a mark throughout Florida.

Late in the 19th century, Nehrling, a Wisconsin schoolteacher and naturalist, bought 40 acres in the German-American settlement of Gotha – about 12 miles east of what is now downtown Orlando – to grow tropical and subtropical plants. His land evolved into Florida’s first experimental botanic garden, which he named Palm Cottage Gardens.

Nehrling grew more than 3,000 species of plants for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction. He wrote books and articles about horticulture. His expertise included palms, bamboo, bromeliads, amaryllis, gloriosa lilies, orchids and caladium. He is considered the father of Florida’s multimillion-dollar caladium industry.

Some of his work was for David Fairchild – the famous plant explorer and one of the founders of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami – when Fairchild worked for the USDA.

In the archives at Fairchild’s gardens is this comment by Fairchild about Nehrling:

“I have known many with a passion for plants. I have met many who were keen to collect and dry their fragments. I have known others who lived to make gardens, but none who quite so fully combined their passion for observation with their skill in the propagation and cultivation of a variety of species, keeping them under their constant attention so that they were able to accumulate through many years’ observation clear pictures of their characteristics.”

Another visitor to Palm Cottage Gardens was Thomas Edison; Nehrling would later create an orchid garden at Edison’s winter home in Fort Myers, Fla. Some of the orchids he attached to trees are still there.

After Nehrling lost thousands of plants to a freeze in 1917, he bought acreage in Naples, Fla., for his most tender tropical plants. That garden is now known as Caribbean Gardens, home to the Naples Zoo.

Nehrling died in 1929, and the Gotha property changed hands several times. Pieces of it were sold off. There were periods when the house was unoccupied and vines poked through the walls. Many of his plants died; others were taken by neighbors who assumed the land was about to be bulldozed.

The nonprofit Nehrling Garden Society was established in 1999 by people who wanted to save the property and Nehrling’s legacy. The group tried for more than 10 years to buy the property, but each time a grant or other financing seemed about to come together, a new obstacle would crop up. Wary neighbors worried about noise and traffic had to be sold on the plan as well. Barbara Bochiardy, who owned the property, was willing to sell it to the society for significantly less than the asking price if they would save it.

Finally, in 2009, a local entrepreneur loaned the society $350,000. With that and $100,000 it had raised, the society bought what was left of Palm Cottage Garden: 5.9 acres, a house more than 100 years old, and a neglected greenhouse from a later era, with many of its glass panels broken or missing.

But buying the property did not solve the financial problems. Withers said the group’s biggest challenge is raising money to pay off that $350,000 loan, which doesn’t carry the cachet of donating money for a specific project – like converting the unfinished garage into an education wing – that the donor’s name could be attached to. The society is already doing other things or has plans to: offer classes for a fee; rent out the property for events; sell plant sponsorships; partner with a nursery to develop and sell Nehrling-branded seeds and plants.

The society took possession in May 2010 and began organizing volunteers – Boy Scouts; Girl Scouts; garden clubs; service clubs; arborists; middle and high school students; plumbers and roofers; Disney employees; church groups; even German studies students from Rollins College, where Nehrling taught.

“We have had unbelievable help from the community,” said Schretzmann-Myers.

They worked almost year-round, taking a break in the summer. For protection, they wore long pants and long sleeves, the kind of clothing that is unbearable after a few minutes working outdoors in Florida’s heat and humidity. They ripped up invasive plants – kudzu, dog fennel, cat’s claw, Brazilian pepper and air potato, the latter the very species Nehrling had warned in his writings not to bring into Florida. They pruned desirable plants and planted Florida native species in the newly cleared ground by Lake Nally at the back of the property.

As they did, they discovered some of Nehrling’s original plants, mostly trees and bamboos, still living. “These are plants that have survived with benign neglect for a long, long time,” Withers said.

And they found junk. In one spot, long ago overrun by plants, they found an old still used to make moonshine from orange juice. Cleaned up, it sits in the garage now.

“It’s exciting. Every time we do a clean-up, we find something else,” Schretzmann-Myers said. “There’s living history here on the property.”

As the restoration continued, neighbors came forward with cuttings or seeds from plants that originated in Nehrling’s garden. The group replanted Nehrling’s amaryllis garden at the front of the house with bulbs rescued from a nearby abandoned garden, almost 700 bulbs that were descendants of plants Nehrling had introduced. They planted a big bed of caladiums, too.

Right behind the house, they created a “pollinator garden” with thyme, blue sage, coreopsis, passion vine, milkweed and other plants to attract bees, butterflies and moths.

