The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program
Invites the Public to Visit Private Gardens in Pawling on July 3
COLD SPRING, NY: On Sunday, July 3rd, visit two private gardens in Pawling, open to the public through the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program, beginning at 11 a.m. Admission to each garden is $7, benefitting the Garden Conservancy; children 12 and under are free. Open Days are rain or shine, and no reservations are required. Call 1-888-842-2442, or visit www.opendaysprogram.org for more information.
Visitors can start the July 2nd Open Day at any of the following locations:
- Hall Christy House Garden, 5 Meeting House Road, Pawling; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. – the gardens were designed by the owners to complement their eighteenth-century house and setting with many levels and rooms echoing the layout of the house. The main garden is a courtyard garden with brick paths, three lily pools, perennial garden, shade gardens, and white garden edged by the house, garage, gazebo and hidden natural-form pool. On the perimeter of these gardens, you will find a small orchard and herb garden with faux well which is actually a buried 1,000-gallon cement tank to collect roof water for watering the potager. Most of the property is left as fields which become buttercup meadows in June. The last garden is truly a secret pond and woodland garden with natural woodland plants mingling with specimen trees and shrubs. Here, the bulbs, trilliums, may apples, and epimedium reign in spring under magnolias and weeping cercis with the Japanese maples dazzling in fall. All is maintained solely by the owners themselves.
- Scherer Garden, 10 Birch Hill Road, Pawling; 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. – begun more than thirty years ago when the owners moved a 200-year-old house and barn to a scrubby, rocky site on Quaker Hill. In collaboration with Robin Zitter, they have created a naturalistic, traditional cottage garden, where woodland paths are filled with rhododendrons, ferns and spring blooming bulbs. In the garden close to the house the beds are deeper and filled with shrubs, sedges, grasses and interplanted with perennials. The pool area is a hidden, rocky gem filled with color. A knot garden/herb garden in the back is a focal point and enhances the western views. This garden is featured in Jane Garmey and John M. Hall’s book, Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley.
All Open Days gardens are featured in the 2016 Open Days Directory; a soft-cover book that includes detailed driving directions and vivid garden descriptions written by their owners. The directory includes garden listings in eighteen states and costs $25.95 including shipping. Visit
www.opendaysprogram.org or call the Garden Conservancy toll-free at 1-888-842-2442 to order with a Visa, MasterCard or American Express, or send a check or money order to: the Garden Conservancy, P.O. Box 219, Cold Spring, NY 10516. Discount admission tickets are available as well through advanced mail order.
The Garden Conservancy created the Open Days program in 1995 as a means of introducing the public to gardening, providing easy access to outstanding examples of design and horticultural practice, and proving that exceptional American gardens are still being created. Its mission to share American gardens with the public is achieved each season, through the work of hundreds of private garden hosts and volunteers nationwide. Digging Deeper, a new series of Open Days programming, is designed to offer a deeper look into the gardening world through immersive experiences with artists, designers, gardeners, authors and other creative professionals. The Open Days program is America’s only national private garden-visiting program. For information and a complete schedule of Open Days visit the Garden Conservancy online atwww.opendaysprogram.org.