While most volunteers worked on the grounds, others worked on the house. They spent the first two years making the property safe, rebuilding stairs that had rotted through, building supports under the sagging back porch, replacing railings and screens. The society uses part of the house as an office, part for exhibits and part to sell Nehrling’s and other garden books.

The property is zoned for agricultural use. Unless it is rezoned, the society can give only private tours by appointment; it cannot set regular hours that the gardens are open. That is one of the society’s goals, which they hope to achieve in the next 12 to 18 months, but with the property set in the middle of a residential neighborhood, they must win over the neighbors.

So the Nehrling Society continues to work on that bridge between past and present, between the research that Nehrling did and the plants that go into Florida gardens today. They have done much but still have work to do – the constant battle against invasive plants, cataloging the plants they uncover, digging, cutting, clearing, planting, pruning. And perhaps most importantly, educating.

“The beauty of a place like this is it’s a place where you can get your hands dirty,” Withers said. “You go to these immaculate gardens and say, ‘Isn’t that lovely.’ We want to show people how they get that way. Very rarely do people understand the joy that comes from growing a plant from start to finish.”

SEEDLINGS OF HISTORY

Nehrling Gardens

What: The Nehrling home and gardens are in Gotha, Fla., about 12 miles east of downtown Orlando. They are open to the public only on private tours arranged in advance.

Help: In addition to cash, the Henry Nehrling Society is seeking donations of gardening tools, cleaning supplies and other goods. It is also looking for volunteers. The website has a wish list as well as information on how to donate or sponsor a plant identification marker.

Information: 407-445-9977, www.nehrlinggardens.org

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PITTSFIELD — A major gift from the Garden Tour Committee will fund a new permanent sculpture near First Street on the Pittsfield Common.

The 14-foot piece, called “Infinite Dance,” will include a bronze female figure dancing atop a stainless steel ring, according to a design approved Wednesday by the city Parks Commission.

The artist is Carol Gold, who was raised in South County and has designed a number of sculptures for public sites in other states, including at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark. She was one of 17 artists who submitted a total of 77 ideas for the sculpture, according to Anne Pasko, co-chairwoman of the garden committee.

“We were very fortunate to have attracted this caliber of artist,” Pasko said.

She said of the proposals, “almost every one of them was gorgeous,” but added that there was wide agreement in choosing Gold’s concept among the 11 women in the group.

The committee had wanted the artist to have ties to the Berkshires, and Gold, now of California, has lived in the county and has family members living here.

For 15 years, the garden committee has held annual tours of a total of 110 garden spots throughout Pittsfield, and most of the money for this project will come from the sale of tickets for the tours. She declined to provide the overall cost of the sculpture at this time, but said “this is a very expensive piece.”

This will be the first major sculpture by Gold to be displayed

in a public space in the Northeast, Pasko said. However, she has pieces on permanent display in California, Colorado and at other sites, in addition to the one at the entrance to the Clinton library.

James McGrath, manager of the city’s Park, Open Space and Natural Resource Program, who is overseeing a major, multiphase redevelopment project for the 6-acre Common site, said the Parks Commission “was quite impressed” by the sculpture and the gift to the city.

He said the small brick structure used as a warming building, which had restrooms and space for ice skaters to take a break from the cold, will be razed as part of the current phase of the Common work. The sculpture, along with two concrete pads for the temporary display of public artworks, will replace the small building.

Those are expected to hold sculptures the city’s Artscape program displays at parks in the city, including Park Square. The temporary displays usually are replaced by another work on an annual basis.

The sculpture site, which will be further enhanced by gardens and landscaping, “will open some nice views, some nice vistas” for those passing by on First Street, McGrath said.

He said he expects to present a design for the next phase of the Common redevelopment project — including grading and installation of underground utilities, in two months, with the aim of work beginning by July.

The sculpture is likely to be mounted on a permanent base and be unveiled in the fall, he said.

Eventually, Pasko said, the site will include gardens and other improvements, adding that it is envisioned as a long-term project for the garden committee. “We will make sure it is nicely landscaped,” she said.

Gold has created a design and mock-up of the piece, Pasko said, and after final negotiations with the artist, it will be created in time for mounting.

Pasko said “it is pretty impressive that this small committee” could raise the necessary amount in addition to about $85,000 over the past decade and a half for various gardening or landscaping projects in the city — primarily through ticket sales for its tours.

She also credited the Berkshire Taconic Foundation, which assists nonprofit groups with finances, for wisely investing the group’s funds over the years and increasing the amount. While “being very frugal with our money,” the committee has long planned “a major project for the city of Pittsfield,” she said.

To reach Jim Therrien:
therrien@berkshireeagle.com,
or (413) 496-6247
On Twitter: @BE_therrien

MIAMI – During the summer, the kudzu and air potato vines came creeping back, threatening to reclaim the ground that dozens of volunteers had cleared only months earlier.

By October, the vines were snaking up oak and magnolia trees, some more than a century old, that had once been the subject of federal research programs but had been overgrown by invaders. The volunteers launched a late-fall counteroffensive, cut back the new runners, then set to work uncovering more trees. They sawed through the sturdy vines, slowly peeled them back like a carpet from the trees they had taken over, used crowbars to pry their roots from the soil. Then they planned more workdays to fight the invaders.

In the midst of all this greenery, the tangle of desirable and the undesirable, stands the former home of Henry Nehrling, a botanist who nearly a century ago tested and introduced to Florida some of the plants that are now staples in landscaping throughout the state.

The historic Central Florida property is on the National Register of Historic Sites and has been certified as a Florida Historic Landmark. It is the headquarters of the nonprofit Nehrling Garden Society, which is rescuing and restoring the home and grounds.

But whether it is the invasive vines that keep returning, financing that vanishes just as it is on the verge of landing in the bank, or a compromise with the wary neighbors, the society’s efforts often sound more like a battle than simple conservation.

“We are doing it foot by foot, yard by yard,” said Theresa Schretzmann-Myers, the society’s vice president and volunteer coordinator.

On the grounds is a sago palm that was already more than 100 years old when Nehrling planted it a century ago. Enormous magnolias he hybridized. A tall eucalyptus that Nehrling planted and that has been dead for 30 years but is home to giant pileated woodpeckers. A huge golden bamboo with lime-green trunks and gold leaves, masses of amaryllis and caladium, towering bunya pine and bay laurel.

“It’s just such a treasure,” said Angela Withers, the society’s president. “It’s rare to find a place with such a combination of elements … the history, the science, the beauty – a site where a man who was really quite extraordinary did his work. It was an amazing passion and he grew these amazing plants. There are plants here that are over 100 years old. It’s a living laboratory.”

The property is a house of dreams. In an architectural rendering, the run-amok greenery has been curbed and neatly organized into a palm collection, a bromeliad collection, demonstration gardens. Walk the grounds with Withers and Schretzmann-Myers and they will point out the Nehrling Society’s ambitious vision. In addition to reclaiming the garden and the house, they want to turn the garage – added in the 1980s – into an education wing, build a gazebo, plant a palm allee, build a lakeside observation boardwalk and add Henry’s Bookshed, a small library.

“For me it’s been an unbelievable journey,” said Richard Nehrling, Henry’s great-grandson and a volunteer and advocate for the garden. “It’s really sad for me, knowing how important this garden was. David Fairchild was on plant-collecting trips all over the world and he was sending samples back to my great-grandfather to test. He tested over 3,000 species.

“As I look at that in 2012, I think how sad that nobody even knows about this garden, that it doesn’t have a place in our history. That story got lost for 70 years.”

Like the other society members, Nehrling wants his great-grandfather’s story known, his homestead to be a public garden again, a place for plant research.

But the society’s dreams are tempered by the cost. It needs to raise money to pay off the mortgage – right now, there’s only income to cover the interest – as well as to hire staff, renovate parts of the house, launch an educational program. Right now, all the work is being done by volunteers; the only person being paid is a fund-raising consultant.

It’s all part of the legacy of a man whose passion for tropical plants made a mark throughout Florida.

Late in the 19th century, Nehrling, a Wisconsin schoolteacher and naturalist, bought 40 acres in the German-American settlement of Gotha – about 12 miles east of what is now downtown Orlando – to grow tropical and subtropical plants. His land evolved into Florida’s first experimental botanic garden, which he named Palm Cottage Gardens.

Nehrling grew more than 3,000 species of plants for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction. He wrote books and articles about horticulture. His expertise included palms, bamboo, bromeliads, amaryllis, gloriosa lilies, orchids and caladium. He is considered the father of Florida’s multimillion-dollar caladium industry.

Some of his work was for David Fairchild – the famous plant explorer and one of the founders of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami – when Fairchild worked for the USDA.

In the archives at Fairchild’s gardens is this comment by Fairchild about Nehrling:

“I have known many with a passion for plants. I have met many who were keen to collect and dry their fragments. I have known others who lived to make gardens, but none who quite so fully combined their passion for observation with their skill in the propagation and cultivation of a variety of species, keeping them under their constant attention so that they were able to accumulate through many years’ observation clear pictures of their characteristics.”

Another visitor to Palm Cottage Gardens was Thomas Edison; Nehrling would later create an orchid garden at Edison’s winter home in Fort Myers, Fla. Some of the orchids he attached to trees are still there.

After Nehrling lost thousands of plants to a freeze in 1917, he bought acreage in Naples, Fla., for his most tender tropical plants. That garden is now known as Caribbean Gardens, home to the Naples Zoo.

Nehrling died in 1929, and the Gotha property changed hands several times. Pieces of it were sold off. There were periods when the house was unoccupied and vines poked through the walls. Many of his plants died; others were taken by neighbors who assumed the land was about to be bulldozed.

The nonprofit Nehrling Garden Society was established in 1999 by people who wanted to save the property and Nehrling’s legacy. The group tried for more than 10 years to buy the property, but each time a grant or other financing seemed about to come together, a new obstacle would crop up. Wary neighbors worried about noise and traffic had to be sold on the plan as well. Barbara Bochiardy, who owned the property, was willing to sell it to the society for significantly less than the asking price if they would save it.

Finally, in 2009, a local entrepreneur loaned the society $350,000. With that and $100,000 it had raised, the society bought what was left of Palm Cottage Garden: 5.9 acres, a house more than 100 years old, and a neglected greenhouse from a later era, with many of its glass panels broken or missing.

But buying the property did not solve the financial problems. Withers said the group’s biggest challenge is raising money to pay off that $350,000 loan, which doesn’t carry the cachet of donating money for a specific project – like converting the unfinished garage into an education wing – that the donor’s name could be attached to. The society is already doing other things or has plans to: offer classes for a fee; rent out the property for events; sell plant sponsorships; partner with a nursery to develop and sell Nehrling-branded seeds and plants.

The society took possession in May 2010 and began organizing volunteers – Boy Scouts; Girl Scouts; garden clubs; service clubs; arborists; middle and high school students; plumbers and roofers; Disney employees; church groups; even German studies students from Rollins College, where Nehrling taught.

“We have had unbelievable help from the community,” said Schretzmann-Myers.

They worked almost year-round, taking a break in the summer. For protection, they wore long pants and long sleeves, the kind of clothing that is unbearable after a few minutes working outdoors in Florida’s heat and humidity. They ripped up invasive plants – kudzu, dog fennel, cat’s claw, Brazilian pepper and air potato, the latter the very species Nehrling had warned in his writings not to bring into Florida. They pruned desirable plants and planted Florida native species in the newly cleared ground by Lake Nally at the back of the property.

As they did, they discovered some of Nehrling’s original plants, mostly trees and bamboos, still living. “These are plants that have survived with benign neglect for a long, long time,” Withers said.

And they found junk. In one spot, long ago overrun by plants, they found an old still used to make moonshine from orange juice. Cleaned up, it sits in the garage now.

“It’s exciting. Every time we do a clean-up, we find something else,” Schretzmann-Myers said. “There’s living history here on the property.”

As the restoration continued, neighbors came forward with cuttings or seeds from plants that originated in Nehrling’s garden. The group replanted Nehrling’s amaryllis garden at the front of the house with bulbs rescued from a nearby abandoned garden, almost 700 bulbs that were descendants of plants Nehrling had introduced. They planted a big bed of caladiums, too.

Right behind the house, they created a “pollinator garden” with thyme, blue sage, coreopsis, passion vine, milkweed and other plants to attract bees, butterflies and moths.

While most volunteers worked on the grounds, others worked on the house. They spent the first two years making the property safe, rebuilding stairs that had rotted through, building supports under the sagging back porch, replacing railings and screens. The society uses part of the house as an office, part for exhibits and part to sell Nehrling’s and other garden books.

The property is zoned for agricultural use. Unless it is rezoned, the society can give only private tours by appointment; it cannot set regular hours that the gardens are open. That is one of the society’s goals, which they hope to achieve in the next 12 to 18 months, but with the property set in the middle of a residential neighborhood, they must win over the neighbors.

So the Nehrling Society continues to work on that bridge between past and present, between the research that Nehrling did and the plants that go into Florida gardens today. They have done much but still have work to do – the constant battle against invasive plants, cataloging the plants they uncover, digging, cutting, clearing, planting, pruning. And perhaps most importantly, educating.

“The beauty of a place like this is it’s a place where you can get your hands dirty,” Withers said. “You go to these immaculate gardens and say, ‘Isn’t that lovely.’ We want to show people how they get that way. Very rarely do people understand the joy that comes from growing a plant from start to finish.”

SEEDLINGS OF HISTORY

Nehrling Gardens

What: The Nehrling home and gardens are in Gotha, Fla., about 12 miles east of downtown Orlando. They are open to the public only on private tours arranged in advance.

Help: In addition to cash, the Henry Nehrling Society is seeking donations of gardening tools, cleaning supplies and other goods. It is also looking for volunteers. The website has a wish list as well as information on how to donate or sponsor a plant identification marker.

Information: 407-445-9977, www.nehrlinggardens.org

When we think of gardens, we think of flowers and trees. The plants are our stars and the reasons we love our gardens.

The plants, however, are only part of what makes an exceptional garden or landscape, and they may have less impact than you think. Consider a painting without a frame, or a stage play without a set: Impressive? Dramatic?

In a garden, the frame and the set are what we call “hardscape.” Carrying the analogies further, a shabby frame or a distracting stage set can totally undermine the impact of that painting or play. Bad or absent hardscape can ruin or diminish the beauty of your plants.

Mistakes and missed opportunities: An elementary garden design class first exposed me to basic elements such as backdrop, line and focal points. We looked at pictures of a perennial garden in an open lawn, and the same garden with a fence behind it. We saw flower gardens without décor, and the same gardens containing a statue, fountain, bench or path. It became obvious how hardscape makes or breaks the effect of a garden.

Yet one of the biggest errors that gardeners or homeowners make – myself included – is to ignore structural elements. Instead, that is where we should start – considering paths, walls, arches, pergolas, raised beds or islands, with our vision of the plants in mind. Build first; plant later.

Hardscape does not have to come from a professional. Many gardeners build good beds and structures. A fine path may be made of mulch or found flagstones; an attractive garden bed can be built by stacking loose stones. But whoever does the job – skilled amateur, qualified professional or their opposites – can make a huge difference in the appearance and durability of the project.

I asked some CNLPs (certified nursery and landscape professionals) to comment on common landscaping mistakes they see. Two themes emerged.

The first: bad technical and foundation work. Steve Bakowski (CNLP, Beaver Landscaping Inc.) said he commonly sees “improper installation of sub base (stone) and drainage underneath and behind hardscape.” Done correctly, he says, means that “the structures can withstand the freezing and thawing that moves them during our changing seasons.”

But people tend to make the above-ground structure look good, in the summer, without regard to what’s happening underground.

Second, untrained gardeners or landscapers typically miss design opportunities. Joseph Han (CNLP, The English Gardeners) notices how rarely he sees hardscape elements used to create “destinations … for people to relax in.” Consider building a deck, gazebo or pergola out in the yard, away from the house, where it’s attractive to see from your windows.

Or, he says, use hardscape elements “to create dimension in a composition, and let us see it from different views when moving through the garden.” He also suggests we look for “focal points to define the view. Garden art – urns and statuary and pergolas – deserves a place in every garden.”

At least that element has entered the Western New York gardening scene dramatically in recent years. Garden Walk Buffalo and other National Garden Festival gardens featuring art have been photographed for national magazines; our artful gardens even led to the phrase, “a Buffalo-style garden.” We’re getting it. Gardens aren’t just the plants.

Costs and choices: Professionals give different answers on how much homeowners should budget for hardscape features, compared with plants. At the basic level – say, a good walkway and some enclosed planting beds – a couple of CNLPs said the hardscape would cost nearly half of a new installation (figure $2,000 on a $5,000 job), depending on height and length of walls and walks. But if you are purchasing entertainment centers, night lighting and hand-crafted pergolas, the hardscape cost could be three times the cost of the plants and soil. For the do-it-yourselfer, allow at least double your plant budget and time for the structural work and hardscape.

Develop your vision and plant list, analyze your style and find pictures of gardens you love before hiring anyone, and then communicate what you want.

Products and taste: One of the most polarizing topics, when landscapers and homeowners talk in generalities, is the subject of hardscape materials and taste. The stereotype – gardener speaking about landscapers – is: “Those landscapers all put up the same fake-looking walls and paver sidewalks, no matter the style of the house!” The landscaper stereotype of the gardener’s job: “They make these walls that fall down, sidewalks that crack and weedy paths that they can’t keep up!” Both statements are true some of the time, and neither is necessarily true.

Landscape pavers first came to America 37 years ago and have come a long way since. Products like polymeric sand and sealers eliminated many problems such as weeds and durability. More dramatically, the concrete industry had a significant breakthrough recently.

Dave McIntyre, general manager of Unilock Corp., explains: “Pavers and walls now have 1.5 times the strength and less than half the water absorption of the older units. The increase in long-term durability and life cycle cost will truly be incredible.” Steve Bakowski added that some of the new natural-faced stones and pavers are the best new thing in many years, for attractiveness, cost, ease and speed of installation.

If you prefer natural materials, you can find bamboo, natural stone and hand-crafted wood structures – plus professionals who design with them – more readily than ever. Check out the Western New York landscape and nursery professionals at Plantasia in March and find your own hardscape style.

Sally Cunningham is a garden writer, lecturer and consultant.

GARDEN EDUCATION: North Haven Gardens, 7700 Northaven Road, Dallas, offers the following free classes. nhg.com. Terrariums and dish gardens, 10 a.m. Thursday. Backyard chicken sale, 11 a.m. Saturday. Winter planting, 1 p.m. Saturday. Fruit trees, 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

REPOTTING FESTIVAL: Repot your houseplants during Calloway’s Repotting Festival. Free soil will be provided. Ceramic-glazed pottery will be available for purchase. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. All Calloway’s Nursery locations. Free. calloways.com.

ORGANIC LIVING: Howard Garrett is teaming up with other experts to teach money-saving natural organic living and gardening prac-tices. 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Allen Public Library, 300 N. Allen Drive. Open to members of the Organic Club of America. Membership is $24.95 per year. 1-866-444-3478.

SOIL LOVE: Learn about healthy food sources for the soil and organic growth methods. Class also will cover the features of ideal soil, how to organically develop and maintain those features, and the best time to add amendments. 10 a.m. Saturday. Coppell Fire Training Room, 133 Parkway Blvd., Coppell. Free.

COMPOSTING BASICS: This class will educate gardeners on the benefits of using materials such as yard waste and leftover food items to create rich, organic compost. 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Coppell Fire Training Room, 133 Parkway Blvd., Coppell. Free.

ORCHID CARE: Learn about the different categories for orchids and how to care for the most common varieties. Participants will learn proper pruning, feeding and repotting techniques. Marshall Grain Co. 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Fort Worth location, 2224 E. Lancaster Ave., 817-536-5636; 1 p.m. at the Grapevine location, 3525 William D. Tate Ave., 817-416-6600. Free. marshallgrain.com.

PREPARING SOIL: Learn how to ensure healthy plants in your landscape while saving time, money and water, through proper soil preparation. 11 a.m. Saturday. Covington’s Nursery, 5518 Bush Turnpike, Rowlett. Free. 972-475-5888. covingtonnursery.com

HERBS AND ROSES: Learn how to add texture and fragrance to your garden by combining herbs and roses. Taught by Marian Buchanan. 6 p.m. Wednesday. Skillman-Southwestern Library, 5707 Skillman St., Dallas. Free.

GARDEN ART: Farmers Branch Landscaping With Roses series will continue with a workshop on adding whimsy and art to the garden. 7 p.m. Tuesday. Farmers Branch Community Recreation Center, 14050 Heartside Place. Free. 972-247-4607.

BUTTERFLIES AND HEALING: The monthly meeting of the Grapevine Garden Club will include the presentation “Healing on Butterfly Wings.” 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Stacy Furniture Community Room, 1900 S. Main St., Grapevine. Free.

TERRIFIC TOMATOES: Learn how and when to properly start your transplants from seed, how to build healthy soil, how to use raised beds and more. Course also will cover pest and disease management and review the best tomato varieties for North Texas. 1 to 4 p.m. Jan. 26. North Haven Gardens, 7700 Northaven Road, Dallas. $20. Advance registration required for this class taught by Leslie Finical Halleck. 214-363-5316. nhg.com.

SPRING VEGETABLE GARDENING: The Texas AM AgriLife Extension Service and Collin County Master Gardeners Association will help participants get their spring gardens planned. Among the topics covered will be site selection, irrigation, pest control and maintenance. 8:30 a.m. to noon. Jan. 26. Myers Park and Event Center, 7117 Country Road 166, McKinney. $15. Advance registration required. 972-548-4219. ccmgatx.org.

Submit calendar information at least 14 days before the Thursday publication date to garden@dallasnews.com.

Courier staff writer

ALAMOSA A little extra green will help the Alamosa Elementary gardens grow.

On Monday, the Alamosa Board of Education awarded the Alamosa Community Gardens (ACG) $10,000 to keep the program in motion.

I am so thankful for the generosity of the school board, said outgoing ACG coordinator Meghan Ibach after the meeting. It gives me hope for the future of the community that executive members of the community believe in connecting children back to the environment and nature. That is crucial.

In November, ACG requested the funding, which is not guaranteed beyond this year.

We are willing to do what we can do, said ABOE President Bill Van Gieson. We appreciate what you do.

The funding will come from the districts general fund and it will not impact any school building budget, said Alamosa School District Superintendent Rob Alejo in an email on Tuesday.

The ACG has worked with the district for the last 14 years and in the past two years has amplified its efforts. It introduced an interactive curriculum that incorporates Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) subjects that have been requested. The $10,000 will support the ongoing efforts, the ACG staff to teach sixth graders garden and nutrition science and secure other grant monies moving into the future.

Victoria Brunner, who has recently relocated to the Valley from the Boulder area, will take over as ACG coordinator later this month. She has a degree in sustainable business and experience working with school garden programs.

I think you have huge potential to have one of the most incredible school gardens, Brunner said.

AGC is also waiting to hear whether they are Clorox Education Grant winners, Ibach said. Clorox is scheduled to make its announcement this month and if ACG wins, new greenhouse plans will come to life.

Building design

Last week, the district held an onsite meeting with the athletic complex/vo ag building project affiliates and continued project design discussions.

The main topic discussion was where the vo ag building will be located, according to Alejo. Instead of attaching the building to the existing high school, the committee decided it would serve the students better if it stood alone to the south between the high school and the solar gardens.

I am excited about the location as it will lend itself to so many more educational experiences and opportunities, Alamosa High School Agriculture Education Instructor Kevin Rice said in an email on Tuesday. Hopefully, we will have a greenhouse and aquaculture lab attached to the building.

He added plans include room for outdoor learning areas; raised vegetable, garden, and flowerbeds; hands on landscaping; and possible a space for poultry.

We hope to build a facility the Alamosa School District will be proud of, Rice wrote. ABOE Official Erica Romero said if the new building was attached to the high school, it would limit future expansion possibilities and take two existing classrooms out of use.

Across the street will give us room to grow, Romero said.

ABOE Official Christine Haslett added the vo ag building budget still needs to be put in order. According to the mill levy financial breakdown, costs must come in under $1 million.

We sent them a call to make it work, Haslett said. The challenge is to find the price that fits. I think we can do it.

Other happenings

The ABOE signed a resolution naming 2013 Year of the Student. The resolution proclaims the district is calling on the members of the 69th General Assembly to create and find funding for a public education finance system that matches reforms, mandates and accountability measures with the resources necessary to make all students successful.

The ABOE approved the districts Unified Improvement Plans for the Ombudsman School of Excellence, Alamosa Elementary and the district.

District Accountability Committee (DAC) President Coleen Astalos reported the DAC is researching the benefits of block scheduling to provide teachers with more planning time; discussing student test data; is working towards prescheduling parent/teacher conferences in the high school in addition to the middle school; and recommending the monies from the school property sales are used to solve education problems.

The ABOE entered an executive session after the regular meeting to discuss property and personnel matters.

JAN. 22

Customized Irrigation: 6:30 p.m. Jan. 22, Idaho Botanical Garden, 2355 N. Penitentiary Road, Boise. Bill Hereford of Sprinkler Specialties will help you learn how to design a sprinkler system for your garden that works. $10 members, $15 nonmembers. 343-8649, idahobotanicalgarden.org.

JAN. 26

Beautiful Botanicals: 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Jan. 26 (Part 1), Idaho Botanical Garden, 2355 N. Penitentiary Road, Boise. Artist Sharron O’Neil will explore traditional materials and methods of drawing and painting botanicals. Part 2 will be Feb. 2. $25 members, $30 nonmembers. Registration required. 343-8649, idahobotanicalgarden.org.

JAN. 30

Caring for a Water-Wise Landscape: 6 to 7:30 p.m. Jan. 30, Boise Public Library, 715 S. Capitol Blvd. The first of four in the Water Efficient Landscaping series. The free classes are offered by United Water Idaho, the Ada County Extension Service, the City of Boise and Boise Public Library.

FEB. 5

The Cook’s Garden: 6:30 p.m. Feb. 5, Idaho Botanical Garden, 2355 N. Penitentiary Road, Boise. Community Supported Agriculture farmers Jim and Elaine Jenkins will share how they grow an abundance of produce each year at their home farm. $10 members, $15 nonmembers. Registration required. 343-8649, idahobotanicalgarden.org.

FEB. 12

Happy Houseplants: 6:30 p.m. Feb. 12, Idaho Botanical Garden, 2355 N. Penitentiary Road, Boise. Learn from experts Dave Fellows and Nancy Willis-Orr of The Potting Shed about the basics of growing indoor plants. $10 members, $15 nonmembers. Registration required. 343-8649, idahobotanicalgarden.org.

FEB. 19

Berry Good: 6:30 p.m. Feb. 19, Idaho Botanical Garden, 2355 N. Penitentiary Road, Boise. University of Idaho Extension Educator Ariel Agenbroad will introduce participants to the best berry crops for the Treasure Valley and share cultivation, maintenance, pruning and propagation ideas to help keep plants healthy and producing for years to come. $10 members, $15 nonmembers. Registration required. 343-8649, idahobotanicalgarden.org.

FEB. 23

Culture and Care of Orchids: 10 a.m. Feb. 23, Idaho Botanical Garden, 2355 N. Penitentiary Road, Boise. Janet Crist of the Treasure Valley Orchid Society and American Orchid Society will share her 35 years of experiences in growing orchids. $10 members, $15 nonmembers. Registration required. 343-8649, idahobotanicalgarden.org.

FEB. 26

Intermountain Gardens: 6:30 p.m. Feb. 26, Idaho Botanical Garden, 2355 N. Penitentiary Road, Boise. Mary Ann Newcomer, author of “Rocky Mountain Gardeners Handbook,” will share her personal recommendations of plants that thrive in our region. $10 members, $15 nonmembers. Registration required. 343-8649, idahobotanicalgarden.org.

FEB. 28

Waking up Your Garden: 6:30 p.m. Feb. 28, Idaho Botanical Garden, 2355 N. Penitentiary Road, Boise. Vegetable garden manager Meg McCarthy will discuss planning, starting seeds, preparing and improving the soil, weeding, pruning, and other chores to wake up the garden after a long winter. $10 members, $15 nonmembers. Registration required. 343-8649, idahobotanicalgarden.org.

MARCH 22-24

Boise Flower and Garden Show: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. March 22, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. March 23 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 24, Boise Centre, 850 W. Front St. Shop for the latest in landscape design, garden art and decor, yard furniture, plants, decks, greenhouse, and more. Enjoy display gardens, educational and fun gardening seminars, orchid and bonsai displays, a silent auction of container gardens and more. $8 general, $3 children 12-17, free for ages younger than 12. gardenshowboise.com.

The Hudson Garden Club awarded $7,850 in grants in December to seven projects that further the mission of the club which is dedicated to spreading the love of gardening, the beautification of public property and the support of education in horticulture and related fields.

Since 2000, the club has awarded $101,552 in grants through its grants committee process which is separate from and in addition to the monies distributed each year for city trees, parks and scholarships.

The following programs or projects were awarded grants as recommended by its grant committee and affirmed by the Hudson Garden Club Board:

• Hudson Middle School 4KIDS/Student Council to beautify HMS courtyard that has been forgotten in recent years and to put into place a team that will take care of it and maintain it on a yearly basis.

• Cuyahoga County Board of Health/Hudson High School to acquire supplemental herbaceous, bioengineering and woody plant material, all based on survivability from the previous season and selected according to planting zone needs for the Hudson High School Campus Tinkers Creek Stream Restoration Design-Build Project overseen by the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.

• Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park to fund scholarships to support 13 children from low-income, Akron-area families to attend All the Rivers Run residential environmental education experience in CVNP.

• Equus Excellence (4H Club) for partial funding to assist Equine 4H Clubs who are responsible for maintaining the grounds of the horse arenas and barn area at Summit County Fair Grounds. Funds to be used to rebuild flower beds, giving club members and families an opportunity to work hands on with an experienced landscaping expert and understand the process.

• East Woods School to fund the purchase of herb and vegetable seeds and plants in the spring of 2013 for its Growing Gardeners program and to fund the purchase of plants and mulch to create a butterfly garden in another section of the outdoor classroom gardens at East Woods that will be planted the spring of 2013. The goals for both programs are to bring garden experiences to as many students as possible by giving students experience from start to finish on how to plan, plant, care and harvest gardens they will find gardening a rewarding lifelong pursuit.

• Destination Hudson (a fund of Hudson Community Foundation) for partial funding to water the 15 large planters and hanging baskets along Main Street which provide visitors with their first impression of Hudson.

• Sue L’Hommedieu to purchase replacement plants, fertilizer, deer repellent in order to maintain the sustainable planting at the traffic circle at Hudson Street and Aurora Road until January 2014.